Last night I saw Donnie Darko: The Directors Cut. I’ve seen the movie before, but this one had an extra 20mins and some 80s music that they couldn’t afford the first time around. You see, this is an example of a film Hollywood distributors turned their back on and sent it almost straight to DVD even though it was very popular at the Sundance awards in 2001. It became a cult favourite due to word of mouth referrals and thus earned the right to a cinema re-release with additions.
In high school we had to read books that weren’t in my usual reading genres, but through the process of analysing them I found a greater appreciation for the book and ended up loving them (Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one example). The same happened for Donnie Darko. You see it, go “what the hell did I just watch”, then surf the web, find some Grandma Death sites and go “wow, Donnie Darko is amazing”.
I think I’ll be watching this again in a few months, but if you haven’t seen it you are denying yourself one of the best films of this century.