"Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut" immediately establishes itself as a different viewing experience from the original 2001 film, as Jake Gyllenhaal's teen protagonist rides his bike home in his pajamas to a new soundtrack song. Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" is such a signature needle drop that it feels a little off to hear it replaced by Inxs's "Never Tear Us Apart."
It's as if writer-director Richard Kelly is now cueing the audience through music that it's about to enter a new "Tangent Universe," apart from the Primary Universe, just as Donnie himself does in one interpretation of the film. That interpretation gets a stronger push in "Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut," which introduces those capitalized terms onscreen and pulls another soundtrack switcheroo later when it replaces composer Michael Andrews' recognizable "Liquid Spear Waltz" with a piece of opera music.
George Lucas famously changed a song at the end...
It's as if writer-director Richard Kelly is now cueing the audience through music that it's about to enter a new "Tangent Universe," apart from the Primary Universe, just as Donnie himself does in one interpretation of the film. That interpretation gets a stronger push in "Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut," which introduces those capitalized terms onscreen and pulls another soundtrack switcheroo later when it replaces composer Michael Andrews' recognizable "Liquid Spear Waltz" with a piece of opera music.
George Lucas famously changed a song at the end...
- 6/4/2023
- by Joshua Meyer
- Slash Film
Donnie Darko is your typical moody teenage boy. He also happens to frequently converse with a giant bunny rabbit named Frank (James Duval) and thinks the world is going to end in approximately 28 days — just read his forearm! He is also pretty sure that time travel is real, and that the crazy old lady who the neighborhood kids have nicknamed "Grandma Death" (Patience Cleveland) somehow holds the key to understanding all of this.
As the main character of Richard Kelly's 2001 film "Donnie Darko," Donnie's psyche is on full display as viewers watch him struggle to understand his true purpose in life after a gigantic jet engine falls off a plane and smashes into his room one night while he's out sleepwalking. When it was first released, the movie bombed at the box office — it only made a little over 500,000 against a 4 million budget (ouch) — but it has gone on...
As the main character of Richard Kelly's 2001 film "Donnie Darko," Donnie's psyche is on full display as viewers watch him struggle to understand his true purpose in life after a gigantic jet engine falls off a plane and smashes into his room one night while he's out sleepwalking. When it was first released, the movie bombed at the box office — it only made a little over 500,000 against a 4 million budget (ouch) — but it has gone on...
- 1/4/2023
- by Miyako Pleines
- Slash Film
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