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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that gives you the secret history and little known facts

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Speaker 1: behind your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and more. We

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Speaker 1: are your six foot rabbits of research. My name is

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Speaker 1: Jordan run Tug and I'm Alex Tagel. That makes it

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Speaker 1: sound like we're cosplaying Watership Down. No, that that's possibly

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Speaker 1: as frightening and unsettling as the movie we're going to

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Speaker 1: discuss today. It's a tale as old as time, folks.

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Speaker 1: It's a story of boy meets girl. Boy gradually realizes

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Speaker 1: he exists in a tangent universe created by a rupture

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Speaker 1: in the spacetime continuum after he sleepwalks out of his

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Speaker 1: bedroom just before a giant gen engine falls out of

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Speaker 1: the sky and crashes into his room. Boys haunted by

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Speaker 1: a terrifying six ft tall rabbit who encourages him to

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Speaker 1: commit acts of violence. Girl gets run over by a

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Speaker 1: car driven by a man dressed up as the aforementioned

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Speaker 1: six ft rabbit, and boysacrifices himself to set the universe

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Speaker 1: back on its proper timeline, thus saving the world. Did

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Speaker 1: I miss anything? No, I think that was how Joseph

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Speaker 1: Campbell outlined it too, we could only be talking about

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Speaker 1: Donnie Darko. Not an easy movie to explain, that's for

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Speaker 1: damn sure. But it's a scrutability made it an immortal

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Speaker 1: classic in college dorm rooms at least back in my time.

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Speaker 1: You can watch it again and again and again and

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Speaker 1: get something new from it and yet still never completely

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Speaker 1: figure it out. It examines the concept of fate, time travel,

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Speaker 1: on the very nature of the universe, and just like

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Speaker 1: all of those things, it's a mystery that you can

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Speaker 1: never truly solve. Some of it seems a little overwrought

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Speaker 1: and self consciously deep, but if it hits you at

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Speaker 1: the right time in your life, it sticks with you.

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Speaker 1: The movie's composer, Michael Andrews likened the movie to quote

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Speaker 1: everybody's first deep thought, which I just thought was the

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Speaker 1: most perfect way to encapsulate what this movie means to

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Speaker 1: me and so many people. What do you think, higo,

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Speaker 1: what are your experiences with Donnie Darko? Oh? I mean,

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Speaker 1: you hit the nail on the head. It's exactly about

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Speaker 1: when you saw If you saw it like beyond the

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Speaker 1: age of twenty one, it's you're just gonna be like,

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Speaker 1: what is this Like, I don't I it is. It's

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Speaker 1: also like another perfect encapsulation of what I like to

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Speaker 1: call the first bomb rip idea, um, a moment of

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Speaker 1: inspiration that should be taken back to the board and

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Speaker 1: never was. Um. But yeah, I love this movie, dude.

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Speaker 1: It's so good. I saw you know, we had movie

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Speaker 1: club in high school and this was one of the

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Speaker 1: movies that we watched in there. Um, they've let you

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Speaker 1: watch this, dude. They let us watch Requiem for a Dream.

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Speaker 1: Good god. Yeah that was or fiction, pulp fiction too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was not a well supervised club, but it's sure

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Speaker 1: s you know. Yeah, it's great. I mean it's so good.

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Speaker 1: It's it like plays into every part of being a teenager,

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Speaker 1: like Nasson, clinical depression, Messiah complex. Um, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's perfect. I it is. It is. It's like lightning

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Speaker 1: strikes one situation. It's not like boogie Nights are like

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Speaker 1: promising new voice in cinema. It's like he had one

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Speaker 1: thing and he knocked it out of the park. And

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Speaker 1: then yeah, I'm still very young. He's not even fifty yet.

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Speaker 1: So Richard Kelly, the writer and director of this movie,

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Speaker 1: still got time yeah, I I again like you. I

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Speaker 1: came across this movie in probably the most stereotypically early

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Speaker 1: two thousand's way possible. I I was turned onto it

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Speaker 1: by mine, my one cool friend, who was really valiantly

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Speaker 1: trying to get me to consume media that I couldn't

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Speaker 1: find on Nick at Night or Oldiest One of three

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Speaker 1: point three or American movie classics. And he was the

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Speaker 1: guy who wore skinny jeans and ear rings and eyeliner

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Speaker 1: and occasionally dyed his hair and taught me, or at

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Speaker 1: least tried to teach me about the difference between emo

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Speaker 1: and scream. Oh, and he took me to my very

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Speaker 1: first non boomer rock show, the Wister Palladium, to see

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Speaker 1: the Alkaline Trio Saves the Day and Taking Back Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Then it was that this show that I was offered

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Speaker 1: special K by a guy, and I thought he was

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Speaker 1: talking about the cereal Um. Yeah. So anyway, my friend,

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Speaker 1: he'd already blown my mind with fear and loathing in

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Speaker 1: Las Vegas, so for our next movie night, he busted

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Speaker 1: out Donnie Darko, and as soon as it was over,

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Speaker 1: I think I told him to rewind it and started again,

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Speaker 1: because there was just so much happening that I felt

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Speaker 1: like I needed a recap. And like you said, it's

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Speaker 1: the perfect movie for those entering adolescence, partially because it's

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Speaker 1: basically a warped version of those John Hughes teen romance

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Speaker 1: movies with an added dose of you know, psychological thriller,

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Speaker 1: sci fi, even a little bit of superhero thrown in

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Speaker 1: for good measure. And the other thing is that it

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Speaker 1: treats the really troubled teenage characters with a degree of

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Speaker 1: respect that I feel was rare for a Hollywood movie.

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Speaker 1: It really does. He has a lot of love for them,

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Speaker 1: It treats a lot of a lot of dignity and

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Speaker 1: a lot of agency. And and it's never punching down yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is which is really what's I think it's part

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Speaker 1: of its most of it's in during appeal. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: just he's the perfect teenage character. He's just flooded with

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Speaker 1: these intense emotions. He's alienated, he's angry, he's railing against conformity,

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Speaker 1: but he's scared and lonely and sad, but romantic and determined.

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Speaker 1: He's got every emotion, every quality, which is what being

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Speaker 1: a teenager is. I guess this is a tornado of feelings,

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Speaker 1: and he's Jesus, and he's Jesus. That's right anyway, Without

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Speaker 1: further ado, listen on to learn all the ways that

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Speaker 1: rookie director Richard Kelly beat the hellish odds to make

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Speaker 1: his incredibly ambitious feature film debut, why Jason Schwartzman was

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Speaker 1: very nearly the title character, and how this movie quite

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Speaker 1: literally couldn't have happened without Drew Barrymore, the true m

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Speaker 1: v P of his production. You'll also find out the

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Speaker 1: song they wanted to use for the Sparkle motion dance sequence,

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Speaker 1: learned why Gary Jules Haunting Mad World cover was a

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Speaker 1: last minute edition, and why Donnie Darko is real life

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Speaker 1: neighbors with Ferris Bueller. We allowed to cover, So let's

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Speaker 1: get into it. Here's everything you didn't know about Donnie Darker.

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Speaker 1: The spirit of youthful inquisitiveness and adolescent growing pains is

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Speaker 1: strong and Donnie Darko because it was made by a

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Speaker 1: guy who wasn't far off from being a teenager himself.

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Speaker 1: Writer director Richard Kelly was fresh out of usc film

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Speaker 1: School when he found himself quote in a panic about

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Speaker 1: how to build a career in the movie industry. By day,

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Speaker 1: he was working as an assistant at a post production

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Speaker 1: facility for I Believe music videos, earning six dollars an hour, four,

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Speaker 1: as he'd later say, serving cappuccinos and making cheese and

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Speaker 1: cracker plates for Madonna, Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This was not his ultimate am so when he was

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Speaker 1: just twenty three years old, he began writing what will

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Speaker 1: become his first feature film script, Donnie Darko. He later

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Speaker 1: told the Hollywood Reporter, I remember writing Donnie Darko back

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Speaker 1: in October. That's part of the reason why it said

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Speaker 1: at Halloween. It's like I was looking back at a

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Speaker 1: decade or so in my life. Donnie's a little older

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Speaker 1: than I would have been a night teen eight. But

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Speaker 1: I was basically writing a nostalgia fantasy about my adolescence,

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Speaker 1: and the heavy sci fi elements were indeed part of

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Speaker 1: his upbringing. Richard Kelly was the son of a NASA

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Speaker 1: scientists who helped develop the first camera used to photograph Mars.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. I love that. And his mother was a

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Speaker 1: high school teacher who worked with emotionally troubled teens, and

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Speaker 1: Richard grew up with reverence for the two, Steve, Stephen

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Speaker 1: King and Stephen Hawking, and he also really loved the

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Speaker 1: sci fi writer Philip K. Dick, who was very into

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Speaker 1: alternate universe timelines. Richard Kelly was inspired to become a

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Speaker 1: filmmaker when he sawd David Fincher's music video for Aerosmiths

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Speaker 1: Janey Got a Gun. And he was so taken by

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Speaker 1: this music video that he actually called MTV up and

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Speaker 1: asked who made it. Put all this together, you basically

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Speaker 1: get the plot of Donye Darko. You know his father

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Speaker 1: was a NASA scientist. Mom Mork with Troubled Teens, loves

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Speaker 1: Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Stephen Hawking, and David Fincher.

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Speaker 1: As Richard Kelly said in the documentary Davis ex Machina

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Speaker 1: The Philosophy of Donnie Darko, I saved up for twenty

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Speaker 1: three years to write that script. It was twenty three

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Speaker 1: years in the waiting, and the floodgates opened and I

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Speaker 1: went for it. Now. The exciting incident of Donnie Darko

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Speaker 1: occurs when a huge piece of mechanical equipment from a

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Speaker 1: jumbo jet falls out of the sky and crashes into

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Speaker 1: Donnie's bedroom. In the Darko family home. Thankfully, well, Donnie

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Speaker 1: himself was elsewhere because he sleepwalked, slept walked, sleepwalked. This

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Speaker 1: terrifying scenario was actually based on a true story that

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Speaker 1: Richard Kelly remembered reading about as a kid, when a

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Speaker 1: large piece of ice fell off a wing of a

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Speaker 1: jet and smashed into a house somewhere near where he

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Speaker 1: grew up, and into the bedroom of a teenager. Thankfully,

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Speaker 1: the kid wasn't in his bedroom at the time, but

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Speaker 1: the house was severely damaged. I tell you, man, I

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Speaker 1: tried to look up ice falls from plane for nighties

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Speaker 1: to to to get this um that happens a lot. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I really don't like that entirely. Too many instances of

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Speaker 1: giant blocks of ice falling from planes and crushing things.

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Speaker 1: As Kelly later told games Radar, I remember reading about

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Speaker 1: the story and it always stuck with me. How disturbing

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Speaker 1: that might have been for that boy. Yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: he must have felt like, is that some kind of warning?

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Speaker 1: Were they trying to kill me? Was this some kind

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Speaker 1: of a sign? And as an interesting slash terrifying aside,

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Speaker 1: I guess. Throughout the production of the movie, Richard Kelly

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Speaker 1: dealt with all these naysayers who insisted that you couldn't

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Speaker 1: have an engine fall off a plan because that simply

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen. Then on August two thousand, supposedly the very

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Speaker 1: day they were shooting the scene where the jet engines

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Speaker 1: smashed through the bedroom set, a Boeing bound for Amsterdam

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Speaker 1: made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after quote,

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Speaker 1: a dishwasher sized engine part reportedly fell off, landing on

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Speaker 1: the nearby Doc Wiler Beach. That's horrifying. I don't like

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Speaker 1: flying as it is now. I felt like planes as

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Speaker 1: a concept. So this real life plane incident provided a

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Speaker 1: starting point for Richard Ellie's movie, And he says he

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Speaker 1: remembered thinking, okay, piece of ice. That's interesting. But what

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Speaker 1: if it was an engine that fell off the plane,

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Speaker 1: And what if they never found the plane? And that's

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Speaker 1: part of the mystery, figuring out where the engine came from.

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Speaker 1: And then if Donnie got out of the bed and

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Speaker 1: wasn't in his room when all this destruction occurred, why

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Speaker 1: what was the voice that draws this teenage boy out

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Speaker 1: of bed to dodge the bullet from the heavens? What's

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Speaker 1: the journey he goes along? That's that's the first bonder

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Speaker 1: if idea if I've ever heard one. But it's a

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Speaker 1: compelling one despite the dense plot and really rather rigid

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Speaker 1: rules about time and space that make up this movie.

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Speaker 1: Richard Kelly says that he wrote the original one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty page script in a stream of consciousness fashion

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Speaker 1: in just twenty eight days. As someone who's been working

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Speaker 1: on a screenplay, the same screenplay on and off for

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Speaker 1: seven years, I find that infuriating. Uh Interestingly, Donnie Darko

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Speaker 1: takes place in the same length of time tim that

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Speaker 1: it took to write it, or at least that's what

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Speaker 1: Kelly claims. The mythology around this movie is very dense.

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Speaker 1: The movie opens up with Donnie's countdown to the end

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Speaker 1: of the world twenty eight days, six hours, forty two

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Speaker 1: minutes and twelve seconds. That is when the world will end.

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Speaker 1: Kelly says that he wanted this movie to take place

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Speaker 1: over the length of a lunar cycle, and that time

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Speaker 1: frame that he created for this movie came from adding

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Speaker 1: or subtracting one number from the precise length of a

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Speaker 1: lunar cycle, which is twenty seven days, seven hours, forty

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Speaker 1: three minutes and eleven seconds, which is why the film

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Speaker 1: opens with the song The Killing Moon Lunar Cycle by

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Speaker 1: Echo and the Bunny Man. We'll talk about the bunny

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Speaker 1: stuff later. This is layers upon layers of this. I

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Speaker 1: I gotta tip my hat to the world building this

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Speaker 1: guy does. Um. This was the movie that first taught

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Speaker 1: me about Easter eggs, And for years I thought that

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Speaker 1: they were called Easter eggs because of Frank the bunny

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Speaker 1: in this movie, before I realized that wasn't true. You know. Shockingly,

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Speaker 1: the own the fan theory that I haven't read about

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Speaker 1: this is that Donnie Darko is a werewolf. Um, we

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Speaker 1: tied to the lunar cycle. We should have got Matt

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Speaker 1: to be honest. Oh wow, that's good. That's really good. Huh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've never even considded that it's all a werewolf fever dream.

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Speaker 1: But yeah. The the whole twenty eight days thing is

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Speaker 1: a recurring theme in this movie. Uh. He says it

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Speaker 1: was written in twenty eight days, plot takes place over

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Speaker 1: twenty eight days, and the shoot took place over twenty

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Speaker 1: eight days, which feels like some kind of like Freemasonry

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Speaker 1: style rigid adherents to I don't know, maybe the number

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Speaker 1: twenty three starting Jim Carrey. Have you seen that movie? Yes,

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Speaker 1: that long time ago? Uh genlem Malone's character memorably asks

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Speaker 1: in the movie Donnie Darko, what the hell kind of

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Speaker 1: name is that sounds like a superhero, to which Donnie replies,

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Speaker 1: what makes you think I'm not? Which I thought was

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Speaker 1: so badass when I first saw this movie. Oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I love that line. Richard Kelly fashions Donnie Darko as

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Speaker 1: kind of a superhero, with you know, the following jet

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Speaker 1: engine as his origin story. That's what sends the universe

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Speaker 1: off into I'm not even going to continue that line

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Speaker 1: of thinking because it gets too complicated. Never mind, and

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Speaker 1: in keeping with the tradition of comic superheroes, Kelly gives

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Speaker 1: him a literate name Allah Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, and

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Speaker 1: Susan Storm, and other characters in Donnie Darko have similar

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Speaker 1: fake sounding names. Is Trita Chen, Frankie Fiedler, Dave Dennis,

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Speaker 1: and Joni James and I have that literate thing. Yeah, um.

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Speaker 1: And though he would deny it for years, Kelly would

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Speaker 1: later admit that Donnie Darko did draw from his own upbringing.

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Speaker 1: He later said It's probably much more of an autobiographical

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Speaker 1: film than people realize, and I've pretty much been able

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Speaker 1: to reconcile that now that I'm much older. As a result,

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Speaker 1: he set the film in the fictional town of Middlesex, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: similar to where he grew up in mid Lothian, Virginia. Um,

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Speaker 1: shout out to a boatload of my Virginia friends. A

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Speaker 1: lot of them grew up in and around Midlow. It's

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Speaker 1: a suburb of Richmond. Uh. This got a little tricky though,

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Speaker 1: since they did film this in Long Beach, California, and

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Speaker 1: Kelly said that they had a hard time shooting around

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Speaker 1: all of the palm trees and even got um fake. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I guess what is it like a tree truck like

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Speaker 1: a bark that you wrap around the palm tree to

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Speaker 1: make it look like a not a palm tree. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The old lady, who is uncharitably referred to his grandma

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Speaker 1: death by all the students was based on a real

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Speaker 1: person that he knew and Okay, that's weird, and self

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Speaker 1: help lessons were apparently part of his school curriculum, although yeah,

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Speaker 1: they probably didn't get quite a character on the order

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Speaker 1: of Patrick Swayze's to come and talk to kids. At

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Speaker 1: least I hope they didn't like these whole Tony Robbins,

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Speaker 1: Joel Austin, guy with the headset, Mike, how are we

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Speaker 1: doing today? Come on, you guys can do better than that.

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Speaker 1: You guys can do better than that. How are we doing?

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Speaker 1: Mid Lothian High School? And the most obvious tell, of course,

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Speaker 1: is that the film is set in twelve years earlier

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Speaker 1: than when it was shot in the year two thousand.

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Speaker 1: This is obviously a reflection on the Reagan era suburbia

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Speaker 1: that Kelly had lived through, although he does make Donnie

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Speaker 1: slightly older if you're trying to do a wonder one

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Speaker 1: comparison to the ages. And the studio thought that this

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Speaker 1: was a weird choice to set the film in this

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Speaker 1: close of an recent era, basically because it caused them

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Speaker 1: just enough headaches to be annoying, but doesn't actually impact

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Speaker 1: the plot in any meaningful way. Um Kelly later said,

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Speaker 1: when we made Donnie Darko, the eighties wasn't that far

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Speaker 1: behind us. No one was making eighties period pieces in

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Speaker 1: the year two thousand, but we did a lot of

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Speaker 1: people from the financial side thought we were wasting resources

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Speaker 1: by doing it. They told us just to set it

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Speaker 1: in two thousand. I said it had to be eight.

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Speaker 1: I saw it as a very specific time. My movies

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Speaker 1: take place in very specific times. The date, the month,

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Speaker 1: the year are always very identifiable in my movies. For

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Speaker 1: this movie, it's Halloween, right before the election, Bush versus Dukakis,

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Speaker 1: and that would uh, you know, obviously the first line

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Speaker 1: of the movie, Maggie Jillenhall's character says, I'm voting for Dukakis. Man.

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Speaker 1: Every single line of this movie was like some mine

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Speaker 1: or someone else's. I knew um a I m status

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Speaker 1: profile away message at one point um. And for Kelly,

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Speaker 1: this was a conscious choice to signal an era of

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Speaker 1: cultural shift by having a liberal teenager confront her conservative

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Speaker 1: parents at the close of the Reagan era. And some

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Speaker 1: people have said that this is kind of a way

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Speaker 1: of putting Donny darker in the lineage of Reagan era

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Speaker 1: horror films, but according to Kelly, it actually went deeper

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Speaker 1: than that. He said, I intended it to be at

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Speaker 1: a time of transition, setting it on the eve of

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Speaker 1: an election where Ronald Reagan was leaving office and you

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Speaker 1: had all these teenagers who were rejecting the war on

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Speaker 1: drugs and seeing censorship and the last temptation of Christ

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Speaker 1: being banned from theaters. You know, stuff like that, and

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Speaker 1: the self help movement and motivational speakers showing up in

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Speaker 1: schools gave kids something to fight against, and of course

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Speaker 1: a new sort of liberalism emerged in those teenagers who

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Speaker 1: obviously went on to help elect Bill Clinton four years later.

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Speaker 1: So against Richard Kelly not giving an inch when it

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Speaker 1: comes to making this movie. I'm twenty five, I must direct,

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Speaker 1: It must take place in this One shot needs to

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Speaker 1: be one unbroken shot. Yeah, I know, God bless him. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: After finishing the script, Richard Kelly spent most of trying

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Speaker 1: to get this thing sold, and his obvious talent got

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Speaker 1: a meetings, but this unclassifiable, intricate, ultra cerebral script led

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Speaker 1: to a lot of rejections. He said, all of was

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Speaker 1: just meeting after meeting after meeting of people saying thanks,

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Speaker 1: but no thanks. Every studio said no, and it was

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Speaker 1: universally rejected. People were telling him, you know, look, this

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Speaker 1: is a great writing sample, but the script itself is

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Speaker 1: functionally useless. It's a great, unproducible script and most studio

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Speaker 1: people just advis him to water it down into like

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Speaker 1: a standard issue teen horror movie, but Richard Kelly wasn't

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Speaker 1: about to let that happen. There was tentative interest from

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Speaker 1: Ben Stiller's production company and also director Sydney Pollock, of

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Speaker 1: all people, and there was also a rumor that Joel

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Speaker 1: Schumacher was really interested in directing the movie. But the

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Speaker 1: other problem about why this wasn't getting sold was that

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Speaker 1: Richard Kelly was extremely possessive of the story and he

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Speaker 1: wanted to direct it himself. Needless to say, it was

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Speaker 1: not exactly appealing for studios to let a twenty five

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Speaker 1: year old first time or run rampant with his needlessly

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Speaker 1: complicated vanity project. Kelly said, there were people that thought

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Speaker 1: I was very foolish for not letting someone else make it,

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Speaker 1: But I knew that they would rewrite it, and they

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Speaker 1: would not set the movie in he would be a

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Speaker 1: modern day piece, and they would change a lot of

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Speaker 1: the story. I just could never let that happen. The

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Speaker 1: tenacity of this guy, damn. In the meantime, as he

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Speaker 1: was trying to get the script of Donnie Darko sold,

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Speaker 1: Kelly Rose screenplay adaptation for the young adult novel Holes

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Speaker 1: by Louis Satcher, which is amazing. I think it was

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Speaker 1: later made with um Yeah, but the studio unsurprisingly went

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Speaker 1: with another writer because Richard Kelly's version was too dark

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Speaker 1: an adult and he also sold a TV pilots of

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Speaker 1: Fox about a group of comedy writers at Harvard University,

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Speaker 1: probably Harvard Lampooners, who befriend the fellow student and bring

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Speaker 1: him to Los Angeles after their pranks drive him to

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Speaker 1: a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, the pilot was never produced, but

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Speaker 1: I would love to see that. That sounds great. So

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Speaker 1: despite considerable buzz being generated by the script, Donnie Darko

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Speaker 1: was basically dead around l A in early two thousand,

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Speaker 1: That is until too big name actors intervened Drew Barrymore

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Speaker 1: who will talk about in a second, and Jason Schwartzman.

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Speaker 1: Jason Schortzman was fresh office star making role in another

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Speaker 1: offbeat high school movie, Wes Anderson's Rushmore, and he wanted

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Speaker 1: to sign on the play Donnie Darko, which I think

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Speaker 1: would have changed the whole movie. I cannot imagine that.

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Speaker 1: I know it would have been too quirky, to to melodramatic,

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Speaker 1: to or not even melodramatic. Yeah, to like Jason Schwartzman

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Speaker 1: would have just been too feel like precocious. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: I like him. I love Rushmore but oh yeah no,

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Speaker 1: Rushmore is great, but I mean, I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: Jake Jillen Hall is weird enough to offset his handsomeness.

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Speaker 1: I think in this movie, like he really has that

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Speaker 1: kind of like dead eyed stare thing that the guy

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Speaker 1: who who was in the bunny suit talks about being

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Speaker 1: terrified of Jake Joean Hall, which is hilarious because the

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Speaker 1: guy in the bunny suit was probably freaking at everybody

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Speaker 1: else on the set. But yeah, I said, when Joan

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Speaker 1: Hall would like look at him with his head lowered

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Speaker 1: down and his eyes right so upsetting. Yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so really hard to imagine this with Jason Schwartzman, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: he basically called Richard Kelly out of the blue. Before

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Speaker 1: this it gets even weirder. There were some other people

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Speaker 1: who are I guess up for consideration for Donny Darko,

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Speaker 1: and all of them across the board were terror choices.

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Speaker 1: I talked to Vince Vaughan, who I guess took himself

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Speaker 1: out of consideration because at thirty one he thought he

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Speaker 1: was too old to play a sixteen year old high schooler.

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Speaker 1: That's the worst idea was that Joe Schumacher pitched this.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, this was like he's properly

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Speaker 1: like old. Mark Wahlberg also met with Richard Kelly about

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Speaker 1: playing Donnie Darko, but for some reason, Wahlberg insisted that

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Speaker 1: he played Donnie with a lisp, and this I guess

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Speaker 1: did in the ligne with Kelly's vision. So they passed

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Speaker 1: on Mark Wahlberg. And there was also Patrick Fuguet, who

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Speaker 1: was the kid who played the lead and almost famous.

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Speaker 1: I could see that. Yeah, that actually gets a little closer.

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Speaker 1: But everything changed when they had a meeting with Jason Schwartzman,

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Speaker 1: and Richard Kelly later said, when Jason became attached all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, it legitimized me as a director. I

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Speaker 1: owe him an enormous debt. I don't think I'd have

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Speaker 1: a career if it weren't for Jason and his support.

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Speaker 1: He helped bring a lot of enthusiasm and financing to

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Speaker 1: the screenplay. And another nice thing that Jason schwartz And

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Speaker 1: did was arranged for Richard Kelly to have a meeting

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Speaker 1: with his uncle Francis Ford Coppola. Obviously huge deal for

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Speaker 1: this first time director who was at the time to

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Speaker 1: have a bit of mentoring from such a heavy hitter,

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Speaker 1: and Kelly later described this as a once in a

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Speaker 1: lifetime meeting. I had this amazing hour long meeting with him,

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Speaker 1: and he outlined my script and he was asking all

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Speaker 1: these questions about the themes, and it was just amazing.

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Speaker 1: He had mapped out the dialogue and was trying to

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Speaker 1: get me to extract all the thematics and the meeting

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Speaker 1: of the piece, and even proposed that Kelly and the

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Speaker 1: actors involved with the project go up to his vineyard

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Speaker 1: in northern California together to talk it through, which I

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Speaker 1: thought it was very nice. And I guess during his meeting,

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Speaker 1: couple of circled one of Drew Barrymore's lines in the

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Speaker 1: script that read, the kids have to figure it all

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Speaker 1: out these days because their parents they don't have a clue.

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Speaker 1: And Kelly said, couple of circled that and slid the

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Speaker 1: binder towards him and said that line of dialogue, that's

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Speaker 1: what your whole movie is about, right there. And Richard

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Speaker 1: Kelly reflected on this meeting with Frances. He said, I

426
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: think he was looking at me as being at the

427
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:03,400
Speaker 1: very beginning of my career, and he probably saw potential

428
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: and he wanted to make sure that I didn't screw

429
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:07,440
Speaker 1: it up. But the key figure that got Donnie Darko

430
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:10,199
Speaker 1: made was Drew Barrymore. Really the just the Yeah, she

431
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: is absolutely unquestionable m v P at this movie. Um.

432
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: Not only did she lend her star power to the

433
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:17,440
Speaker 1: film by signing on to play the role of Donnie's

434
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: liberal English teacher, Ms. Pomeroy, but her production company, Flower Productions,

435
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: put somewhere in the neighborhood of four and a half

436
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 1: million into this movie. You said it was sent to

437
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:30,399
Speaker 1: her by Jason Schwartzman or his agent. I think Jason

438
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: Schwartzman's agent sent it to Drew's production company because Drew

439
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: was a big fan of Rushmore and just purely interested

440
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:39,439
Speaker 1: in knowing what he was up to next, And so

441
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: when he got attached to Donnie Darko, they got their

442
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,479
Speaker 1: hands off script and really liked it. Interesting. Also, they

443
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 1: named Drew Barrymore's character Ms. Palmroy after UM researcher at

444
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: the sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute Okay, sure everything

445
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: is meeting in this movie. It will drive you insane. Well, anyway,

446
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get to this. Uh. Kelly visited Drew

447
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 1: on the set of Charlie's Angels, which is the least

448
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko movie in the world, directed by mcg I

449
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 1: think McGee was giving him first time director tips. It's

450
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: like Francis Ford Coppola invited him to his vineyard to

451
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: talk over the script. McGee invited him into his trailer

452
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: for Bumps of Cocaine into like Augal the dailies. Um

453
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: Kelly described it that set visit as uh, stepping into

454
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: candy Land. I met Cameron Diaz. It was wild. Then

455
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: we went to Drew's trailer and she was finishing reading

456
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: the script, you know, and again basically came down to her,

457
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 1: you know. He told The Guardian a different interview. Once

458
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore signed on, we got the finance that we

459
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: needed four and a half million. Having Drew also helped

460
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: us get other actors who might have been reluctant to

461
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 1: work with the first time director, and perhaps unsurprisingly, no

462
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: one was paid especially well for this movie. Uh. The

463
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: actors basically worked for scale, which is wild. When you

464
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: do consider that Drew Barrymore or Network TV, then Star

465
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 1: Noah Ile and Swayzee. He said, nobody did Donnie Darko

466
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: for the money Kelly did. Nobody got paid well to

467
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: do it. It was about the artistic experience. Those experiences

468
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: are the most pure when you're there for the material.

469
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 1: Speaking of Drew Barrymore, we cannot get through a twenty

470
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: page podcast about this without bringing up cellar door, which

471
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: she explains is posited by a quote a famous linguist

472
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 1: as the most beautiful combination of words in the English language.

473
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: I always heard that it was C. S. Lewis. Is

474
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: that right? Is that? What did you hear that as well?

475
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: Or am I confusing cis Lewis and C. S Lewis.

476
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 1: There have been a number of authors who have praised

477
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: this combination of words, and C. S. Lewis was one

478
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: of them. Okay, well, okay could be written in the

479
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: nineteen three Cyrus Lauren Hooper novel g boy Um, where

480
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: an unnamed Italian savant believes that cellador is the most

481
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: beautiful combination of English sounds. In no less an authority

482
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: than H. L. Mencken wrote that the phrase cellar door

483
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,679
Speaker 1: is musical. Twelve years later, Dorothy Parker commented that she

484
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: preferred cellar door to some of the words that Wilfred J. Funk,

485
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: who is not the frontman of Grand Funk Railroad but

486
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,880
Speaker 1: the president of Funk and waggles over his choices and

487
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: talking yep. The Lord of the Rings. Guru praised the

488
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: phrase in his nineteen fifty five essay English and Welsh,

489
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: in which he writes, most English speaking people will admit

490
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: that cellar door is beautiful, especially if disassociated from its sense,

491
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: and it's spelling more beautiful than say sky, and far

492
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: more beautiful than beautiful. Uh and yeah, Norman Mailer, which

493
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: is hilarious to me, like seller door. Today, most reputable linguists, however,

494
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: are united in believing that the most beautiful phrase in

495
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: the English language is hog waste lagoon. I'm so still

496
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 1: sad that you never used that as an album title

497
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: for our band. There's There's There's time. Yeah, that's true.

498
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: That is true. C. S. Lewis and Alvis Huxley died

499
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: on the same day in nineteen sixty three, but they

500
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: both got overshadowed by JFK, who also died the same

501
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: day November do you say Huxley didn't Huxley they supposed

502
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: to get like loaded on mushrooms right before he was

503
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: going to die. I think it was acid. I think

504
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: is the last thing ever wrote was like what he

505
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: wanted his wife to inject him with. Yeah, good lord,

506
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: all feels relevant to Donnie Dark or something. Yeah, yeah

507
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 1: it does. So. Drew Barrymore was the savior of this movie,

508
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: but her involvement posed a problem. She was only available

509
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: for a single week during the summer of two thousand

510
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,120
Speaker 1: because she was tied up appearing in the Penny Marshall

511
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: movie Riding in Cars with Boys. This created a scheduling

512
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: conflict with Jason Schwartzman, and considering Drew Barrymore was both

513
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: the bigger star and also putting up the money for

514
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: the movie, she went out and Jason Schwartzman had to

515
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: drop out. That's the official version, at least. Richard Kelly

516
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: says that he maybe Jason's wordsmen, was having some second

517
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 1: thoughts about the movie. I don't know, but I guess

518
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly had a panic attack after Jason dropped out.

519
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: As Steve should first time director who you know he's

520
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, what having Jason Schwartzman signed on the star

521
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 1: in this movie did for him about making this project

522
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: a reality and legitimizing him as a director, and now

523
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: he's gone. But he says that he got a voicemail

524
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: from Drew that night, and he said it was one

525
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: of the nicest voicemails he'd ever received. And she said

526
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: on this voicemail that she was into the film regardless,

527
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, whether or not they had a

528
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: buzzy lead or not, and they'd make a great film together,

529
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: which I thought was very nice. And it was in

530
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore's office that Richard Kelly first met Jake Jillen Hall,

531
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: and he'd just been in his first major lead role,

532
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: October Sky, and it was basically love at first sight.

533
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: Kelly said, within thirty seconds, it was clear to me

534
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: that he was the right actor. And he apparently was

535
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: in the midst of a bit of an emo phase

536
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: because he came in with a metal chain belt and

537
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: spiked hair. And it was only nineteen, which wasn't too

538
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: far off from the age Donnie was supposed to be sixteen. Uh,

539
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: And one of the producers in the room described it

540
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: as like meeting Holden cough Field. Richard Kelly said it

541
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: was a gut intuition that he was the one. I

542
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: felt he was an incredibly strong anchor for the film,

543
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: and Jake Joean Hall. Over the years, I've spoken eloquently

544
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: and extensively about reading the script for the first time,

545
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: and this is an interview we did with The Guardian

546
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: in I was frantically running around Los Angeles doing loads

547
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: of auditions. I remember pulling over to the side of

548
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: the road to finish reading Richard's script and being mesmerized.

549
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: It was clearly influenced by classic directors Ron Howard Steven Spielberg,

550
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: but with this strange psychosis, it beautifully captured the experience

551
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: of moving into adulthood, the world that felt so solid

552
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: becoming movable and liquid. I thought, this is what my

553
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: adolescence felt like. Although I don't speak and I've never

554
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: spoken to rabbits, that was a really beautiful way to

555
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: explain that. Hilariously. Jake Joan Hall initially didn't want to

556
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: meet Richard Kelly because he figured that their person responsible

557
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: for the script must surely be some kind of antisocial

558
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: goth weirdo obsessed with death. But when they did finally

559
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: meet face to face. Jake said he found this preppy

560
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: college kid totally unassuming, really lovely, very kind, just the

561
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: regular guy. But Jake did actually base some of his

562
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko mannerisms on Richard Kelly, including his self conscious,

563
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: slouched posture and sometimes mumbled speech. Joean Hall told the

564
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: l A Times in two thousand one, I'm a firm

565
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,479
Speaker 1: believer of the unconscious being the teller of some truth,

566
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: and I feel Richard wrote the script very unconsciously. The

567
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: issues that Donnie Daco confronts are metaphors for things in

568
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: Kelly's life. They obviously resonate with him in a pretty

569
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: intense way. I mean, there must be some stuff going

570
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: on in Richard Kelly's mind. And then pretor Kelly was

571
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: also interviewed for this piece, and I guess, in an

572
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: effort to dissuade the inevitable comparisons, he said, I'm not

573
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko explicitly said that I didn't realize this until

574
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: researching this episode. Jake, Joe and All's parents were big

575
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: deals in Hollywood. His father was a director and his

576
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,479
Speaker 1: mother was a screenwriter, and his godparents were Paul Newman

577
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: and Jamie Lee Curtis. So clearly this kid has ties

578
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: the old Hollywood, and for his performance in Donnie Darko,

579
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: he borrowed a trick from one of my favorite acting legends.

580
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: I know yours too, Michael Caine. We've talked about this

581
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: in several episodes. Jake tried to blink as little as

582
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: possible because he felt like it would make Donnie look

583
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: more psychotic to just stare, and also, as all good

584
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: actors know, blinking weakens you. We're quoting a fantastic tutorial

585
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: that Michael Caine made in the eighties that's on YouTube

586
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: about how to act to camera, and it's incredible. Go

587
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: check it out if you haven't seen it. Uh. Speaking

588
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: of the Jillan Halls and their golden road paved for

589
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: them by their forebears, Uh, we cannot forget Jake's sister, Maggie,

590
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: who plays sister in the movie. Jake took credit for

591
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: her casting uh in telling The Guardian, it was my

592
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: idea to have my real life sister Maggie played my

593
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: sister in the film. We were going through a competitive

594
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: phase which fed into the dinner table scenes where Uh,

595
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: you don't remember she indelibly tells him to go suck a.

596
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: Uh that was you? Did you read that was improvised? No? No, yes, sorry, yes,

597
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: Jake continued, Maggie was the reason I got into acting,

598
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: is and is the more formidable of us, yet I

599
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: was the one who started my professional career first. Imagine

600
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: being in a movie with your obnoxious little brother as

601
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: the lead. However, Richard Keller so that his actual idea

602
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: to cast Maggie was inspired by seeing her in Cecil

603
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: b Demented. I've never seen that movie, that's right, yeah, uh,

604
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: and that is a film in which her character drinks

605
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: You're in uh. But he was also interested in seeing

606
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: how the gillen Halls real life sibling rivalry would show

607
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: up on tape, and apparently Maggie actually tried to talk

608
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: him out of casting her because she hadn't done much

609
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: serious film acting before. Why did she do Secretary? I

610
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: think it was right after I think yeah, um. And

611
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:23,239
Speaker 1: as for the rest of the family, there are some

612
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: fun fantasy castings going on here as well, as they're

613
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: always are. Tim Robbins was the first choice for the

614
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: role of Eddie Darko, but they couldn't fit his genormous

615
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: body in the frame. Um, that's Donnie's dad. Yes, Johnny said,

616
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: I always feel I always forget how tall Tim Robbins

617
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: is and then you just see him with like next

618
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: to the other actors in the film, You're like, holy god, Um,

619
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: it's the most realistic part of Jacob's ladder is that

620
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: he has debilitating back problems in that movie. Uh. But

621
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: the role would go to Holmes Osborne, who is Guy

622
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: Patterson's dad in That Thing You Do. Mura Wilson was

623
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: considered for the role of little sister Samantha Darko, who

624
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: memoriably is part of Sparkle motion figures into the Duran

625
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: Duran lip sync at the end of the movie, but

626
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: she turned it down on The role would eventually go

627
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:14,400
Speaker 1: to actress dave A Chase. Donnie Darko's mother, Rose was

628
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: played by the actress Mary McDonald, who was so stoked

629
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: to be on this movie that she got a speeding

630
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: ticket on her way to the set, the first one

631
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: ever in her life. I love that. Good for her,

632
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: And we can't go any further before shouting out one

633
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: of my favorite actresses in this movie, the legendary Katherine

634
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: Ross probably I mean to me, most famous for her

635
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: role as Mrs Robinson's daughter Elaine and the graduate you know,

636
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 1: the one Dustin Hoppin runs off with at the end

637
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: of the movie. Spoilers Heroin. Oh yes, sorry, spoilers for

638
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: this year old movie. And also she's the heroine of

639
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. And I think she's

640
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 1: also in the original Um Separate Wives. And she had

641
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: dropped out of the limelight her awhile when her name

642
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,760
Speaker 1: was mentioned for consideration to play Donnie psychiatrist Dr Thurman,

643
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: and Richard Kelly later said he didn't even realize she

644
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: was still acting. But they drove out to visit her

645
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: at home in Malibu, and they were a little surprised

646
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:16,399
Speaker 1: when they knocked on the door, and Sam Elliott answered, fain,

647
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: I just think of him as like a living Old

648
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: West stereotype, and just picture him as the character in

649
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: The Big Lebowski. All the time, I had no idea

650
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: they were married, Sam Elliott, Captain Ross, and I guess

651
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly had driven all the way out there to

652
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 1: try to sell her on the roll, but Catherine spent

653
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: the first twenty minutes pitching them on why she should

654
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: be cast, and finally they said wait, wait a minute,

655
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: like you want to do this. We thought we were

656
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: here to convince you, and she said, oh, well, this

657
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: is one of the easier meetings I've had, and that

658
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: was that she signed on. And Donnie Darko's ties with

659
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:54,280
Speaker 1: Classic Cinema aren't just relegated to the actors, but also

660
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: the sets. I love this factoid so much. In many ways,

661
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko is a perverted, warped version of a John

662
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,879
Speaker 1: Hughes eighties teen movie, from the whole weird Kid meets

663
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: the New Girl in School narrative to the fact that

664
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: it was set in the eighties and the musical choices.

665
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,919
Speaker 1: And this is all fitting because the home in Long Beach,

666
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 1: California that was used to shoot exteriors for John Hughes

667
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off was just a minute walk

668
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: down the road from the Donnie Darko house that gets

669
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: crushed by the falling jet engine. I think the neighborhood

670
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,439
Speaker 1: was called the Virginia Country Club, which is weird because

671
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,359
Speaker 1: it's in California, and the production just set up camp

672
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 1: there for a week, which helped the very tight deadline.

673
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: They just shot all throughout the neighborhood. The bus stop

674
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: scenes were there. Patrick Swayze's self help guru character's mansion

675
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: was there, and the Darko's house was there. I just

676
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: think it's so cool that the Darkos and the Buellers

677
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: were kind of neighbors. They would not have gotten along.

678
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: No no, no no. As you meditate on that, we'll

679
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: be right back with more too much information after these messages.

680
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,439
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly had a tough time during this shoot because

681
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: it was his first movie and he only had four

682
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: weeks to do it. And I cannot stress us enough.

683
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: He was twenty five years old. At what age? What

684
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: age you directors typically make their first movies? Is it?

685
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: Do they like late mid late twenties. I I don't

686
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: have an answer to that, and I'm embarrassed because I

687
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: went to film school and I should. But I mean,

688
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I mean there are young directors, but something

689
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: on this scale is yeah, is unusual. P t A

690
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 1: was twenty six when Boogie Nights came out. Really yeah, alright,

691
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:48,399
Speaker 1: that's still okay. Let's still also incredibly young, and, as

692
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly told The Guardian, because so many of the

693
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 1: cast and crew were young, there was a real energy

694
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: on the set. But I was stressed out, being twenty five.

695
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: I had to justify myself a lot proof I had

696
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: the skill. I lost one he pounds on the shoot,

697
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: but he got a little help from his director of photography.

698
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: Got by the name of Steven Posner, who was thirty

699
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 1: one years older than Kelly and had worked on classics

700
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: like Blade Runner and Close Encounches the Third kind, Uh,

701
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: and it was really cute. Posner sense that Richard Kelly

702
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 1: was nervous to meet him because he was so much

703
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: older and established, so he told him, Richard, from this

704
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: point on, you and I are the same age. Don't

705
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: think of me. He was being more experienced than you.

706
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: My experience is yours. I won't tell you how to

707
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: direct your movie, but I'll be there to guide you

708
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: through it. I thought that was really classy. Supposed to

709
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg could just elbows people out of the way.

710
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: Let me direct this wearing a hat that says the

711
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: real director of this movie in a fisherman's vest. Richard

712
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: Kelly said that the toughest part is always the first

713
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: week of the shoot. He said, I'm always trying to

714
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: do so much with not enough money and not enough days,

715
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: not enough hours in a day, So that first week

716
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: is really terrifying for everyone. And it was extra terrifying

717
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: because it was this wild, per vocative script that no

718
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: one could really categorize, and we needed ten million but

719
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: only had four point five, and it was this crazy

720
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: twenty eight days schedule. And here I was just turned

721
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: twenty five and a lot of people were doing side

722
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: eye at each other, like, does this guy know what

723
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: he's doing? I guess. The first shot of the movie

724
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: was an early shot in the film when Donnie's asleep

725
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road and he's like up

726
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: on the mountain. Then he sees this like incredible vista

727
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: in the background at dawn, and Richard Kelly was so

728
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: nervous and so excited when he was shooting this his

729
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: first shot of his first major movie, that instead of

730
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: yelling cut when he was done, he just yelled action again. Yeah.

731
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: It doesn't exactly in gender confidence on the part of

732
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: the crew, but sweet all the same. But the turning

733
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: point came when Kelly shot the montage at the high

734
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 1: school that is set to Tears for Fears head over heels.

735
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: Incredible shot. It's just it's so yeah, it's so perfect

736
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: and it's such a great introduction, but it was just

737
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: again the hutzpah of this man. Uh they were shooting

738
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: basically was a full on music video without actually having

739
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: secured the rights to the song, which as, uh, what

740
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: episode did you explain that in cruel intentions cruel intentions

741
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: for Bitter Sweet Symphony, you do not do that because

742
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: if you don't get the rights, you're scene is cut

743
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: to the completely wrong thing. And yeah, this is just

744
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: one of several scenes that he insisted on doing that

745
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:21,959
Speaker 1: with and it did backfire on him for one scene.

746
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: Would get to that later, but it came together for

747
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 1: Head over Heels. Kurt Smith of Tears for Fears later

748
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: told The Ringer for their Johnny Darker Oral History that

749
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: it took a personal request from Drew Barrymore herself to

750
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: get them to agree to license it out. That's like

751
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow going bowling with Paul McCartney to get uh

752
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: for Royal tenor pumps. Yeah, Drew Barrymore m VP can't

753
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: say enough. But Kelly continued to refuse to make this

754
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: easy on himself or others. He wanted the entire elaborately

755
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: choreographed scene to be shot in a one er, a

756
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: single take all of the Boogie Nights opener. I'm younger

757
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,280
Speaker 1: than p t A. I'm gonna do the opening shot too.

758
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 1: Whatever p t A can do, I can do better,

759
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:14,240
Speaker 1: like the cigar chopping example. Um but yeah, it's insane,

760
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,399
Speaker 1: insane to do it, even even done a single day,

761
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: by the way, which, oh my god. Yeah, the producers

762
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: talked to uh, the aforementioned director photography, Stephen Posner, to

763
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: tell this kid, Hey, there is just too much ground

764
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:29,799
Speaker 1: to cover this. We have no time and no money.

765
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: How about we doing four or five shots? And uh yeah,

766
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 1: the studio thought he was out of his mind. And

767
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 1: then he brought an edit in his part of the

768
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: Daily As a few days later and as in his words,

769
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: this is the moment that made him that everyone thought okay,

770
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: he said. Everyone immediately flipped out. They got it. They

771
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: were so excited. You could see everyone breathe a sigh

772
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 1: of relief that I just might know what I'm doing.

773
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: Good for him, Uh, Patrick Swayze once again, this film

774
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: for the first time director really around some talent. There's

775
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore, Catherine Ross, Mary McDonald who there's an Independence

776
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: Day connection going strong. In this movie, we'll talk about that.

777
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: Mary McDonald played the first Lady Independence Day and Swayze.

778
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: Swayze plays the creepy new age guru Jim Cunningham, who

779
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: uh you know, wins over the hearts and minds of

780
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: the moms of the town and clashes with Donnie during

781
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: the school assembly when Donnie objects to the love and

782
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: fear binary. Cunningham's entire philosophy is based around, and then

783
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: he's lazy. He's revealed to be a child pornographer at

784
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 1: the film at the end of the film. Not a

785
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: subtle moment, but effective. Nonetheless, just like the nuclear option

786
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 1: of making your character reprehensible, people are more willing to

787
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: forgive murders than they're like genocide and John Born, this

788
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: is not a subtle movie. A jet engine crashes through

789
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 1: the kid's bedroom. It's true. Richard Kelly later described Patrick

790
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: Swayze as the nicest guy. He wanted to take a

791
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: flamethrower to his image. He was fearless. Uh, he was

792
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: fearless because he frosted his hair for this role and

793
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: apparently brought articles of his real life clothing from the

794
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties like the pink eyes od and the white

795
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 1: pleated pants, good for him for still fitting into them,

796
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: and he filmed the self help commercials infomercials in the

797
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: film on his own ranch in Calabasas. And the kid

798
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: who yells I'm not afraid Anymore, who later appears at

799
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: Donnie's um school assembly, asked the question, yeah, It's so great,

800
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 1: which suggests that he's one of Cunningham's plants. Put a

801
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: fake kid in the audience. Haven't set up all your

802
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: all your bits do this podcast. I'm I'm an elaborate

803
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:51,240
Speaker 1: plant of yours. It's a long con. The writer Lindsay

804
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 1: Romayne wrote a really interesting theory about this whole part

805
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 1: in her piece on Roger Ebert said, Jim is a beloved,

806
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: empathetic figure in the community, but is in truth a predator.

807
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: Donnie burns Jim's house and exposes his secret stash of

808
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: child porn, but his contingency of zealots won't accept Jim's

809
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: true nature and instead pledge fealty to his innocence. Not

810
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: so different from the Trumpe and Logic were forced to

811
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: endure even now, an omnipresent, insidious reminder that the hell

812
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: of non truth is inescapable another flavor in the Neapolitan

813
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 1: scoop of Barren Hope. That is truly an all time sentence.

814
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: I'm getting that tattooed on my forehead. Um. I mentioned

815
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: it a little bit earlier, but we have Noah Wiley.

816
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: He was starting in the r at the time, and

817
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: he originally thought he was getting the Jim Cunningham roll. Uh,

818
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: and he gets the slightly shaggy ear but still important

819
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: in terms of exposition dumping role of Kenneth Monitoff, who

820
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: is another of Donnie's teacher who is dating Drew Barrymore's

821
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: character and no less, no less, a similarly eighties macho

822
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:00,919
Speaker 1: icon than David Hasselhoff, was also considered for the part

823
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: of Jim Cunningham. I bet you they couldn't afford the half.

824
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 1: They couldn't afford the half. This is pre Burger video.

825
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: He was still flying high. Maybe the fact that he

826
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,280
Speaker 1: missed out on those incredible roles, what what what triggered

827
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 1: That's fine? Lord knows. Uh. This is probably the least

828
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: interesting reason why Donnie Darko was notable, but it marks

829
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: the live action feature film debuts of both Seth Rogan

830
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: and Ashley Just theyll Seth Rogan was eighteen, and then

831
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: I think he was a year into his Freaks and

832
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: Geeks role when he was cast as the bully Ricky

833
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: dan Fourth, which is just such a tremendous name. This

834
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: was a few years before he appeared in his next

835
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 1: movie as Scott the Overeager cameraman in Anchorman The Legend

836
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,800
Speaker 1: of Ron Burgundy. During an interview with Collider, Seth Ruggan

837
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: remember the shoot as a great experience, but he quote

838
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: didn't get the movie back when he filmed it, and quote,

839
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: I still don't get it, but I had a good time.

840
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: He was joined in his movie Bullying by Alex Greenwald,

841
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: who's better known as the singer of the band Phantom Planet,

842
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: who did the opening song California for the show The

843
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: o C. He plays the coke sniffing bully. Seth Devlin,

844
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:13,240
Speaker 1: that must have been Schwartzman. I'm just putting that together.

845
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: What who got him in there? Because Schwartzman is a

846
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: Phantom Planet, right, Rooney? Oh that's aren't they? Why are

847
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: those bands indelibly linked in my mind? Well, Schwartzman, the

848
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: lead singer Rooney is a Schwartzman. But I don't know

849
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: if it's I don't know which Schwartzman. I don't know

850
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: if it's his brother or cousin or what. No, it

851
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: was Jason Schwartzman. I was right, He's drummed his Phantom Planet. Yep,

852
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:41,280
Speaker 1: what I didn't know that. Yeah, Jason Schwartzman is his brother. Okay,

853
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: so well, the Schwartzman's have Rooney Dynasty and Phantom Planet. Wow,

854
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: we didn't even get into Tala shar and uh Sofia,

855
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage and Nicolas Cage. Good lord, I did not

856
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: know that Phantom Planet was part of the Tangled Web

857
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: of the Coplas. Wow. Incredible but a pre high school musical.

858
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: Ashley Tisdale also makes an extremely brief appearance as a

859
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: sort of nerdy girl named Kim with freezy hair who

860
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:12,879
Speaker 1: asks a question at the school assembly to Patrick Swayzey's character. Well,

861
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:15,280
Speaker 1: as you might expect for a film nerd like Richard Kelly,

862
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko is jammed with nods the classic cinema. For example,

863
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 1: the opening scene where Donnie wakes up on a hillside

864
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: took inspiration from a place in the sun. When Montgomery

865
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: Cliff's character is introduced. Richard Kelly also watched Danley Krubrick's

866
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:35,280
Speaker 1: Lolita very often wall preparing for this movie, Yeah, which

867
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 1: is referenced obliquely during the hardy scene where Donnie's sister

868
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 1: is dressed like a minor character in Lolita Vivian Dark Bloom. Um.

869
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if you think about it, between the

870
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 1: child pornography of Patrick Swayze's character, even to a certain extent,

871
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: the sparkle motion dance sequenced song that made me uncomfortable.

872
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: It's weird, It's weird and weird. Okay, good, I'm glad. Okay,

873
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: this isn't a movie reference, but there's another shot at

874
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: the house party that features a kid jumping on a

875
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: trampoline wearing a Ronald Reagan mask. Supposedly this is a

876
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: reference to a photo of Hunter S. Thompson doing the

877
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,879
Speaker 1: same thing, which I choose to believe. The scene where

878
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: Donnie rides a bike while wearing a hoodie, of course,

879
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,839
Speaker 1: is a reference to Et, which was not only one

880
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 1: of Richard Kelly's favorite movies as a kid, but also

881
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: started Drew barrymore so a nice little nod there. He

882
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,240
Speaker 1: also paid tribute, although in an oblique way, to Francis

883
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:34,320
Speaker 1: Ford Coppola. Kelly said that he watched the slightly lesser

884
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: known or lesser appreciated mid eighties Francis Ford Coppola movie

885
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: Peggy Sue Got Married with Kathleen Turner. He watched this

886
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: movie with his DP because he wanted to shoot in

887
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: the same kind of locations to create what he called

888
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: a fantasy suburban landscape. And also, the outfits for the

889
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: aforementioned dance troup Sparkle Motion, who performed at the end

890
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: of the movie were modeled after Kathleen Turner's silvery prom

891
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: dress and Peggy Sue Got Married, which I thought was funny.

892
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: So that's weird. But there's also a weird connection with

893
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: another Hollywood classic thanks to customer April Fairy, who has

894
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: a long storied career including work on your beloved Big Trouble,

895
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 1: Little China. It's like a multi decade career because she

896
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: was held to a strict budget. For Donnie Darkou, she

897
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: was the one who decided that all the students should

898
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: be dressed in a school uniform. Not only does it

899
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: really work well for the plot because it signifies the

900
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: stifling conformity that Donnie's railing against, but in reality it

901
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: was just cheaper and easier to have all the kids

902
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: dressed in identical white shirts. But this low budget sent

903
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: customer April Ferry into her garage to sift through outfits

904
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: that she'd save from earlier productions, and she found an

905
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: outfit that she'd kept that was warned by Glenn Close

906
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: in The Big Chill, and it was this brown jacket

907
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: kind of number. She gave it to the actress playing

908
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko's mother, Mary McConnell, and she wears it in

909
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: the scene that takes place at a school assembly. Well,

910
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 1: speaking of a ferry, we must now arrive at Frank. Oh, Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank. Oh,

911
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,479
Speaker 1: it's so good, It's so perfect. Richard Kelly once said

912
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 1: I never want to hate my characters. You've got to

913
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: love all of them. He did not mention if Frank

914
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: was the exception to that um people. Many people have

915
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 1: long assumed that it is a reference to the comedy Harvey,

916
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 1: in which James Stewart's best friend is a giant, invisible rabbit,

917
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: but Kelly explicitly told Entertainment Weekly that he has never

918
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: seen that film. His true inspiration was Richard Adams young

919
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: adult novel Watership Down Uh and the director's cut Drew

920
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 1: Barrymore shows the film version of that in her classroom,

921
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: which has always code for the teachers hungover. H Kelly

922
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: designed Frank's horrifying rick this green himself. Those are his

923
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: actual design sketches in the film during the final Mad

924
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 1: World montage. In addition to his convoluted role in the

925
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: film's multiverse plot, Kelly wanted Frank to be Donnie's only friend,

926
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,359
Speaker 1: almost like a comfort blanket. What comfort blankets did you have?

927
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 1: Growing up? Dude? Movie is a terrifying insight into Richard

928
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:19,920
Speaker 1: Kelly's psychology and inner working, and there are a number

929
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: of rabbit themed Easter eggs in the movie. The film

930
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: opens with the killing Moon by Echo and the Bunny Man.

931
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:30,400
Speaker 1: There's a scene which a Volkswagen rabbit drives through the frame.

932
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 1: There's a stuffed rabbit next to Maggie Gillenhall's character's bed.

933
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: Donnie appears in a family photo dressed as a rabbit,

934
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:39,760
Speaker 1: and he carves Frank's likeness into a jack O lantern,

935
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: which is an ambitious design um That whole get up

936
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 1: was made by costumer April Ferry, who later worked on

937
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones and it was worn throughout the movie

938
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: by actor James Duval, and you can see him when

939
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,240
Speaker 1: he takes the mask off and he has a gross

940
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: open wound where his eye should be. Um. We mentioned

941
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: Independence Day earlier. He is in Independence Day starring as

942
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 1: Randy Quaid's long suffering son who then watches him get

943
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 1: blown up at the end of the film, Hello Bulls.

944
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: And Donnie's mother has mentioned played by Mary McConnell, who

945
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: played the first lady in Independence Day. So canonically the

946
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: films take place in the same cinematic universe. You heard

947
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:27,400
Speaker 1: it here first. Um, j Yeah. James Duval as creepy

948
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: as he wasn't that bunny suit, was freaked out by

949
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:33,920
Speaker 1: Jake jillen Hall's dead eyed stare, and as with most

950
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: things in this movie, most of the production team thought

951
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly was insane for basing an enormous part of

952
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:40,959
Speaker 1: the plot action around a man in a life size

953
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: bunny costume. And then just a few days into shooting

954
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,760
Speaker 1: they had someone dress up as Frank and come onto

955
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: the set and jaws literally dropped. He told Entertainment Weekly

956
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:51,839
Speaker 1: that was the moment where I knew I was either

957
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:53,879
Speaker 1: going to live or die by the rabbit and how

958
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:57,720
Speaker 1: people responded to it. He said, the set got really quiet.

959
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: It was almost like everyone had taken mushroom. I was

960
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 1: starting to hallucinate. Everyone was like, this is really intense.

961
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 1: So I knew it was working, and I felt a

962
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: sense of relief. I could look around and the makeup

963
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: artist and the production assistance in the second a D

964
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: they were all just really freaked out about it. Stephen Posler,

965
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,719
Speaker 1: my cinematographer, came up to me and he was like, Rich,

966
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: I wasn't so sure about the rabbit, but now I

967
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 1: get it. Yeah. And that movie theater in which we'll

968
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:25,399
Speaker 1: talk about later also figures in was where Frank takes

969
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: off the rabbit heads the Aero Theater in Santa Monica,

970
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: and in honor of its auspicious place in Donnie Darko history,

971
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:38,320
Speaker 1: they play this movie every Easter, not Halloween Easter. Adorable

972
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: and terrifying and now for a quick it belongs in

973
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: museum segment. The Frank suit are rather than free franc suits.

974
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 1: They all currently reside with illustrious figures in entertainment. The

975
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 1: maid mask and suit is owned by producer Jack Morrissey.

976
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: Who co produced Beauty and the Beast, not the man

977
00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 1: I would have imagined ending up with that. Another mask

978
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: belongs to Drew Barrymore's production partner, Nancy juven In. I

979
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: think it's how you say her name, and the production

980
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: team I guess had a chromed and given to her

981
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 1: as a gift. Imagine getting that as a gift when

982
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 1: you weren't expecting it, like opening a box, and especially

983
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: if you haven't even seen the movie that registers is Hostile. Yes. Uh.

984
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: And then my favorite Metallica guitars, Kirk Hammett, owns another

985
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: backup of the Frank masks because he's apparently a massive

986
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 1: fan of Donnie Darko. Yeah. Hammett's horror and horror movie

987
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:37,439
Speaker 1: adjacent memorability collection is it's insane. I mean, he's a

988
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:39,799
Speaker 1: millionaire heavy metal musician. This is what they get up

989
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 1: to when they have more money than than Since uh,

990
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:46,840
Speaker 1: he's had his poster collection displayed as its own exhibit

991
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 1: at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, all of his

992
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:54,000
Speaker 1: vintage horror movie posters and uh. He also has Boris

993
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: Karlov's costume from The Black Cat and Bella Laghosie's outfit

994
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: from White Zombie and one of my favorit. He has

995
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 1: this horrifying Tom Savini designed zombie puppet that is used

996
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: in the opening shot of Day of the Dead by

997
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 1: George Ramarro, which is the third in the of the

998
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 1: Dead trilogy. And um, yeah, it's it's the it's just

999
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 1: missing a lower jaw, so you see its tongue come

1000
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 1: out through like the bottom of its throat. It's it's disgusting.

1001
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:23,439
Speaker 1: It's really stomach churning stuff. And Kirk Camon owns one.

1002
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: Do you know Parliament Funkadelic once drove through Pittsburgh while

1003
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: they were filming that one of them, Yeah, Parliament Funkadelic

1004
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: bassist Billy Nelson, Billy bass Nelson. Excuse me, I have

1005
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 1: to say the whole thing every time uh was driving

1006
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: and he found them a shortcut to get to Ohio

1007
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:45,799
Speaker 1: and they wound up in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where George ra

1008
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: Merrow was filming Night of the Living Dead. And if

1009
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 1: you know anything about Parliament Funkadelic, they were on drugs.

1010
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 1: Can you imagine inadvertently driving onto the set of Night

1011
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: of the Living Dead after George it in his handed

1012
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 1: out acid to the entire torbus was when did that? Yeah? Wow?

1013
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:11,839
Speaker 1: Well on the topic of terrifying things to see why

1014
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: you're high? Wow, incredible that I wrote that transition before

1015
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:18,800
Speaker 1: we had this amazing. Uh. Let's talk about the scene

1016
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,760
Speaker 1: where a liquid sphere blob thing emanates from Donnie's chest

1017
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:25,760
Speaker 1: out in front of him, leading him to where fate

1018
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 1: decrees he should walk next. I'm sorry, there's no other

1019
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: way to describe that. I think Richard Kelly describes him

1020
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:34,040
Speaker 1: as liquid spheres, so we'll go with that. Yeah, it's

1021
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack. Is liquid spear Waltz? Okay? And isn't there?

1022
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 1: Isn't that? That's the scene that the church right the

1023
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: yeah under the Milky Way the parties. Apparently that idea

1024
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: came to Richard Kelly the you know, liquid spheres one

1025
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: night when he was high and watching football and commanentator

1026
00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: John Madden r I p, you should draw lines on

1027
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:03,440
Speaker 1: the TV screen to diagram the play showing where the

1028
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: players were about to go when they rolled the tape.

1029
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 1: I think it's called a tell Us straighter And Richard

1030
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:11,919
Speaker 1: Kelly began the wonder, as one does, what would happen

1031
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: if quote, someone upstairs was doing this to humans. Someone

1032
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 1: has someone with more video editing and impression skills than

1033
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: I do needs to dub John Madden do it over

1034
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:27,360
Speaker 1: that scene in Donnie Darko. Hi, He's going, what do

1035
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:29,960
Speaker 1: you see in the way he hooked there into the

1036
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 1: coming into the batfield. Lawrence Steisman came out of nowhere

1037
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 1: just creamed him. Uh yeah, and s he said it

1038
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: was a nod to the Abyss the Liquid Metal animation too.

1039
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's funny. I mean watching interviews with Kelly,

1040
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: he talks about it being a nod James Camers the Abyss.

1041
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: But I've also seen in numerous other Uh yeah, A

1042
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: lot of other people say, yeah, he was just high

1043
00:57:55,360 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 1: I watching football, So I like that extremely high thoughts.

1044
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: This brings us to the conversation Donnie has with his

1045
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:05,960
Speaker 1: friends well and they speculate on the sexual behavior of Smurfs.

1046
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,120
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly had to go to the state of the

1047
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: animator named Peyo who created the Smurfs to get permission

1048
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 1: to have this discussion, and apparently the state agreed because

1049
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: the logic about smurf sex checked out. So this is

1050
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: um And now the scene takes place when Donnie and

1051
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 1: his friends are shooting at bottles and cans somewhere on

1052
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: a ranch. In the script, they were supposed to be

1053
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: shooting at a smurf doll. That's why they're talking about

1054
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 1: smurf sex in the first place. Uh, and also why

1055
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: Kelly felt compelled to get everything cleared by the payo

1056
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 1: a state. Uh. Probably not a good look to be

1057
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,600
Speaker 1: having inappropriate conversations about your children's character and then literally

1058
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: shooting guns at your figures on camera. Um. But I

1059
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,400
Speaker 1: guess apparently the production team couldn't find a Smurf doll,

1060
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: which is why they switched to shooting at bottles. Which

1061
00:58:54,760 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 1: this is what truly baffles me. For all of the

1062
00:58:56,880 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: stubborn insistence on doing things exactly his way the entire shoot,

1063
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: he backed down when it came to obtaining a vintage

1064
00:59:03,440 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: Smurf doll. I'd like to imagine that was the line

1065
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 1: in the budget, the cigar shopping executive Drew drew the line.

1066
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: And this kid, he's giving me a ga. He's got

1067
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:19,440
Speaker 1: a seven forty seven turbine, got three bunny suits. No

1068
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 1: smurf doll. God, And speaking of getting the rights to

1069
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: discuss stuff in sexual terms, Christina Applegate during one of

1070
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko's sessions with the psychiatrist Dr Thurman, I hypnotized

1071
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: Donnie had missed the fantasizing about Christina Applegate unmarried with children.

1072
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: Apparently that reference was supposed to be Alissa Milano, who

1073
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:42,720
Speaker 1: was then starring in the Tony Danza sitcom Who's the

1074
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: Boss Back, But this was changed for legal reasons. I

1075
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: guess I'm not really sure why. I h maybe because

1076
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 1: Elissa Milana was just sixteen and eighty eight, but oh,

1077
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:56,680
Speaker 1: I guess Christina Applegate was only like a year older.

1078
00:59:56,760 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. One thing

1079
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: that they couldn't clear with legal is the movie that

1080
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 1: Donnie goes to see. The Genle Malone's character Gretchen, a

1081
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:07,640
Speaker 1: date memorably crashed by Frank Richard Kelly had written that

1082
01:00:07,680 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: he goes to see the sci fi hor flick Chudd,

1083
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: which Jordan, I will pay for your dinner if you

1084
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: can tell me what that stands for. Oh something cannibal humanoid.

1085
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 1: Oh man, my one of my professors in school. No

1086
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: Chud too, but the Chudd, oh, the Misbegotten Chudd sequel,

1087
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 1: So I actually am relatively well familiar with this. But

1088
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:39,439
Speaker 1: cannibal humanoid. I forget underground dwellers right on the first

1089
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: two though, Yes you are cannibal cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

1090
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: Well done. You get half, you get half of dinner.

1091
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:50,640
Speaker 1: I got appetizers. Uh. But they couldn't get the rise

1092
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:57,040
Speaker 1: to chud. Uh it would Have you ever seen that trailer? No,

1093
01:00:57,120 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 1: it's one of the funniest it's like the it's the

1094
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's the trailer voice guy who did everything

1095
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: for like thirty years, and they just keep like cutting

1096
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:09,120
Speaker 1: to just the word Chud. It's literally just like shud.

1097
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 1: It's just such a funny word. It's should like I

1098
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,760
Speaker 1: can't take the movie seriously. Starting home alone star Daniel

1099
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: Stern and John Heard too, right, Yeah, oh yeah. We

1100
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: talked about this in the Rugrats episode The Rugrat Chud

1101
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 1: alumni went went on to populate the cast list of Rugrats.

1102
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 1: Um really a talent farm from a minor league talent

1103
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:38,280
Speaker 1: farm was Chud. Anyway, it would take eight to twelve

1104
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:41,560
Speaker 1: weeks with the clearance for Chud to go through, and

1105
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 1: since he was working on a twenty eight days shoot,

1106
01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: Kelly hadn't move on, so fellow director Sam Ramy stepped

1107
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 1: in and allowed Kelly to use footage from his movie

1108
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:53,439
Speaker 1: The Evil Dead for free. In a funny coincidence, Sam

1109
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: Ramy drove past the theater in Santa Monica the same

1110
01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:58,280
Speaker 1: day they were filming and was just amused to see

1111
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: his uh, his old movie title pop up in the marquis.

1112
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 1: I love that for him. Uh. The other big clearance

1113
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: fail from the film, although this arguably worked out for

1114
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:11,400
Speaker 1: the best, is the sparkle motion scene. Donnie's little sister

1115
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 1: is in this dance troupe coached by the miserable Kitty Farmer. Uh.

1116
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,800
Speaker 1: They performed a choreographed routine to Duran Duran's Notorious in

1117
01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: front of the school, but Kelly had shot the seed

1118
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,680
Speaker 1: and choreographed it to a completely different song, west End

1119
01:02:25,720 --> 01:02:29,040
Speaker 1: Girls by the Pet Shop Boys. You can sort of

1120
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 1: tell that the choreography doesn't line up, you know. But

1121
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 1: and on YouTube there are some people who have put

1122
01:02:34,520 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 1: west End Girls in there, and it actually it's pretty

1123
01:02:37,520 --> 01:02:40,040
Speaker 1: cool all the way it sinks up there. Interesting. I

1124
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:42,000
Speaker 1: wonder if he didn't do it in the director's cut

1125
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 1: for still the money reason. Yeah, I guess after and anyway,

1126
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 1: after you know, pushing for as many of the other

1127
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 1: songs as he did. He just ran out of money

1128
01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:54,920
Speaker 1: for west End Girls. Yeah, No, Smurf dollars, Smurf Dolls

1129
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: and west End Girls. The two things you cannot have, Kelly.

1130
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:03,720
Speaker 1: A third one, son of a Bitch. There were three,

1131
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: there were three things he couldn't get. Smurf do All,

1132
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:11,760
Speaker 1: west End Girls and Bono. Yes, there was another song

1133
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:15,280
Speaker 1: that the Donnie Darko team failed to get. Composer Michael Andrews,

1134
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: who did the score for the movie, one of the

1135
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: song MLK by You Two to use for the final

1136
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 1: scene in the movie in case the Messiah stuff wasn't

1137
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 1: already getting a little little thick. Yes, but you two

1138
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:32,560
Speaker 1: that they ain't cheap and so they couldn't get the rights,

1139
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: and instead Michael Andrews turned to his old friend and

1140
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 1: fellow musician Gary Jules, and they've been in a high

1141
01:03:38,680 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 1: school band together that had done a cover version of

1142
01:03:40,840 --> 01:03:44,560
Speaker 1: the Tears for Fear song Mad World, And maybe Tears

1143
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:46,320
Speaker 1: for Fears are on his mind because there was another

1144
01:03:46,360 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 1: Tears for Fears song on the soundtrack, hit over Heels.

1145
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: But for whatever the reason, Michael Andrews decided that this

1146
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 1: was the song that should end the movie. And Andrew's

1147
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 1: rearranged Mad World as a piano ballad, and they ultimately

1148
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,959
Speaker 1: recorded the song in what I've seen described as either

1149
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:05,920
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or six hours, either way very fast. Gary Jewels,

1150
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:08,240
Speaker 1: who actually sang the song, later said I'm not a

1151
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 1: big fan of my voice and it was so naked

1152
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: in the thing. But one of our friends was in

1153
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 1: the control room with some other people that we know,

1154
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 1: and when I went in after we recorded it, she

1155
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 1: was crying. And the song went to the top spot

1156
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: in the UK in two thousand and three, earning the

1157
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:25,320
Speaker 1: coveted title of Christmas number one, and more importantly to

1158
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:28,040
Speaker 1: Gary Jewels, that earned praise from both members of Tears

1159
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:31,240
Speaker 1: for Fears. Bandmate roland Or Zibal told Consequence of Sound

1160
01:04:31,240 --> 01:04:33,680
Speaker 1: that the Gary Jewels version was Mad World in quote

1161
01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:37,439
Speaker 1: its ultimate form, and he apparently called Gary and told

1162
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:39,560
Speaker 1: him as much. I guess Gary was driving at the

1163
01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: time and had the pool over. He was so excited,

1164
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 1: which is adorable, and fellow Tears for Fear as band

1165
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: mate Kurt Smith agreed, telling the ringer, a lot of

1166
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:49,360
Speaker 1: things we do are lyrically poignant, but set the things

1167
01:04:49,360 --> 01:04:52,480
Speaker 1: that are far more rhythmic and maybe upbeat. The original

1168
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:54,919
Speaker 1: version of Mad World was very much an up tempo song,

1169
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,760
Speaker 1: whereas Michael and Gary's version is much more in tumbe

1170
01:04:57,760 --> 01:04:59,960
Speaker 1: with the lyrics. To be honest, it is it's perfect.

1171
01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:04,560
Speaker 1: It's it's a perfect thing. But is he to blame

1172
01:05:04,680 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: for the Is this ground zero for stripped down haunting

1173
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:11,600
Speaker 1: covers of upbeat pop songs? Or is it Johnny Cash's

1174
01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: American hurt? Yeah? I wanna said Johnny Cash doing her?

1175
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:16,760
Speaker 1: Oh I mean that? Well that's not a pop song though,

1176
01:05:16,760 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 1: I guess, Yeah, that's true. Well, the American series started

1177
01:05:20,440 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: in like so he maybe maybe he did something before then,

1178
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. We might be able to

1179
01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:28,960
Speaker 1: blame Gary Jewels and my clan Drews for that. I'd

1180
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 1: rather blame Gary Jewels than Johnny Cash, to be honest,

1181
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:36,200
Speaker 1: that's fair. I think so would Gary Jewels. Yeah, it

1182
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: seems like a nice guy. Yeah. Speaking at the end

1183
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 1: of the movie, the big destructive scenes were done. On

1184
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:44,439
Speaker 1: the last two days of shooting. The production team went

1185
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:48,400
Speaker 1: to was colloquially known as the Airplane Graveyard to get

1186
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 1: an old engine turbine, which they emptied out to make

1187
01:05:50,920 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 1: it slight lettle lighter. I think I read that it

1188
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 1: was something like three thousand pounds um and then they

1189
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 1: just drop that thing onto the set. All I got

1190
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:03,080
Speaker 1: gotta make sure that everybody was on the A game

1191
01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:06,680
Speaker 1: because you're not doing that again. The lens cap was on. Guys,

1192
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 1: you're not gonna believe this. Oh and there's a disused

1193
01:06:15,760 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 1: shot from this scene. That is you can see it

1194
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:22,160
Speaker 1: in the Dais x Makina Donnie Darko documentary that shows

1195
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 1: Donny impaled by a wooden beam in his destroyed room,

1196
01:06:26,240 --> 01:06:30,520
Speaker 1: but it was deemed way too disturbing and ultimately went unused.

1197
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: They were going to literally have him on a cross

1198
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 1: that was like right through his chest. It's so gross.

1199
01:06:36,240 --> 01:06:38,120
Speaker 1: And and the look in his face. He's got that

1200
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:41,320
Speaker 1: look on his face that we discussed earlier, like it's

1201
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:44,680
Speaker 1: really creepy. It's it's best left to the imagination. Yeah, no,

1202
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:47,320
Speaker 1: it's a good thing they cut that. But sadly, Richard

1203
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:49,440
Speaker 1: Kelly is not completely happy with how the ending of

1204
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: the movie turned out. He said, the one thing I

1205
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: never got to do this still drives me crazy, is

1206
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 1: the engine going through the time portal. The digital shot

1207
01:06:56,320 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 1: of the jet engine to me, I just can't stand

1208
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:00,520
Speaker 1: looking at it. We just did not have the money.

1209
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a whole big miniature of the

1210
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: engine ripping off the plane and the interior of the

1211
01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:07,360
Speaker 1: plane ripping apart, and then the engine breaking apart and

1212
01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:10,040
Speaker 1: plumbering down through the time portal. I wanted to do

1213
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: it the way Christopher Nolan gets to do things. Maybe

1214
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: one day I will get to do that, Not after Buddy,

1215
01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: and the last day of the shoot took place at

1216
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:24,280
Speaker 1: four am, when Donnie set fire to Jim Cunningham's living room.

1217
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 1: I guess they were so low on money that they

1218
01:07:25,960 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: actually took the set for Donnie's psychiatrists office, Dr Thurman's office,

1219
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:33,520
Speaker 1: and redressed it with a giant portrait of Patrick Swayze's

1220
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 1: character in the middle, and just to make it look

1221
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:38,040
Speaker 1: like his living room. And then they just just burned

1222
01:07:38,040 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: it all, just burned it all on a back lot.

1223
01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:46,360
Speaker 1: A cathartic end to Richard Kelly's first feature film. We're

1224
01:07:46,400 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but we'll be right

1225
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 1: back with more. Too much information and just a moment

1226
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,960
Speaker 1: therezarrely enough. Considering the stature of this film, I guess

1227
01:08:05,120 --> 01:08:07,800
Speaker 1: everyone passed on it. It got its premiere at Sundance,

1228
01:08:07,840 --> 01:08:09,880
Speaker 1: I should say in two thousand one, at which point

1229
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 1: every major distributor passed on it. Uh. Richard Kelly told

1230
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 1: no film school, no one knew what to do with it.

1231
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:18,240
Speaker 1: The knock against this movie coming out of Sundance was

1232
01:08:18,280 --> 01:08:22,280
Speaker 1: that it was impossible to market, unreleasable or incoherent. It

1233
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:26,000
Speaker 1: was unique, bizarre, and disturbing. Also, it was right after

1234
01:08:26,000 --> 01:08:28,479
Speaker 1: the Columbine massacre and in the movie we have a

1235
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: teenage kid who fires a gun. That was not something

1236
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:33,560
Speaker 1: that made people feel comfortable. They were fearful that the

1237
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 1: movie would promote violence or suicide. He continued, there were

1238
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:38,679
Speaker 1: a lot of people who backed out of the room

1239
01:08:38,720 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: completely after they screened the movie, and we're like, we

1240
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:43,519
Speaker 1: don't want anything to do with this. So it left

1241
01:08:43,560 --> 01:08:47,479
Speaker 1: the festival with no distributor, which is not great. You

1242
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:50,720
Speaker 1: don't want your movie that premieres at Sundance to do that. Uh.

1243
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: And they were looking at the real possibility that this

1244
01:08:52,479 --> 01:08:57,240
Speaker 1: thing we go straight to DVD or a premier on Stars.

1245
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:02,560
Speaker 1: Cinemax was not available. But they ended up getting a

1246
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:05,360
Speaker 1: helping hand from Christopher Nolan Memento had come out in

1247
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:07,719
Speaker 1: March of two one. It was a hit, despite being

1248
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:12,360
Speaker 1: just as bizarre and disturbing as Donnie Darko, and Nolan

1249
01:09:12,479 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: loved Donnie Darko so much that he convinced the team

1250
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:18,000
Speaker 1: that distributed Memento to put Donnie Darko into theaters in

1251
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 1: October two one, and maybe also a lift from Drew Barrymore,

1252
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:26,000
Speaker 1: who might have also put some of her own more

1253
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:29,640
Speaker 1: of her own money into this man really truly the

1254
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:33,479
Speaker 1: angel of this film. We owe her so much so

1255
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:36,920
Speaker 1: that premier date you might have just perkedteriors up at

1256
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 1: it was, in fact in October two thousand one, and

1257
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:43,160
Speaker 1: uh for a trailer that literally features an airplane engine

1258
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:45,680
Speaker 1: crashing through the roof of a building, this was not

1259
01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: the kind of thing a nation wanted to turn its

1260
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:51,680
Speaker 1: healing eyes to. Mere weeks after nine eleven. There was

1261
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 1: even a minor kerfuffle ruhaha if you will, about the

1262
01:09:55,880 --> 01:09:58,559
Speaker 1: so called Arabic style font that was used in the

1263
01:09:58,560 --> 01:10:01,920
Speaker 1: title sequence, which was subsequently changed for posters going forward

1264
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:06,479
Speaker 1: from the identify this font sub creddit that could be

1265
01:10:06,479 --> 01:10:11,280
Speaker 1: either broader buns, calligrapher or flat brush typeface or possibly

1266
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:17,320
Speaker 1: Palatino m between this and the Columbine comparisons. Donnie Darka

1267
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:20,519
Speaker 1: was controversial upon its released, to say the very least,

1268
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:22,680
Speaker 1: coupled with the fact that it was released in like

1269
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:27,160
Speaker 1: fifty something theaters across the country, flopped made a hair

1270
01:10:27,320 --> 01:10:30,879
Speaker 1: over five hundred thousand dollars from its theatrical release against

1271
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:35,599
Speaker 1: its four point five million budget. Even the premier at

1272
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:38,479
Speaker 1: Hollywood's Egyptian Theater was a bit of a said from Bone,

1273
01:10:38,560 --> 01:10:40,920
Speaker 1: there was not even an open bar. Man, when your

1274
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:46,280
Speaker 1: premiere has a cash bar, that is rough. Cold Drew

1275
01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:50,160
Speaker 1: invited Charlie's Angels co star Cameron Diaz, who showed up though,

1276
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:52,599
Speaker 1: so they got that going for him. And wasn't she

1277
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:56,519
Speaker 1: in the box or South Entails. Oh yeah, you're right,

1278
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:00,600
Speaker 1: l yeah, but you know the we did start to

1279
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:04,000
Speaker 1: pick up momentum. It became popular in the midnight movie circuit,

1280
01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:07,599
Speaker 1: especially like New York's Pioneer Theater Um. It also became

1281
01:11:07,640 --> 01:11:09,439
Speaker 1: a big success when it was released a little later

1282
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:13,000
Speaker 1: in two thousand two in the UK, which fueled the

1283
01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: aforementioned popularity of Gary Jewels. Cover of Mad World, Richard

1284
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:20,599
Speaker 1: Kelly joked that the soundtrack, which is heavy on sounds

1285
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 1: of the British new wave might have helped it resonate

1286
01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:26,519
Speaker 1: a little bit better, or, as he joked, maybe British

1287
01:11:26,560 --> 01:11:28,679
Speaker 1: people are just smarter. I have the whole thing about

1288
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:32,479
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan thinking that Americans are like dumb idiots. That's why,

1289
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:34,960
Speaker 1: like all the big twists in his movies are so

1290
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 1: like heavy handed, flat footed. He's like, they don't really

1291
01:11:39,080 --> 01:11:41,120
Speaker 1: get it over there. But the biggest role in the

1292
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:44,800
Speaker 1: film's late blooming success was the DVD sales. It became

1293
01:11:44,840 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 1: a cult movie across college dorm rooms and ultimately sold

1294
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:51,880
Speaker 1: upwards of ten million in home release, which more than

1295
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:55,559
Speaker 1: made up for that atrocious box office half a million

1296
01:11:55,600 --> 01:12:00,720
Speaker 1: dollars is incredibly bad. Yeah, I mean, I think the

1297
01:12:00,760 --> 01:12:04,720
Speaker 1: big factor in its uh DVD sales was just its rewatchability.

1298
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:06,120
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I first saw it at

1299
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:08,640
Speaker 1: my friend's house and had my mind completely blown, and

1300
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:10,759
Speaker 1: immediately went out and bought it so I could watch

1301
01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:13,200
Speaker 1: it at home again and try to figure it all out.

1302
01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that was probably an experience with a

1303
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:17,599
Speaker 1: lot of people. Do. Yeah, I mean that was ours.

1304
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 1: I mentioned A bunch of those kids I went to

1305
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:22,160
Speaker 1: college with will grew up outside of Richmond and mid Lothian.

1306
01:12:22,280 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 1: So yeah, this movie got a lot of my eyelege

1307
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:26,600
Speaker 1: in college. And this brings us to a section of

1308
01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:28,680
Speaker 1: the show that I like to call, what the hell

1309
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:31,760
Speaker 1: does this movie mean? The short answer, no one knows.

1310
01:12:32,720 --> 01:12:35,040
Speaker 1: At the film's rap party, both Jake, Joean Hall, and

1311
01:12:35,040 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 1: Seth Rogan confessed to each other that they had no

1312
01:12:37,160 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: idea what this movie was about. During its fifteenth anniversary, Jake, Joe,

1313
01:12:41,479 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 1: and All give an interview to Entertainment Tonight, calling Donnie

1314
01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:48,160
Speaker 1: Darko quote an interesting story about growing up, and that's

1315
01:12:48,160 --> 01:12:52,000
Speaker 1: about as close as he gets to any sort of definition. Rogeriebert,

1316
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:54,720
Speaker 1: who I believe knows everything or knew everything, said that

1317
01:12:54,800 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 1: even if he could tell folks what Donnie Darko was about,

1318
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:00,639
Speaker 1: he wasn't confident that he would be right. And even

1319
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:04,880
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly, who wrote interacted this, doesn't know exactly whether

1320
01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: the movie depicts Donnie's dreams or if it takes place

1321
01:13:08,120 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: in an alternate plane of existence. He said, quote, I

1322
01:13:11,040 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 1: think that ultimately both of these things could be true.

1323
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:15,880
Speaker 1: I try not to focus on fan theories, though, because

1324
01:13:15,920 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: I have my own. There's so much going on in

1325
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:19,960
Speaker 1: this movie, and so many Easter eggs hidden in it.

1326
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:21,840
Speaker 1: A lot are kind of staring you in the face,

1327
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:23,960
Speaker 1: but you don't realize what you're looking at. Things that

1328
01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:26,800
Speaker 1: people probably still haven't figured out that maybe I've figured out.

1329
01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 1: I've lived with it now for twenty years, and I'm

1330
01:13:29,040 --> 01:13:31,479
Speaker 1: trying to constantly look at it with fresh eyes, but

1331
01:13:31,520 --> 01:13:33,880
Speaker 1: also as an analyst, kind of like my dad was

1332
01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:36,439
Speaker 1: a scientist, and that's a scientist. Like we talked about earlier,

1333
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:39,479
Speaker 1: the fact that the right director isn't exactly clear on

1334
01:13:39,479 --> 01:13:41,240
Speaker 1: what this movie is about should really let the rest

1335
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:44,320
Speaker 1: of us off the hook. Uh Kelly released a director's

1336
01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:46,519
Speaker 1: cut version of the movie in two thousand and four,

1337
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:49,559
Speaker 1: with an additional twenty one minutes added, as well as

1338
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:52,400
Speaker 1: pages from the fictional book that Donnie reads in the movie,

1339
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: The Philosophy of Time Travel, supposedly written by the elderly

1340
01:13:56,040 --> 01:13:58,639
Speaker 1: woman in the film nicknamed Grandma Death, the woman who

1341
01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:01,840
Speaker 1: crosses the street every day to checker mailboxes if anything came,

1342
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:05,800
Speaker 1: and these added scenes hint at Donnie's telekinetic powers and

1343
01:14:05,840 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 1: suggests that he's destined to save humanity. Some feel that

1344
01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:12,240
Speaker 1: this extra footage adds some clarity to the more confusing

1345
01:14:12,280 --> 01:14:16,200
Speaker 1: scenes in the movie, others don't. Kelly also expanded the

1346
01:14:16,240 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 1: world of film into an interactive website that features all

1347
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:22,560
Speaker 1: sorts of additional reading, including full versions of this fictitious

1348
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:26,439
Speaker 1: philosophy of time travel book and all. This kind of

1349
01:14:26,479 --> 01:14:32,000
Speaker 1: extra homework has fascinated some fans and also annoyed others,

1350
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:34,839
Speaker 1: who basically argue that you shouldn't have to do homework

1351
01:14:34,880 --> 01:14:37,960
Speaker 1: to fully comprehend the director's vision and the writer. Andy

1352
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:41,200
Speaker 1: Crump wrote an article for Inverse last year called twenty

1353
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:44,719
Speaker 1: years Ago, Donnie Darko ruined sci Fi with one tedious trick,

1354
01:14:45,280 --> 01:14:47,519
Speaker 1: and in this piece he writes, released twenty years ago

1355
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:50,799
Speaker 1: in October twenty six, two thousand one, Donnie Darko defined

1356
01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:53,120
Speaker 1: cinema for the generation coming up through high school and

1357
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:57,479
Speaker 1: its release by mistaken obfuscation for death. Now return to

1358
01:14:57,520 --> 01:15:00,519
Speaker 1: our current cinematic moment, The Rise of sky Walker, the

1359
01:15:00,560 --> 01:15:04,160
Speaker 1: embarrassing capstone of j j Abrams Star Wars sequel trilogy,

1360
01:15:04,360 --> 01:15:07,519
Speaker 1: which demands that its viewers read Ray Carlson's novelization to

1361
01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:10,920
Speaker 1: learn how Emperor palpatine last scene plunging down a reactor

1362
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:13,840
Speaker 1: cheft in Return of the Jedi somehow survived to serve

1363
01:15:13,880 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 1: as the antagonist a new Meanwhile, it's become impossible to

1364
01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:20,040
Speaker 1: watch the latest marvel What's It without revisiting half a

1365
01:15:20,040 --> 01:15:24,200
Speaker 1: dozen movies and now a six hour miniseries beforehand. That

1366
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:27,040
Speaker 1: was interesting. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that

1367
01:15:27,160 --> 01:15:30,960
Speaker 1: necessarily Yeah, I guess he's right. There's a there is

1368
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:34,000
Speaker 1: a line in Rise of Skywalker where Oscar Isaac's character

1369
01:15:34,080 --> 01:15:39,120
Speaker 1: literally says somehow Palpatine has returned. So I don't think

1370
01:15:39,160 --> 01:15:41,200
Speaker 1: that was always planned that it would be revealed in

1371
01:15:41,200 --> 01:15:44,360
Speaker 1: a novelization. I think it was like they didn't have

1372
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:46,960
Speaker 1: any idea as they were shooting it and then made

1373
01:15:46,960 --> 01:15:48,720
Speaker 1: the It was like J. J. Abrams called the guy

1374
01:15:48,760 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 1: writing the book. It was like, you gotta, buddy, you

1375
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:56,640
Speaker 1: gotta help me out of this one. But now we

1376
01:15:56,720 --> 01:16:00,760
Speaker 1: must arrive at Heigel's fan theory corner. Oh yes, Oh,

1377
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:03,120
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this. This is I haven't read

1378
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:05,440
Speaker 1: any This is all surprised to me, so I'm extremely

1379
01:16:05,439 --> 01:16:08,120
Speaker 1: excited what you're about to share. Richard Kelly has advised

1380
01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:10,880
Speaker 1: people against going too deep on Donnie Darko. He told Vice,

1381
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:13,360
Speaker 1: I try not to go down the internet rabbit hole. Hey,

1382
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:16,920
Speaker 1: on anything too much, because I don't think that's healthy.

1383
01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:20,000
Speaker 1: The internet can consume us all that's rich of him.

1384
01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:22,480
Speaker 1: He launched a website to go along with this film.

1385
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:27,320
Speaker 1: But here we go. Let's run down the theories. Okay,

1386
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:30,600
Speaker 1: the classic Donnie was dead the whole time, which is

1387
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:33,000
Speaker 1: sort of a lot of the aforementioned Jacob's Ladder and

1388
01:16:33,160 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: occurrence at Oult Creek Bridge famous short story spoiler alert

1389
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:40,160
Speaker 1: for decades old pieces of media famous for their twists.

1390
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:42,559
Speaker 1: The idea there is that Donnie dies at the beginning

1391
01:16:42,560 --> 01:16:45,080
Speaker 1: of the movie, and the entire plot is him either

1392
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:47,439
Speaker 1: living as a sort of ghost or in his like

1393
01:16:47,600 --> 01:16:50,639
Speaker 1: dying moments, seeing all of the events of the film

1394
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 1: unfold uh and using the God's Channel or the which

1395
01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:57,320
Speaker 1: are the liquid spear kind of things to experience what

1396
01:16:57,439 --> 01:17:00,839
Speaker 1: his life might have been like before he allily accepts

1397
01:17:00,840 --> 01:17:04,800
Speaker 1: his own fate and moves on. Number two. Donnie is

1398
01:17:04,800 --> 01:17:07,040
Speaker 1: stuck in a time loop like Groundhog Day and will

1399
01:17:07,040 --> 01:17:09,600
Speaker 1: continue to experience the same twenty eight days over and

1400
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:15,519
Speaker 1: over again, horrifying. Donnie is a schizophrenic and the entire

1401
01:17:15,560 --> 01:17:19,679
Speaker 1: movie is a manifestation of his mental illness. That's interesting,

1402
01:17:19,760 --> 01:17:22,160
Speaker 1: I saw and I wish I could remember where I

1403
01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:25,559
Speaker 1: read this, but I read somebody's talking about how this

1404
01:17:25,640 --> 01:17:29,400
Speaker 1: movie was really an incredibly apt description of mental illness,

1405
01:17:29,439 --> 01:17:31,960
Speaker 1: and the world is wrong and only Donnie can fix it.

1406
01:17:32,240 --> 01:17:34,240
Speaker 1: He's alone with the weight of the literal world and

1407
01:17:34,320 --> 01:17:37,040
Speaker 1: his shoulders. Time is running out. There's something wrong and

1408
01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:38,599
Speaker 1: he asked to fix it, but he doesn't know what

1409
01:17:38,640 --> 01:17:41,599
Speaker 1: it is, let alone how to change it. That's mental illness.

1410
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:44,960
Speaker 1: That's exactly how it feels. That is from an article

1411
01:17:45,160 --> 01:17:49,200
Speaker 1: in nrdiced called does Donnie Darko Superpower hold up? In?

1412
01:17:50,240 --> 01:17:53,320
Speaker 1: My personal favorite one is that Donnie Darko is Jesus

1413
01:17:53,840 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 1: Um much like cool Hand Luke and the Chronicles of Narnia.

1414
01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:00,559
Speaker 1: He sacrifices himself for the good of the world. And

1415
01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:02,879
Speaker 1: there are a couple of aspects to this that actually

1416
01:18:02,960 --> 01:18:05,960
Speaker 1: lend credence to this theory. There's the fact that Richard

1417
01:18:06,000 --> 01:18:08,720
Speaker 1: Kelly name dropped the Last Temptation of Christ in one

1418
01:18:08,720 --> 01:18:11,000
Speaker 1: of those interviews. As we covered earlier, it's on the

1419
01:18:11,040 --> 01:18:15,360
Speaker 1: Marquis under under the Evil Dead And oh yeah, right,

1420
01:18:15,400 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: I didn't even think of that when you said it earlier.

1421
01:18:17,800 --> 01:18:20,759
Speaker 1: That film also spoilers for decades old piece of media

1422
01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:22,800
Speaker 1: famous for its twist. It has this whole scene that

1423
01:18:22,880 --> 01:18:25,800
Speaker 1: was very controversial about Jesus actually getting down off the

1424
01:18:25,800 --> 01:18:28,479
Speaker 1: cross and choosing to marry Mary Magdalen and have kids

1425
01:18:28,479 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 1: and live the rest of his life out and then

1426
01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:32,640
Speaker 1: that is revealed to have been just a vision that

1427
01:18:32,680 --> 01:18:35,320
Speaker 1: he had while on the cross. And this also ties

1428
01:18:35,439 --> 01:18:39,920
Speaker 1: into the whole Easter theme with Frank. And in this theory,

1429
01:18:40,439 --> 01:18:43,920
Speaker 1: Frank is God because he is pushing Donnie to fulfill

1430
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:48,840
Speaker 1: his destiny as the sacrificial lamb. And there's this line

1431
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:51,200
Speaker 1: of evidence about there that people pointed to it. Donnie

1432
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:54,400
Speaker 1: asks Noah Wiley's character if you can find portals in

1433
01:18:54,439 --> 01:18:58,439
Speaker 1: the real world, and Noah Wiley's character says highly unlikely.

1434
01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:01,040
Speaker 1: That would take an act of God. And then just

1435
01:19:01,120 --> 01:19:03,640
Speaker 1: a few scene later, Frank opens a portal in the

1436
01:19:03,680 --> 01:19:07,040
Speaker 1: movie theater. Uh. There is the classic theory it was

1437
01:19:07,080 --> 01:19:11,400
Speaker 1: all a dream, to which I say, Uh, Donny, now

1438
01:19:11,560 --> 01:19:13,800
Speaker 1: that another theory Donnie is I think this is the

1439
01:19:13,840 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 1: closest to what Kelly may have actually been getting at,

1440
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:18,519
Speaker 1: because I saw this on Reddit a couple of times,

1441
01:19:18,520 --> 01:19:20,439
Speaker 1: and people really seem to go to bad for it.

1442
01:19:20,880 --> 01:19:24,959
Speaker 1: Donnie is a cautionary avatar created in a tangent universe

1443
01:19:24,960 --> 01:19:28,479
Speaker 1: who has to die in order to restore order to ours,

1444
01:19:28,960 --> 01:19:31,559
Speaker 1: and the guy outlining this on Reddit pinned that to

1445
01:19:31,720 --> 01:19:34,559
Speaker 1: the ROBERTA. Sparrow book, which you can actually read chunks of.

1446
01:19:34,720 --> 01:19:37,559
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing here, Grandma. That's the grandmo Death book. The

1447
01:19:37,640 --> 01:19:41,080
Speaker 1: philosophy of time travel. Yes. Uh. When things start to

1448
01:19:41,120 --> 01:19:43,880
Speaker 1: stray too far from the true path of the universe,

1449
01:19:44,000 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: or I guess the correct path of ours, then a

1450
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:49,479
Speaker 1: tangent universe is created. This is brought about by an

1451
01:19:49,520 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 1: object described as ROBERTA. Sparrow as the artifact, which in

1452
01:19:53,439 --> 01:19:56,080
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko is the plane engine which draws in the

1453
01:19:56,200 --> 01:20:00,240
Speaker 1: quote living character Donnie to find out it's or gin

1454
01:20:00,560 --> 01:20:02,680
Speaker 1: and once he finds out the origin, to act on

1455
01:20:02,720 --> 01:20:05,760
Speaker 1: it and reunite the universes or kill the tangent one,

1456
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:08,519
Speaker 1: or whatever other aspects that are drawn from that book.

1457
01:20:08,560 --> 01:20:11,840
Speaker 1: There's a term called the manipulated living, who are people

1458
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:16,760
Speaker 1: that the living character can manipulate or you interact with

1459
01:20:16,880 --> 01:20:20,280
Speaker 1: or whatever. That's Gretchen, whose role is to bring Donnie

1460
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:22,519
Speaker 1: to the point where he has to return to this universe.

1461
01:20:22,640 --> 01:20:26,160
Speaker 1: Gentle Malone's character. And then the manipulated dead is also

1462
01:20:26,200 --> 01:20:28,320
Speaker 1: a thing, and that's Frank, who dies in the Tangent

1463
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:31,800
Speaker 1: universe and now figures into Donnie's path to reunite the

1464
01:20:31,840 --> 01:20:35,559
Speaker 1: universe is and that is supposedly why Donnie writes the

1465
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: phrase he made me do. It is not referring to

1466
01:20:37,479 --> 01:20:41,439
Speaker 1: Jim Cunningham as some people have said. He's referring to Frank. Uh.

1467
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:49,599
Speaker 1: Donnie is Neo from the matrix, now Franks, Morpheus, Grandma

1468
01:20:49,640 --> 01:20:52,400
Speaker 1: death is a sentient program like the Oracle, and Gretchen

1469
01:20:52,560 --> 01:20:59,679
Speaker 1: is Trinity, anything anything there. Um. This isn't really a theory,

1470
01:20:59,720 --> 01:21:02,719
Speaker 1: but it's uh, it's funny. It's you know, the weather

1471
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:05,320
Speaker 1: on the eights as I'm calling it. The movie takes

1472
01:21:05,360 --> 01:21:07,960
Speaker 1: place in Frank tells Donnie the world will end in

1473
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:10,719
Speaker 1: twenty eight days, six hours, forty two minutes, and twelve seconds,

1474
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:13,639
Speaker 1: and if you add those numbers, the sum is eighty eight.

1475
01:21:14,360 --> 01:21:17,240
Speaker 1: When Samantha asks when she can have kids, Donnie says

1476
01:21:17,280 --> 01:21:20,240
Speaker 1: not until eighth grade. Donnie mentions to his therapist his

1477
01:21:20,280 --> 01:21:22,720
Speaker 1: dog died when he was eight. Donnie jokes about the

1478
01:21:22,720 --> 01:21:25,320
Speaker 1: Doloran and back to the future, the time travel powers

1479
01:21:25,439 --> 01:21:28,240
Speaker 1: of which you remember kick in at eighty eight miles

1480
01:21:28,280 --> 01:21:30,479
Speaker 1: per hour at the point at which you will see

1481
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:34,920
Speaker 1: some serious According to the television report of the fire,

1482
01:21:35,080 --> 01:21:39,360
Speaker 1: Jim Cunningham's house was extinguished sometime after eight o'clock. The

1483
01:21:39,400 --> 01:21:43,519
Speaker 1: climax of Donnie Dark occurs one week before the presidential election,

1484
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:48,320
Speaker 1: which saw George Bush elected on November eight. Movie was

1485
01:21:48,320 --> 01:21:50,200
Speaker 1: shot in twenty eight days. There are twenty eight scenes

1486
01:21:50,200 --> 01:21:52,320
Speaker 1: and the director's cut of this movie. None of this

1487
01:21:52,520 --> 01:21:55,479
Speaker 1: actually explains what's going on in the movie. It's just

1488
01:21:55,560 --> 01:21:58,800
Speaker 1: a recurring easter rig. The film is an elaborate Here's

1489
01:21:58,800 --> 01:22:01,120
Speaker 1: another one. The film is an elab are parable against

1490
01:22:01,200 --> 01:22:04,080
Speaker 1: drunk driving, hence the bit about Mothers against Drunk Driving,

1491
01:22:04,080 --> 01:22:07,439
Speaker 1: the organization that sponsors the festival in the film. And

1492
01:22:07,479 --> 01:22:10,200
Speaker 1: Frank was since he was driving out to get more beer,

1493
01:22:10,400 --> 01:22:14,320
Speaker 1: presumably drunk when he kills Gretchen. A lot to chew on, folks.

1494
01:22:14,600 --> 01:22:18,040
Speaker 1: Good lord. Uh. And now, as this episode begins to

1495
01:22:18,160 --> 01:22:22,160
Speaker 1: edge into the two hour mark, here's Richard Kelly debunking

1496
01:22:22,200 --> 01:22:25,320
Speaker 1: these theories in Enemy in two thousand and sixteen. For

1497
01:22:25,360 --> 01:22:27,960
Speaker 1: the theory that Donnie was dead all along, quote, I

1498
01:22:28,000 --> 01:22:29,760
Speaker 1: don't have an answer to that question. I think the

1499
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:32,640
Speaker 1: film argues that life and death can perhaps coexist. The

1500
01:22:32,680 --> 01:22:36,720
Speaker 1: time is not necessarily a purely linear thing. Okay, it

1501
01:22:36,880 --> 01:22:40,440
Speaker 1: was Donnie hallucinating. I don't have an absolute definition of hallucination.

1502
01:22:40,800 --> 01:22:42,600
Speaker 1: I believe everything in the film was real to a

1503
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:47,120
Speaker 1: certain extent, But what is the nature of reality? I

1504
01:22:49,439 --> 01:22:51,560
Speaker 1: this guy really starts to piss me off at a

1505
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:54,400
Speaker 1: certain point with this. It's like, dude, just say you

1506
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:59,160
Speaker 1: were baked, Like, honestly, people are putting in so much

1507
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:01,840
Speaker 1: work here and you're just like, I don't know, man, Like,

1508
01:23:01,880 --> 01:23:04,000
Speaker 1: what even is real? I had a guy in a

1509
01:23:04,040 --> 01:23:09,160
Speaker 1: filmmaking class who looked up after everybody taking a beat

1510
01:23:09,320 --> 01:23:13,759
Speaker 1: after reading somebody's script and said, uh, seemingly proposed of nothing?

1511
01:23:14,200 --> 01:23:18,360
Speaker 1: Do you dream of infinity? Well, it gets even worse

1512
01:23:19,040 --> 01:23:21,920
Speaker 1: for the theory that the whole movie was a dream.

1513
01:23:22,160 --> 01:23:27,640
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly responded by saying life could be a dream.

1514
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:31,920
Speaker 1: That bad, that's awful. The theory that the film was

1515
01:23:32,000 --> 01:23:35,759
Speaker 1: essentially an elaborate lesson against drunk driving. I'm very against

1516
01:23:35,840 --> 01:23:37,800
Speaker 1: drunk driving, and if people want to take it that way,

1517
01:23:37,840 --> 01:23:41,760
Speaker 1: I hope people call an uber. All right, Sure, not

1518
01:23:41,920 --> 01:23:45,120
Speaker 1: great theory gets a not great answer, but okay, And finally,

1519
01:23:45,160 --> 01:23:49,080
Speaker 1: do Frank and the jet engine exists in a tangent universe? Well,

1520
01:23:49,120 --> 01:23:51,600
Speaker 1: the tangent universe is certainly the first chapter from the

1521
01:23:51,600 --> 01:23:54,280
Speaker 1: prologue of the philosophy of time travel, so I believe

1522
01:23:54,280 --> 01:23:56,040
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to that book than meet c I.

1523
01:23:56,320 --> 01:23:59,160
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly says, I tend to believe that Roberto Sparrow

1524
01:23:59,320 --> 01:24:04,320
Speaker 1: was onto something. And then Richard Kelly finally gets a

1525
01:24:04,360 --> 01:24:08,639
Speaker 1: little more specific. For the twentieth anniversary, he told Rolling Stone,

1526
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:10,240
Speaker 1: I look at the events in the film as a

1527
01:24:10,280 --> 01:24:13,800
Speaker 1: story of divine and supernatural intervention where a select group

1528
01:24:13,800 --> 01:24:15,960
Speaker 1: of characters happen to be living in the proximity of

1529
01:24:16,000 --> 01:24:18,960
Speaker 1: the science fiction event. I don't want to spoil too much,

1530
01:24:19,120 --> 01:24:20,800
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more to the story if you

1531
01:24:20,840 --> 01:24:23,040
Speaker 1: look at it both through a prism of science fiction

1532
01:24:23,360 --> 01:24:26,320
Speaker 1: and the logical reaction to the events presented. He continued.

1533
01:24:26,960 --> 01:24:29,360
Speaker 1: That is not to take away any interpretation that people

1534
01:24:29,400 --> 01:24:31,559
Speaker 1: have of the film, which I think is valid because

1535
01:24:31,560 --> 01:24:33,960
Speaker 1: the way it's engineered, you can have any interpretation you

1536
01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:36,559
Speaker 1: want of the first of the movie. But then he finished,

1537
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:38,840
Speaker 1: in my mind, the last ten percent of the movie

1538
01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 1: is the reality of what carries forward. I didn't realize

1539
01:24:42,200 --> 01:24:43,960
Speaker 1: the divine I mean, I guess the divine indurtention thing.

1540
01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:46,640
Speaker 1: There's another easter egg. If the making of it is

1541
01:24:46,680 --> 01:24:52,360
Speaker 1: called d s x X mana meaning God from the machine,

1542
01:24:52,720 --> 01:24:54,600
Speaker 1: is not that a screenwriting term or is it just

1543
01:24:54,680 --> 01:24:57,719
Speaker 1: literary in general? I think it's literary in general, meaning

1544
01:24:57,760 --> 01:25:01,639
Speaker 1: like the plots basically resolved by God swooping in and

1545
01:25:01,760 --> 01:25:05,240
Speaker 1: giving you an unsuspected conclusion that solves all your problems.

1546
01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:09,920
Speaker 1: Pucci went back to his home planet. Uh, my personal

1547
01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:13,200
Speaker 1: favorite comes from the Hard Times UH satire site. The

1548
01:25:13,200 --> 01:25:16,200
Speaker 1: headline these Donnie Darko fan theories won't change the fact

1549
01:25:16,200 --> 01:25:23,680
Speaker 1: that you're thirty and need to get your together. Amazing. Um,

1550
01:25:23,760 --> 01:25:26,160
Speaker 1: all of this doesn't get into the unauthorized sequel of

1551
01:25:26,200 --> 01:25:29,479
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko, which I had no idea existed until researching

1552
01:25:29,479 --> 01:25:31,880
Speaker 1: it for this podcast. And there's a good reason I

1553
01:25:31,880 --> 01:25:34,559
Speaker 1: had no idea about this. Richard Kelly basically disowned it

1554
01:25:34,600 --> 01:25:36,479
Speaker 1: and had nothing to do with it. I've never seen it,

1555
01:25:36,520 --> 01:25:38,760
Speaker 1: he told n Emmy in the fan theory interview from

1556
01:25:38,880 --> 01:25:42,880
Speaker 1: up Top, from adding it was horribly violating, it was

1557
01:25:42,920 --> 01:25:45,360
Speaker 1: incredibly painful, to think about what they were doing. It

1558
01:25:45,479 --> 01:25:49,080
Speaker 1: made me very angry, filled with rage. Tell us what

1559
01:25:49,160 --> 01:25:52,880
Speaker 1: filled Richard Kelly with rage? Jordan's Well. It came out

1560
01:25:52,920 --> 01:25:56,320
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine and it was called s Darkoh, which,

1561
01:25:56,320 --> 01:26:01,360
Speaker 1: according to the Wikipedia pages pronounced s dot dark that.

1562
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,480
Speaker 1: I'm not just out of spite and out of allegiance

1563
01:26:05,520 --> 01:26:08,360
Speaker 1: to Richard Kelly, who has also pissed me off multiple

1564
01:26:08,360 --> 01:26:10,720
Speaker 1: times in this episode. I'm not calling it by that

1565
01:26:10,880 --> 01:26:14,840
Speaker 1: ridiculous way. Um. Anyway, This followed Donny Dark's younger sister,

1566
01:26:14,880 --> 01:26:18,680
Speaker 1: Samantha the Dancer and the Sparkle Motion Dance Troupe. The

1567
01:26:18,680 --> 01:26:22,760
Speaker 1: original asterisk. Devey Chase was actually actually showed up for

1568
01:26:22,800 --> 01:26:24,920
Speaker 1: this movie, but she was basically the only tidy the

1569
01:26:24,960 --> 01:26:29,000
Speaker 1: original Donnie Darko. The plot is as follows. Samantha Darko

1570
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:31,240
Speaker 1: is now a teenager and embarking on a road trip

1571
01:26:31,280 --> 01:26:33,479
Speaker 1: with her friend Corey. They end up in a small

1572
01:26:33,520 --> 01:26:37,759
Speaker 1: town in Utah, which is filled with various uh freaky people.

1573
01:26:38,360 --> 01:26:42,000
Speaker 1: Uh that damn Bunny comes back. There's elements of time

1574
01:26:42,040 --> 01:26:45,240
Speaker 1: travel and the familiar tropes of the original movie, but

1575
01:26:45,960 --> 01:26:52,200
Speaker 1: lacked the heart, lacked Richard Kelly's pathological Yeah. The whole

1576
01:26:52,240 --> 01:26:56,120
Speaker 1: movie gigantic miss Richard Kelly likened it to a fairy

1577
01:26:56,160 --> 01:26:58,639
Speaker 1: tale as opposed to his original film, which he described

1578
01:26:58,720 --> 01:27:02,280
Speaker 1: as more like a graphic novel, and S Darko was

1579
01:27:02,360 --> 01:27:05,439
Speaker 1: not well received, especially when word got out that the

1580
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:09,160
Speaker 1: mind behind the original Richard Kelly, was not happy about this,

1581
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:11,559
Speaker 1: which led to something of a backlash from Donny Darko's

1582
01:27:11,560 --> 01:27:13,840
Speaker 1: fervent fan base. And you gotta feel bad for the

1583
01:27:13,880 --> 01:27:15,680
Speaker 1: director of S Darko, a guy by the name of

1584
01:27:15,720 --> 01:27:18,479
Speaker 1: Chris Fisher, because he basically took this project on because

1585
01:27:18,479 --> 01:27:21,559
Speaker 1: he was a huge fan of the original, which just

1586
01:27:21,640 --> 01:27:25,400
Speaker 1: serves as yet another lesson to Hollywood. Just leave stuff alone,

1587
01:27:25,600 --> 01:27:29,800
Speaker 1: just please. Yeah, he's uh since gone on to do

1588
01:27:29,840 --> 01:27:34,400
Speaker 1: a lot of network television. That's funny. How two that's

1589
01:27:34,400 --> 01:27:40,200
Speaker 1: code for flop. He had put out the pass. But

1590
01:27:40,240 --> 01:27:42,639
Speaker 1: what about the possibility of a good sequel with Richard

1591
01:27:42,720 --> 01:27:47,439
Speaker 1: Kelly and the original team back on board? Uh, little dicey.

1592
01:27:48,200 --> 01:27:50,679
Speaker 1: Back in two Thousive, Richard Kelly suggested that he would

1593
01:27:50,720 --> 01:27:53,320
Speaker 1: never make a sequel because it would destroy the integrity

1594
01:27:53,400 --> 01:27:57,360
Speaker 1: of his original movie. That was before a sequel was

1595
01:27:57,400 --> 01:28:00,960
Speaker 1: released and didn't destroy the integrity of his original movie

1596
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:04,360
Speaker 1: but he since reversed his stance on making a sequel,

1597
01:28:04,479 --> 01:28:08,679
Speaker 1: but for once is cowed by a more practical concern.

1598
01:28:09,200 --> 01:28:11,760
Speaker 1: He doesn't own the rights to Donnie Darko, telling no

1599
01:28:11,880 --> 01:28:14,280
Speaker 1: film school had to relinquish them when I was twenty

1600
01:28:14,280 --> 01:28:16,160
Speaker 1: four years old when I signed a deal to get

1601
01:28:16,200 --> 01:28:18,280
Speaker 1: to direct the film. It would be very upsetting to

1602
01:28:18,320 --> 01:28:20,920
Speaker 1: see someone else remake and reboot this film. I don't

1603
01:28:20,920 --> 01:28:22,680
Speaker 1: want anything to happen that's going to be done for

1604
01:28:22,720 --> 01:28:25,559
Speaker 1: the wrong reasons or outside my control. That's why I

1605
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:27,519
Speaker 1: have to keep an open mind to doing something new

1606
01:28:27,560 --> 01:28:30,880
Speaker 1: with it that's artful and fresh and not allowing conformity

1607
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:33,720
Speaker 1: to win. I'm not the world's biggest film buff, but

1608
01:28:33,840 --> 01:28:36,639
Speaker 1: I kind of lost tracker. Richard Kelly. I done Feaver

1609
01:28:36,720 --> 01:28:39,040
Speaker 1: blew Over in the mid two thousand's, and it sounds

1610
01:28:39,080 --> 01:28:41,120
Speaker 1: like that's kind of a good thing. His follow up

1611
01:28:41,200 --> 01:28:45,200
Speaker 1: was two thousands six is Southland Tails, which to me

1612
01:28:45,320 --> 01:28:49,120
Speaker 1: seems packed with people who seemed big at the time

1613
01:28:49,160 --> 01:28:52,840
Speaker 1: because they were still coasting on their nineties fame and uh,

1614
01:28:53,000 --> 01:28:55,920
Speaker 1: this movie was kind of where their career inertia ran out.

1615
01:28:57,120 --> 01:29:00,559
Speaker 1: Sean William Scott, a k A. Stiffler Sarah mah L Geller,

1616
01:29:01,040 --> 01:29:05,200
Speaker 1: Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, and Dwayne the Rock Johnson with

1617
01:29:05,320 --> 01:29:09,640
Speaker 1: music by Moby Give me a thousand guesses. And I

1618
01:29:09,720 --> 01:29:11,800
Speaker 1: never would have imagined that Richard Kelly's follow up to

1619
01:29:11,840 --> 01:29:17,519
Speaker 1: Donny Darko would have started the rock Um yeah, strange.

1620
01:29:17,760 --> 01:29:19,560
Speaker 1: I would see even strangers the fact that he's the

1621
01:29:19,600 --> 01:29:22,080
Speaker 1: biggest star out of all of them at this point

1622
01:29:22,760 --> 01:29:25,920
Speaker 1: years later, it's fair. Yeah, even j T has dropped out.

1623
01:29:27,240 --> 01:29:29,680
Speaker 1: I have not seen this movie. I've never heard of

1624
01:29:29,720 --> 01:29:32,760
Speaker 1: this movie before today. Wikipedia tells me that it's a

1625
01:29:32,800 --> 01:29:38,240
Speaker 1: satire on the military industrial complex and the entertainment industry. Hey,

1626
01:29:38,600 --> 01:29:40,439
Speaker 1: I just can't believe. I got to show you the

1627
01:29:40,520 --> 01:29:44,000
Speaker 1: video of Justin Timberlake doing the Killer's lip sync. That

1628
01:29:44,120 --> 01:29:47,559
Speaker 1: movie grinds to a halt, so that Justin Timberlake can

1629
01:29:47,600 --> 01:29:52,439
Speaker 1: lip sync another band song directly into the camera. I

1630
01:29:52,479 --> 01:29:54,400
Speaker 1: mean maybe he thought it would work like the Hill

1631
01:29:54,400 --> 01:29:58,080
Speaker 1: Over Heels montage. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, dude.

1632
01:30:00,040 --> 01:30:05,719
Speaker 1: And so you've seen this once? That was any anything

1633
01:30:05,760 --> 01:30:10,080
Speaker 1: you care to share it is? I mean, I know, No,

1634
01:30:10,720 --> 01:30:13,040
Speaker 1: That's that's what I remember the most about it. I

1635
01:30:13,120 --> 01:30:16,560
Speaker 1: think admirably, the rock is actually like playing against type.

1636
01:30:16,600 --> 01:30:19,000
Speaker 1: Like he's like very He's actually supposed to be like

1637
01:30:19,080 --> 01:30:23,200
Speaker 1: very neurotic and weird in the movie. Um but yeah, man,

1638
01:30:23,479 --> 01:30:26,720
Speaker 1: just a misbegotten film. I don't even remember what it

1639
01:30:26,760 --> 01:30:29,280
Speaker 1: was trying to get across. Of course, it has its defenders.

1640
01:30:29,320 --> 01:30:31,439
Speaker 1: It's the Internet. The certainty that someone will come out

1641
01:30:31,479 --> 01:30:35,960
Speaker 1: of the woodwork to defend something is one. You know. Um,

1642
01:30:36,520 --> 01:30:38,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I I know we're crunched for time, but

1643
01:30:38,680 --> 01:30:40,479
Speaker 1: I want to get into a little bit of this because,

1644
01:30:40,640 --> 01:30:44,040
Speaker 1: in classic Richard Kelly fashion, Southland Tales was not a

1645
01:30:44,080 --> 01:30:47,120
Speaker 1: simple popcorn flick. It was initially planned to be a

1646
01:30:47,280 --> 01:30:51,200
Speaker 1: nine part interactive experience, with the first six parts published

1647
01:30:51,240 --> 01:30:55,160
Speaker 1: in six separate one hundred page graphic novels. Have in

1648
01:30:55,200 --> 01:30:57,920
Speaker 1: the film itself would comprise the final three parts of

1649
01:30:57,960 --> 01:31:02,439
Speaker 1: this quote experience, and much like Donnie Darko, there was

1650
01:31:02,439 --> 01:31:05,360
Speaker 1: a website launched to intertwine the graphic novels with the

1651
01:31:05,360 --> 01:31:09,280
Speaker 1: film itself. However, Richard Kelly was writing these graphic novels

1652
01:31:09,280 --> 01:31:11,639
Speaker 1: in the middle of directing the movie, which he said,

1653
01:31:11,720 --> 01:31:14,640
Speaker 1: quote pushed me to the edge of my own sanity,

1654
01:31:14,720 --> 01:31:16,680
Speaker 1: and ultimately he decided to cut it down the just

1655
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:20,599
Speaker 1: three graphic novels instead of six, and the film premiered

1656
01:31:20,600 --> 01:31:23,000
Speaker 1: with the can Film Festival in two thousand and six.

1657
01:31:23,520 --> 01:31:26,400
Speaker 1: You know, Richard Kelly's big follow up to Donnie Darko

1658
01:31:26,520 --> 01:31:31,280
Speaker 1: is a lot of expectations. It was just eviscerated. Uh.

1659
01:31:31,400 --> 01:31:34,679
Speaker 1: Salon dot Com critic Andrew Here called the con cut

1660
01:31:35,080 --> 01:31:39,439
Speaker 1: quote about the biggest ugliest mess I've ever seen. Jason

1661
01:31:39,479 --> 01:31:42,360
Speaker 1: Solomon's for The Observer wrote, south Land Tales was so

1662
01:31:42,400 --> 01:31:44,880
Speaker 1: bad it made me wonder if Kelly had ever met

1663
01:31:44,920 --> 01:31:49,599
Speaker 1: a human being. An incredible disc adding that it quote

1664
01:31:49,640 --> 01:31:51,800
Speaker 1: maybe one of the worst films ever presented in the

1665
01:31:51,840 --> 01:31:55,599
Speaker 1: con competition. And I guess after this debacle, Richard Kelly

1666
01:31:55,600 --> 01:31:58,800
Speaker 1: slashed about twenty five minutes of footage, somehow got extra

1667
01:31:58,840 --> 01:32:01,839
Speaker 1: cash from Sony to to uh add some more effects

1668
01:32:01,880 --> 01:32:05,920
Speaker 1: to the movie, kept the justin timber Legs scene. Yes,

1669
01:32:06,880 --> 01:32:11,439
Speaker 1: um film was an enormous bomb, pulled in just shy

1670
01:32:11,680 --> 01:32:17,240
Speaker 1: of three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars thousand dollars

1671
01:32:17,320 --> 01:32:22,280
Speaker 1: less than Donnie dark against the budget of seventeen million. Uh.

1672
01:32:22,400 --> 01:32:25,160
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, unlike Donnie Darko, it did not make up

1673
01:32:25,200 --> 01:32:29,880
Speaker 1: the difference on home video. After that, Richard Kelly did

1674
01:32:29,920 --> 01:32:32,559
Speaker 1: The Box, which is an adaptation of the Richard Matheson

1675
01:32:32,600 --> 01:32:35,400
Speaker 1: short story Button Button, which I think had been previously

1676
01:32:35,439 --> 01:32:38,920
Speaker 1: done as an eighties era Twilight Zone episode, And since

1677
01:32:38,960 --> 01:32:42,719
Speaker 1: then he's produced the extremely dark bobcat Goldthweight movie starring

1678
01:32:42,800 --> 01:32:46,559
Speaker 1: Robert Williams called the World's Greatest Dad, Actually, Isn't that bad?

1679
01:32:47,080 --> 01:32:50,720
Speaker 1: And the Tucker Max book adaptation of I Hope they

1680
01:32:50,760 --> 01:32:53,599
Speaker 1: served beer in Hell? You're in Hollywood, How when they

1681
01:32:53,600 --> 01:32:56,720
Speaker 1: start sending you that kind of good Lord currently on

1682
01:32:56,760 --> 01:33:02,280
Speaker 1: IMDb a project he's written and directed, uh is producing. Oh,

1683
01:33:02,560 --> 01:33:05,599
Speaker 1: it's called Corpus Christie. It's listening pre pro. I looked

1684
01:33:05,640 --> 01:33:08,120
Speaker 1: at up la plot just says an Iraq war veteran

1685
01:33:08,160 --> 01:33:11,200
Speaker 1: teams up with a wealthy business owner in Texas and

1686
01:33:11,280 --> 01:33:13,760
Speaker 1: it's in pre pro. Anyway, they gave him enough money

1687
01:33:13,760 --> 01:33:17,519
Speaker 1: to do whatever the hell that is. Well, we touched

1688
01:33:17,520 --> 01:33:19,479
Speaker 1: on this to the intro, but stripping away all of

1689
01:33:19,520 --> 01:33:22,680
Speaker 1: this talk of the Stephen Hawking style, theoretical physics and

1690
01:33:22,720 --> 01:33:27,000
Speaker 1: time travel, Donnie Darko. Really, if you get down to it,

1691
01:33:27,000 --> 01:33:33,040
Speaker 1: it's a movie about growing up. That's how Jake Jillen

1692
01:33:33,080 --> 01:33:35,200
Speaker 1: Hall described it years later. When asked for some sort

1693
01:33:35,200 --> 01:33:37,960
Speaker 1: of explanation about Donnie Darko, he told The Guardian in

1694
01:33:38,000 --> 01:33:41,160
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen it wasn't a conventional adulthood film,

1695
01:33:41,200 --> 01:33:45,360
Speaker 1: and the American pie way Donnie's psychological journey is what's important.

1696
01:33:45,760 --> 01:33:49,000
Speaker 1: That's why it's had this lasting power. Anything psychological is

1697
01:33:49,040 --> 01:33:52,479
Speaker 1: a slower but ultimately longer burn. I'm talking about Patrick

1698
01:33:52,520 --> 01:33:55,519
Speaker 1: Swayze's self help guru selling a cure for general malaise

1699
01:33:55,560 --> 01:33:58,280
Speaker 1: by breaking everything down to a binary fear and love.

1700
01:33:58,880 --> 01:34:01,040
Speaker 1: And that's what Donnie fights as in this movie, because

1701
01:34:01,120 --> 01:34:04,719
Speaker 1: that binary is basically childlike thinking. When you become a teenager,

1702
01:34:04,800 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 1: everything stops being so black and white and you enter

1703
01:34:07,240 --> 01:34:10,519
Speaker 1: a world of gray, and life becomes a lot more

1704
01:34:10,520 --> 01:34:13,360
Speaker 1: ambiguous and therefore a lot more difficult to navigate and

1705
01:34:13,400 --> 01:34:16,000
Speaker 1: there are no easy answers. Richard Kelly has talked a

1706
01:34:16,000 --> 01:34:18,679
Speaker 1: lot about the whole exercise when Donnie's asked to put

1707
01:34:18,760 --> 01:34:22,280
Speaker 1: solutions the complex emotional problems on this goofy fear and

1708
01:34:22,360 --> 01:34:25,439
Speaker 1: love timeline in school. And remember this was something that

1709
01:34:25,520 --> 01:34:27,679
Speaker 1: Richard Kelly said he was in some form or another

1710
01:34:27,760 --> 01:34:30,280
Speaker 1: actually taught in his school, so this clearly had some

1711
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:33,360
Speaker 1: emotional meaning for him, and Richard Kelly says it has

1712
01:34:33,400 --> 01:34:35,840
Speaker 1: to do with this idea of conformity. Part of being

1713
01:34:35,880 --> 01:34:39,599
Speaker 1: an artist is fighting against conformity, breaking convention, painting outside

1714
01:34:39,640 --> 01:34:42,000
Speaker 1: the lines. I think a lot of the system in place,

1715
01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:45,080
Speaker 1: whether it's the educational system or a system of Hollywood

1716
01:34:45,080 --> 01:34:49,400
Speaker 1: and its filmmaking. It's all about restrictions and labels, genre classifications,

1717
01:34:49,600 --> 01:34:53,719
Speaker 1: trying to emulate past success, sequels, remakes, reboots. The spirit

1718
01:34:53,760 --> 01:34:56,360
Speaker 1: of the character of Donnie Darko is about fighting against

1719
01:34:56,360 --> 01:35:00,160
Speaker 1: that conformity, and it's difficult to know where to eve

1720
01:35:00,200 --> 01:35:02,280
Speaker 1: off in an episode like this, but I think that's

1721
01:35:02,280 --> 01:35:05,280
Speaker 1: as good a parting thought as any. I hope that

1722
01:35:05,360 --> 01:35:07,840
Speaker 1: when this podcast comes to an end, I can breathe

1723
01:35:07,840 --> 01:35:09,920
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief because there will be so much

1724
01:35:09,960 --> 01:35:12,840
Speaker 1: to look forward to. That's in the letter he writes

1725
01:35:12,880 --> 01:35:18,479
Speaker 1: to ROBERTA. Sparrow, where's your damn ai M status spotting poser.

1726
01:35:22,240 --> 01:35:24,920
Speaker 1: I also had gone with go home and tell your

1727
01:35:24,920 --> 01:35:28,800
Speaker 1: parents that everything's gonna be okay. Oh yeah, how there

1728
01:35:28,840 --> 01:35:30,519
Speaker 1: you go. I felt a little too fraught. I was

1729
01:35:30,560 --> 01:35:33,679
Speaker 1: going to get a little for clemped, Oh, I think

1730
01:35:33,680 --> 01:35:35,679
Speaker 1: it's a nice thing to tell our your sweet parents.

1731
01:35:36,120 --> 01:35:40,360
Speaker 1: Serve it. Call your parents. Things are good, Everything's gonna better.

1732
01:35:43,560 --> 01:35:45,439
Speaker 1: I'm surprised we got through that as quickly as we

1733
01:35:45,479 --> 01:35:50,479
Speaker 1: did this one. Anyway, folks, thank you for listening. This

1734
01:35:50,600 --> 01:35:56,719
Speaker 1: has been too much Dark. Oh. My name is Jordan

1735
01:35:56,720 --> 01:35:59,599
Speaker 1: Front and I'm Alex Sagele. We'll catch you next time.

1736
01:36:04,680 --> 01:36:07,240
Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio.

1737
01:36:07,479 --> 01:36:10,679
Speaker 1: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk.

1738
01:36:10,840 --> 01:36:14,080
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched,

1739
01:36:14,200 --> 01:36:16,920
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel,

1740
01:36:17,200 --> 01:36:20,320
Speaker 1: with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1741
01:36:20,840 --> 01:36:22,840
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1742
01:36:22,920 --> 01:36:25,439
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts and I heart Radio,

1743
01:36:25,600 --> 01:36:28,599
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

1744
01:36:28,640 --> 01:36:29,920
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.