Ranting to /dev/null

Fear the evil death bunny

Tonight, I went downtown to see the director's cut of Donnie Darko while it's still in theaters. Seeing as how the showing was at 10:00PM and I don't really have much to do for a while, I went downtown early to wander around. I found this great bookstore called Strand. Think McKay on freaking steroids, including the ability to search inventory and, get this, place standing orders for books. I snagged The Quiet American and The Information Economy and American Cities.

But then there's the movie. I mentioned to a friend that I was going to see the director's cut tonight and she asked, "What's the big deal about a director's cut anyway?" I said that this generally includes different footage that brings it closer to the director's original vision for the film but, generally due to studio/producer constrains, footage that lands on the cutting room floor. I mentioned that the DVD had about 20 minutes of extra footage, and apparently the director's cut includes most of that.

Well, it does. I was expecting basically an extended version of the film with an extra scene here and there. Hooooly-shite. This is a different movie. And it's a lot better. There's a huge difference between the original release and this new cut, mostly in the way that now the film actually explains what's going on. On the DVD, you could browse a few pages from the book "Grandma Death" wrote, entitled The Philosophy of Time Travel, but in the original movie you never really learned much about it. It's now an absolutely integral part of the film, and several selections from the book are used as inter-scene transitions, almost like chapter headings. There's also some pretty freaky imagery, including what I could have sworn was a kernel dump from a Linux installation. That's freaky enough as it is, but when it's superimposed on an extreme closeup of an eye reflecting flames and a storm front, it gets downright creepy. Oh, and then there's the death bunny. Got to love the death bunny. Think some combination of this and this.

So, unlike certain other films I could name, this director's cut is a vast improvement on an already stellar film. I'd like to say I'm excited to see what Richard Kelly will be doing next, but apparently it's a comedy/musical starring Sarah Michelle Gellar that ends up in a 4th of July block party. You think I'm making this up, but I'm not. So much for that. Anyway, if you do get a chance to see the director's cut, take it. It's good.