WEIRDLAND: Donnie Darko: one of the best indie quirky films

Monday, February 08, 2010

Donnie Darko: one of the best indie quirky films

Jake Gyllenhaal in "Donnie Darko" (2001) - Fatherly Advice (Deleted Scene).

"Donnie Darko is a 2001 American science fiction film written and directed by Richard Kelly. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell, and depicts the reality-bending adventures of the title character as he seeks the meaning and significance behind his troubling Doomsday-related visions.

2001, Richard Kelly won with Donnie Darko for "Best Screenplay" at the Catalonian International Film Festival and at the San Diego Film Critics Society. Donnie Darko also won the "Audience Award" for Best Feature at the Sweden Fantastic Film Festival. The film was nominated for "Best Film" at the Catalonian International Film Festival and for the "Grand Jury Prize" at the Sundance Film Festival.2002, Donnie Darko won the "Special Award" at the Young Filmmakers Showcase at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The movie also won the "Silver Scream Award" at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. Kelly was nominated for "Best First Feature" and "Best First Screenplay" with Donnie Darko, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal being nominated for "Best Male Lead", at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film was also nominated for the "Best Breakthrough Film" at the Online Film Critics Society Awards.Jake Gyllenhaal in "Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut" (2004) - Production Diary.

2003, Jake Gyllenhaal won "Best Actor" and Richard Kelly "Best Original Screenplay" for Donnie Darko at the Chlotrudis Awards, where Kelly was also nominated for "Best Director" and "Best Movie."
2005, Donnie Darko ranked in the top five on My Favourite Film, an Australian poll conducted by the ABC.

2006, Donnie Darko ranks ninth in FilmFour's 50 Films to See Before You Die.

It also came in at number 14 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies and landed at number 2 in their "Greatest Independent Films of All Time" list".
Source: www.ordoh.com

"Quirk is odd, but not too odd. That would take us all the way to weird, and there someone might get hurt.
(Indeed, inappropriate dancing is a big quirk trope, inasmuch as it provides a dramatic moment at which value systems can collide. This itself called out to the unwittingly only-slightly-less-hypersexualized preteen dance troupe Sparkle Motion in the 2001 quirk-noir Donnie Darko, a movie in which Jake Gyllenhaal takes orders from a giant rabbit.)" Source: www.theatlantic.com

"What makes indie such an odd example of a subculture being sold back to the masses is that, in practice, its main selling point is its uncoolness.

Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus in a scene of "Zombieland" (2009).

The Atlantic’s Michael Hirschorn identified this “aesthetic principle” as “quirk”, defining it as “an embrace of the odd against the blandly mainstream.”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (2010).

“It features mannered ingenuousness, an embrace of small moments, narrative randomness, situationally amusing but not hilarious character juxtapositions ... and unexplainable but nonetheless charming character traits,” he wrote. “Quirk takes not mattering very seriously.” He then doled out a cross-platform cut down of pop culture’s then-current pantheon of quirk: This American Life, Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, Flight of the Conchords. He missed Juno by just a few months, but the movie likely would have altered his take dramatically;
Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby in "Juno" (2007).

Imagine if he’d had as fodder Diablo Cody’s stripper-to-screenwriter story, Ellen Page’s eerily natural portrayal of Juno’s hyper-offbeat title character, the movie’s stringently precocious and best-selling soundtrack (featuring Belle and Sebastian, Kimya Dawson and proto-indie rockers The Velvet Underground), and the film’s predictably unexpected Oscar nods.
Michael Cera in "Youth in Revolt" (2010).

And that’s to say nothing of the deluge of quirk that’s flowed forth since: all of Michael Cera’s other movies, Where the Wild Things Are, Zooey Deschanel.
It would’ve been an embarrassment of twitches". Source: www.pastemagazine.com

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