Even The Fucked Up Rabbit Face Wasn’t That Cool

There’s a theater here in DC that plays Donnie Darko seemingly whenever possible. It’s a cult film that always came at high recommendation (mostly from hipster kids) that I never got around to watching until tonight.

For a movie so chock-full of empty signifiers it sure likes to pretend that something significant is going on. If any of those lousy hipsters who recommended this to me – or maybe the director – had done the proper retro-‘80s homework they’d know that David Lynch did every goddamn thing Darko tries to accomplish with far greater creepy suburban surrealism in Twin Peaks (voted “least probable thing to be aired on network television since ever”). No points for the weird time-warp tunnel effects, slick editing, or the fucked up rabbit costume. Negative points for Drew Barrymore’s lousy performance, setting it during Halloween, and depicting yet another relationship between troubled teens in which nobody really grows and sex is used strictly to (ineffectively) bandage emotional wounds. Yawn.

Points only for Tears for Fears in the soundtrack. The part where I sang along to that was great.