bobafred

Last night I attended a screening of Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut at the Lefont Plaza in the Highlands with friend/other-weird-person-at-work-besides-me Louis. Now, as anyone that will listen to me will tell you, I consider this to be one of the greatest films of the last 5 years or so. I originally posted about it here and then again here.
[Possible spoilers to follow]

Before I get started, I should say that as a whole, I thought it was excellent. Aside from some additional scenes, (some of which are viewable as deleted scenes on the current DVD) the movie and its pacing were essentially the same. There were some minor touch-ups to the digital effects and changes to some of the music to make the production feel a bit larger budget, which was all welcomed.

As for the additional scenes, overall, I like them. There is more character development for the Darko family, which is nice. And you get to learn a little more about Donnie’s medical treatment. Plus, more Patrick Swayze, and who doesn’t want that?

There are also some additions that are probably meant to help the first-time viewer along the way to understand what is going on with the movie, and I think these hurt the film a bit. The best thing about the original cut (as far as my first viewing was concerned) is that at the end you really have no idea what you just witnessed and you immediately want to watch it again to figure it out. I think some of that may be lost with the Director’s Cut. With that said, I did enjoy the extra info, because even after seeing the movie as many times as I have, it made me think about what I thought this whole thing is really about. Louis offered up a possible theory to the film that I had never thought of or heard before in all of the reading I have done about Darko. Thanks to Louis and his intimidating Iowa test scores.

Another thing that bothered me a bit was the re-recording/re-mixing of Frank’s voice (the bunny version of Frank). It sounded more human, which I suppose is fine since he is human, but the first time I heard him speaking to Donnie in the original cut, it was really freaky. Here, the freakiness is lessened.

With all my bitching out of the way, I should finish up here by saying that I loved this cut of the movie and I will be one of the first in line to buy this when it comes out on DVD. I’m hearing not until 2005 for Region 1 and October 4th for Region 2. Darn those lucky people in Region 2.

In summation, Richard Kelly is one of the finest story tellers of these modern times. Please be sure to check out the unofficial home of all things Richard Kelly at Richard-Kelly.net and there is always his IMDb page for his current projects.

Showtimes for DD:TDC can be found at the Newmarket Films page on the Playdates link.