Why do so many hate Donnie Darko with such loathing?
- Thread starter kyser_soze
- Start date
fudgefactorfive
New Member
wrysmile said:
Sometimes I think people go out of their way to approve of populist things because they don't want to appear to be too contrarian or critical. It's boring.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
there are lots of bits in it that have absolutely no reason to be there - they were just chucked in to give bogie & bacall more screen time together (the marvellous horseracing scene for example). And it is indeed indeed extremely convoluted and confusing, and there are a fair few bits that are never actually explained, but not, i dont think, ever actually contradictory.Dubversion said:
belboid said:
it's been a while since i saw it, so i'll take your word for it
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
wrysmile said:
Sometimes I think a lot of people just choose to like something because they want to appear to approve of populist things. It's irritating.
Personally, I didn't think it was anything special
Maybe I should give it another go to see what you're all raving about
Minnie_the_Minx said:Sometimes I think a lot of people just choose to like something because they want to appear to approve of populist things. It's irritating.
that's very perverse of you
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
belboid said:you'd be wise to do so, on this as on everything.....
Casablanca tho - that does contradict itself Laszlo not bring immidately nicked, the whole 'Letters of Transit' tosh....
Ahh, but it doesn't...Lazlo can't be arrested because he is on unoccupied French soil and has committed no crime against Vichy.
Altho I always thought the letters of transit were a bit dodge - any diplomats out there know of such a thing existing?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
but in the opening scenes they shoot someone for not showing there correct papers, and having a Free French 'badge'. As Rick says 'people have been held in Casablanca despite their legal rights'.
Letters of Transit did exist, but its far from clear who actually signed them - it is implied that it is de Gaulle, but, if so, no way would they have been honoured.
<e2a: I watched the colorised version the other night - oh dear oh dear oh dear....>
Letters of Transit did exist, but its far from clear who actually signed them - it is implied that it is de Gaulle, but, if so, no way would they have been honoured.
<e2a: I watched the colorised version the other night - oh dear oh dear oh dear....>
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Dubversion said:that's very perverse of you
I call it the David Hasselhoff phenomenon. Everybody talking about it, but I'm still at a loss as to why
People hate it primarily because a large percentage of it's fans are colossal idiots.
I think one of the marks of a good film is that the audience can understand the plot of said film without having to go online and track down important plot information that the script writer arbitrarily decided to withhold. The plot of Donnie Darko is not clever or complex or particularly interesting, it's just fairly ordinary science fiction that tricks the audience into thinking it's raising difficult questions by not giving them enough information to be to answer them themselves. You could take any average Hollywood film and cut out important plot details and it would achieve the same effect. This led to a situation were all the fans who could be bothered to go to the website and try and make sense of the pseudo-cryptic nonsense written there were mistaken into thinking they had achieved something. That by being forced to track down information to understand the plot they were in some way superior to people who couldn't be bothered and just wanted to watch a film. After reading the website all the fans would then go on forums or speak to their friends in real life and ask them what they thought of the film and would dismiss all criticism of it out of hand by accusing the criticiser of not ‘getting’ the film. I think it's understandable that people find it galling to be told they're opinions of a film don't matter because they couldn't be bothered to instigate an investigation to uncover pieces of plot which should have been in the film in the first place.
There is/was a great thread in the drugs forum where Dubversion argued against a number of people claiming that Ketamine was not just another powerful drug but actually a gateway to a profound religious experience. Some fans of Donnie Darko are given to espousing the same pretentious bollocks. They're not content with it being just a film, no, to them it's more of a mystical experience they have to watch every day or a set number of times a week and can’t understand why anyone wouldn't want to visit websites trying to understand the plot or why anyone would want just to watch a film.
I think one of the marks of a good film is that the audience can understand the plot of said film without having to go online and track down important plot information that the script writer arbitrarily decided to withhold. The plot of Donnie Darko is not clever or complex or particularly interesting, it's just fairly ordinary science fiction that tricks the audience into thinking it's raising difficult questions by not giving them enough information to be to answer them themselves. You could take any average Hollywood film and cut out important plot details and it would achieve the same effect. This led to a situation were all the fans who could be bothered to go to the website and try and make sense of the pseudo-cryptic nonsense written there were mistaken into thinking they had achieved something. That by being forced to track down information to understand the plot they were in some way superior to people who couldn't be bothered and just wanted to watch a film. After reading the website all the fans would then go on forums or speak to their friends in real life and ask them what they thought of the film and would dismiss all criticism of it out of hand by accusing the criticiser of not ‘getting’ the film. I think it's understandable that people find it galling to be told they're opinions of a film don't matter because they couldn't be bothered to instigate an investigation to uncover pieces of plot which should have been in the film in the first place.
There is/was a great thread in the drugs forum where Dubversion argued against a number of people claiming that Ketamine was not just another powerful drug but actually a gateway to a profound religious experience. Some fans of Donnie Darko are given to espousing the same pretentious bollocks. They're not content with it being just a film, no, to them it's more of a mystical experience they have to watch every day or a set number of times a week and can’t understand why anyone wouldn't want to visit websites trying to understand the plot or why anyone would want just to watch a film.
Its not the inconsistency that annoys me, its the fact that the film has almost set out deliberately to become a cult amongst gullible teenagers who've never seen a vaguely "intelligent" film before, the fact that so much of the script is self-consciously off-beat and laboured, the fact that it deliberately sets itself up for a flood of fanart to be made, the way it pretends to be incredibly non-conformist and appeal to a particular kind of person who tries to different to everyone else but isn't, I could go on. But I won't because I sound like an idiot. Actually, you know what, the inconsistency does annoy me, particuarly the way people say that you can interpret it in different ways - because you can't. It is just pointless.
yeah. im probably wrong. no doubt buddy bradley, dubversion and any other number of people will pick that to pieces and then make some patronising comment if I try and respond to what they say. but I dont care. and neva has put it all better than i ever could. damn.
yeah. im probably wrong. no doubt buddy bradley, dubversion and any other number of people will pick that to pieces and then make some patronising comment if I try and respond to what they say. but I dont care. and neva has put it all better than i ever could. damn.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Neva said:
And you know this from all the surveys/MORI opinion polls you've commissioned?
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
jms said:Its not the inconsistency that annoys me, its the fact that the film has almost set out deliberately to become a cult amongst gullible teenagers who've never seen a vaguely "intelligent" film before, the fact that so much of the script is self-consciously off-beat and laboured, the fact that it deliberately sets itself up for a flood of fanart to be made, the way it pretends to be incredibly non-conformist and appeal to a particular kind of person who tries to different to everyone else but isn't, I could go on. But I won't because I sound like an idiot. Actually, you know what, the inconsistency does annoy me, particuarly the way people say that you can interpret it in different ways - because you can't. It is just pointless.
yeah. im probably wrong. no doubt buddy bradley, dubversion and any other number of people will pick that to pieces and then make some patronising comment if I try and respond to what they say. but I dont care. and neva has put it all better than i ever could. damn.
It's never seemed that way to me at all. It never came accross as made to look cool or to resonate with with a certain type of teenager (this whole teenage angle makes me laugh given that some of the appreciation I've had from the film relates to the era its set in! And to appreciate that you'd have to be a quite a bit older than the average teen...).
You're rant just sounds like some school boy who hates all the cool kidz at school because you know you'll never be one, so you've just decided to project onto this film instead.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
I give it 7 out of 10. In my quite good to good range.
And I love the sound track.
And I love the sound track.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
exosculate said:
Yep, me too.
Kid_Eternity said:And you know this from all the surveys/MORI opinion polls you've commissioned?
No, from reading the ridiculous numbers of threads on the film that have appeared on the various forums I frequent. I must have read around 50 threads on Donnie Darko in the five or so years it's been out. Some of those were small with about ten posts but most were bigger. Some much bigger with discussions running into the thousands of posts. If I was being very conservative I've read at least a thousand people's perspective of that film and it's from those thousand views that I've come to the conclusion that Donnie Darko has a large percentage of idiots in it's fan base.
fudgefactorfive
New Member
mattkidd12 said:
I knew exactly why they did it - because DD is such a non-conformist, he's so insightful, he asks all the right questions, and society at large - hic, excuse me, I just got a little bit of sick in my mouth - doesn't recognise his kooky mental illness for the spark of individuality that it truly is.
Oh, by the way - IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
fudgefactorfive said:
It has the hallmark of an undigested gherkin to me.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
Kid_Eternity said:Yep, me too.
Oh yes
Agent Sparrow
AGENT TRAITOR; fools 8 year olds
I'm so glad someone else admits liking Heathers. I was beginning to think it was only me!kyser_soze said:
(Crispy refuses to watch it with me
)I have had a copy of it for a while now and I didn't get round to watching it.
It started to inch its way up the " I will watch these DVD's at some point pile until recently it hit the top.
So , do I watch it , or should I watch 'Spirited Away' which I bought for £4 at the weekend ?
It started to inch its way up the " I will watch these DVD's at some point pile until recently it hit the top.
So , do I watch it , or should I watch 'Spirited Away' which I bought for £4 at the weekend ?
fudgefactorfive
New Member
41132n said:
Spirited Away is one of my all-time favourites, but I really like foreign animation. There's absolutely no direct comparison between it and DD. Watch them both.
Actually, it was a tangent universefudgefactorfive said:
Donnie Darko was alright. It's certainly not as clever as it thinks it is, along the same lines as American Beauty in that respect. And neither deserve the sort of venom they get off certain people who like to pretend they were never mopey, pretentious teenagers with daft haircuts
Kid_Eternity said:You're rant just sounds like some school boy who hates all the cool kidz at school because you know you'll never be one, so you've just decided to project onto this film instead.
No, cool people would be too stupid even to understand this film, never mind a good one. I thought of another thing that winds me up about it. The rebellion against all the religious crap and self-esteem things is just sickening.
and you dont have to have been a child of the 80s to have seen the film.. the fact that it is a modern film made with teenagers in it is enough to appeal to modern teenagers, shockingly. the era it is set in ("ooh look its dukakis" "ooh look the evil dead" hoo hoo hoo its the EIGHTIES PEOPLE!) doesnt actually matter to them.
