the final re-upload in the zane vs. youtube trilogy!

One thing that’s always stuck out to me as just being extremely sad is that in the primary universe the last interaction Donnie ever has is arguing with his mom and calling her a bitch.

Now she’s gotta live with that for the rest of her life and you know that last encounter is gonna haunt her.

Be nice to those y’all love, life is unpredictable and you never want something to end on a note like that.

Commenting before I've finished the video, sue me, but watching Donnie Darko is literally how it feels to be suicidal. The world is ending (YOUR world is ending) and no one knows. The world is ending and everyone is looking at you like you're crazy. The world is ending (the kids around you are racist, predators are getting away with their crimes, people are being treated unfairly) but when you react, you are the problem. Your world is ending on a schedule, you have a date and everything, and no one is listening.

The amount of plane crash promotional material that came out RIGHT before 911.

The way I’m rewatching these re-uploads like it was the first time because my memory is like Dory’s.

Donnie Darko is the first A24 movie.

Vibe wise I mean.

A lot of art feels like the creator is trying to answer a question. But some art feels like a question. The artist isn’t pretending to know the answer, they’re just… putting the question to the group. I understand that kind of art is frustrating to some people but it’s necessary, because we make art about all kinds of things in the human experience, and one of the main human experiences is grappling with existential questions we can’t know the answer to. This whole movie feels like a question about free will vs. destiny and it wouldn’t make sense for the writer to give an answer to that question because it’s literally an impossible question to answer. He’s just asking and inviting us to ask too. I like that. Less preaching a message, more commiserating over a shared uncertainty.

Sometimes i doubt your commitment to sparkle motion.

i think it's also an honorable mention, when ms pomeroy can't teach the class The Destructors anymore, she replaces it with Watership Down which was supposed to be a kids/family movie about rabbits but the graphics are horrific and ended up traumatizing a whole generation and me when it was playing on my cable tv in the dead hours of night. at that point in the movie, at least to me, frank,and all the rabbit symbolism mentioned, starts to become more sinister and unsettling, just like the watership down movie.

I can't think of a film that benefits more from its director's cut.

Just got back from the tangent timeline I see

Just my theory, but Roberta Sparrow was not a living receiver--rather she was originally one of the manipulated dead. She was the Gretchen to a previous living receiver, but she retained more memory than most manipulated dead, and she wrote a book about it. She keeps checking her mail, because a mailbox was her artifact.

Nothing at all to say about the Smurf conversation?

Maggie Gyllenhaal at the end has the best face of absolute distraught pain I've ever seen in a movie. She looks so goddamn torn apart

I like when movies are intentional with re-watch value. I used to get annoyed at open endings, but this one stays on the brain of the endless possibilities. It keeps you engaged

Donnie self-sacrifices and uses his superpowers to go back in time and fix the universe before it's destroyed.

"What like a superhero?"

"What makes you think he's not?"

Not sure if anyone else has said this. But there was a donnie darko website (it might still be up) that had the philosophy of timetable pages and other information about the movie. One was a newspaper about jim Cunningham death because he killed himself after waking up. Not the best justice but at least he's not doing any more harm

As a psych student, hypnosis does work, but only on people who are susceptible and willing. If you believe it doesnt work you not gonna be hypnotised but if you go into it fully willing and believing it will happen, your brain is kinda like word and i will. And its not like 'mind control' you are still kinda aware of things happening youre just allowing your brain to follow someone elses instructions. There has been cases of people abusing others through hypnosis. Scary stuff for those really susceptible and who start off willing to be hypnotised. This is why hypnotherapy isnt recognised as legit in a lot of countries besides America. Because you can put your own bias and thoughts and feelings into someone else and convince them its theirs. Your brain following someone elses instructions. Like implanting memories. Did you regress back to your childhood and uncover a traumatic memory or did your therapist lead you to that?

Crazy to me because I didn't even touch the science fiction aspects of the movie. The experience of being a white suburban young boy with Gifted Kid syndrome and all the realities that produced for me gave me a ton of empathy for him. The pain of recognizing something deeper everyone refuses to see. The frustration of people who pose and manipulate and generally fake their way into being perceived as intellectuals or spiritual guides, and the hypocrisy of those willing to commit evil to maintain civility, all kind of tingled my ear in a way that made me see myself in Donnie.

To me, Donnie Darko was very much a power fantasy film about this archetype of teenager seeing through the veil and, because of that, he got to save the world.

The only sad conclusion he really formed, so far as I could tell, was his belief that the world, in all its insanity, was better off/happier without him in it. A thing I spent my fair share of teenage years believing, too.

Now even a good therapist knows that most placebos are SUGAR PILLS NOT WATER.

I discovered this movie on Netflix one night when I was coming down from a particularly heavy acid trip. 10/10 experience.