Thursday, June 8, 2006

Top 250 Challenge: 185

Donnie Darko (2001)
Number 99 on IMDb's Top 250


A troubled teenager named Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house one night, and sees a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. He returns home the next morning to find that a jet engine has crashed through his bedroom. As he tries to figure out why he survived and tries to deal with people in his town, like the school bully, his conservative health teacher, and a self-help guru, and his new girlfriend, Frank continues to turn up in Donnie's mind, causing him to commit acts of vandalism and worse. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: The movie was shot in 28 days, exactly the time-span of the movie itself, on a budget of under US$5 million. When casting for the role of Donnie's sister, it came to Richard Kelly's attention that Maggie Gyllenhaal (who had few film credits at the time) would be available for the shoot. Though Kelly was slightly hesitant towards the idea, he knew he wouldn't have to work hard at creating a sibling rivalry with two actors that were actual siblings. When Donnie's mother is calling to say how they'll be on the red-eye flight, the airport announcement in the background says that Flight 2806 is boarding at gate 42 and leaving at 12 AM. Presumably this is the flight they're taking, and also a reference to the 28:06:42:12 countdown that Frank gives Donnie.

Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle, Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell, and Katherine Ross. Wow, and they aren't even the leads. Jake Gyllenhaal is great as the akward, trouble youth. This is a pretty quirky movie so that bodes well for Mick and Kim, who seem to like the quirky movies.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm having trouble relating the release date (1931) with the cast and the reference to a jet engine.

Will said...

D'oh! You caught me, I usually try to read over the post when I post it but I missed that one. Thanks Dad.

Will said...

What I do is copy the html code from the previous movie so I can cheat, I mean, so it doesn't take me as long to format the post.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I have this at the top of my queue! Good timing.

Anonymous said...

I've been wanting to see this movie and keep going back to our tiny video store to see if they have it. Nope. I love the remade song "Mad World" (great video too if you have a chance look at it at musicjesus.com)

Hey, I tried to comment the other day but again, couldn't. I guess it's this Italian thing, I have no clue. Anyways, Hopefully the comment will work this time and my long drawn out typing will get through. I wanted to tell you that I really wanted to see the movie "Leon, the Professional" and I couldn't believe they had it at the video store. It was a great movie and Natalie Portman was great in it.

OK, long drawn out post ending. Can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks. I have so much to tell y'all.

Will said...

yeah, it was amazing that that was Portman's first movie.

I can't wait to see you either.

Anonymous said...

I just saw Donnie Darko, and you were right, I liked it.