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Tag Archives: Patrick Swayze

Donnie Darko

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by vinnieh in Movie Reviews

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

2000's, Beth Grant, Donnie Darko, Drama, Drew Barrymore, Holmes Osborne, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Katharine Ross, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Noah Wyle, Patrick Swayze, Richard Kelly, Science Fiction, Seth Rogen

Director

Richard Kelly

Starring

  • Jake Gyllenhaal
  • Jena Malone
  • Mary McDonnell
  • Holmes Osborne
  • Katharine Ross
  • Beth Grant
  • Patrick Swayze
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Noah Wyle
  • Maggie Gyllenhaal
  • Seth Rogen

A genuine cult film that defies being boxed into a specific genre, Donnie Darko is a mind bending film, that’s layered with thematic material, a biting edge and eerie ambience galore.

Donnie Darko(Jake Gyllenhaal) is a suburban teenager in the 1988 who is prone to sleepwalking and disturbing thoughts. He’s a charismatic, smart but troubled young man who seems to delight in challenging authority whenever he can. His parents ( Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne) and sisters (one being Gyllenhaal’s real sister Maggie) are confused by him and don’t know how to react to him. On medication to combat his anti-social behaviour towards others and what is seen as paranoid schizophrenia , he one night starts hearing a voice telling him to come outside. Once he gets there, he discovers the voice comes from a frightening looking, six-foot tall rabbit named Frank. He is informed that in twenty-eight days, six hours, forty-two minutes and twelve seconds, the world will end. After waking up far from his house, once he returns he finds that a jet engine crashed into his bedroom. This further highlights the weirdness in Donnie’s life and functions as another indicator of potential doom for everyone. Donnie starts to attend a psychotherapist(Katharine Ross), who tries to fathom what’s going on in Donnie’s mind, but has extreme difficulty opening it up. Most adults seem to act unusually around Donnie, which aids his further alienation from life. Some however seem to understand like the rebellious English teacher Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore), her boyfriend/ fellow professor of science Kenneth Monnitoff( Noah Wyle)and new girl Gretchen( Jena Malone). But then there is the over zealous and devout gym teacher Kitty Farmer(Beth Grant) who is buttoned and wants everyone to follow her lead and slimy motivational speaker Jim Cunningham( Patrick Swayze). As Donnie’s doomsday visions become more frequent and he is driven to commit violent acts by the spooky rabbit, Frank’s mention of time travel sends his mind reeling about what the visions represent. Picking up a book from his professor on the subject, Donnie dives into discovering how he fits into this apocalyptic vision. Is the world really going to end? And if so, what is Donnie supposed to do to stop it?

Richard Kelly made his debut with this film and though his output since has been mixed( though I did like the often maligned and misunderstood The Box), at least he can be remembered for creating this iconic and complex movie. Kelly transports us into the strange world of teenage years and what was going on in the 80’s, but amps it up with the theme of time travel and cause and effect. You just know from the question raising opening that you’re in store for something very unusual and far from conventional. The script, written by Kelly,  is unnerving, caustically funny and highly imaginative, which is a bonus for someone who enjoys all those things when done right . It fleshes out a mystery in the film and creates a fine character in the form of the title anti-hero. He’s disturbed there’s no doubt about it, but he speaks quite a lot of sense when others won’t. And at first we aren’t sure whether what he sees are hallucinations or not, but you definitely know they point to something extremely ominous in the future for everyone. Coming of age is a big theme here and one can view the film as an analogy of puberty and adolescence, as it’s often a time associated with change and something pulling us in a specific direction. And the countdown motif telling us how many days until Armageddon is a real nerve shaker.

Believe me, you’ll find yourself thinking about Donnie Darko a lot after viewing it. The enigmatic story which has a lot of layers and ideas on its mind engages the brain, but refuses to give cheap, easy answers. It’s too smart for that and instead functions as ambiguous and challenging. Whichever angle you want to view the film from, there is something here for everyone to sink their teeth into and think of their interpretation of it all. You can see it as a biting satire in suburbia and conformity, with the disturbed Donnie being the one who fights back against it, coupled with social drama. Or as a sci-fi flick about time travel and how events play out differently because of change. I’d say the film is both of these things and that’s partly why I love it so much. It plays by its own rules and doesn’t try to be like everything else, something which I applaud. I mean you know a film is challenging and complex when there are thousands of websites dedicated to deciphering the many meanings of it. From a visual standpoint, Donnie Darko is extremely atmospheric and immersive thanks to creative camerawork such as slow zooming shots and a gloomy yet strangely majestic colour in cinematography, occasionally punctuated by brightness. Music plays a key role in Donnie Darko; exemplified by the 80’s heavy soundtrack( filled with Tears for Fears, Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division) and unusual, distorted thumping of the score that keeps going with alarming intention. One of the best uses of music is the cover of ‘Mad World’ which is stripped back and haunting as it plays over panning shots of all the people impacted by Donnie in a masterful sequence.

In the role that really announced him as a major acting talent, Jake Gyllenhaal is simply put excellent as the main protagonist. He has to go through so many changing emotions, often very quickly and he does it all without missing a beat. The sly, sardonic smile that reveals his disdain for others, the intense stare of alienation and disillusionment and a certain nuance to the mercurial mood swings are all embodied to a strangely charismatic height by the greatness of Gyllenhaal. It is the definition of a star-making role that Gyllenhaal made the most of and clearly shows him as one of the best actors of his generation. Jena Malone boasts a haunting quality as his love interest, who wrestles with her own demons during the course of the movie. Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne both make impressions as Donnie’s parents who are bewildered and bemused by his behaviour, as does Katharine Ross as his psychotherapist. A major standout is the scene-stealing Beth Grant. Playing someone whose vicious, unapologetic antagonism is disguised as righteousness is both a hoot and something alarming. She scolds, lectures but never seems to be able to understand others thanks to her bigoted ways and watching her come apart, especially as a result of Donnie, is a sight to behold. And also really standing out is Patrick Swayze; filtering his natural charm offensive into something more charlatan and far from what it first appears. It’s one of the most interesting and different roles Swayze ever took and it shows off his considerable talent. Drew Barrymore has the right rebellious but dedicated attitude for her part of a teacher, persecuted for trying to engage with her students in a way that contrasts with the conservative approach of others. Ably supporting that feeling of challenging conformity is Noah Wyle, who opens Donnie up to the idea of time travel. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her present felt, with her sparring and jabs at her brother and especially in the later half in emotional fashion. Plus, look out for an early role from Seth Rogen.

A hypnotic, unusual and engaging story of creepy certainty and eerie atmosphere, twined with fine acting and ambiguity, Donnie Darko is simply a must see.

Ghost

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by vinnieh in Movie Reviews

≈ 62 Comments

Tags

1990's, Demi Moore, Drama, Fantasy, Ghost, Jerry Zucker, Patrick Swayze, Romance, Tony Goldwyn, Whoopi Goldberg

Film Title

Ghost

Director

Jerry Zucker

Starring

  • Patrick Swayze as Sam Wheat
  • Demi Moore as Molly Jensen
  • Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae Brown
  • Tony Goldwyn as Carl Bruner

A hybrid of romance, supernatural and thriller, Ghost still entrances audiences with its emotional heart. And while it would be easy to write it off as just another generic weepy, its heartfelt impact can’t be denied, as can’t find work from the cast, including an Oscar-winning Whoopi Goldberg.

Sam Wheat and Molly Jensen are a couple are madly in love with each other and living in Manhattan. Life is good for them as Sam is a successful banker and Molly enjoys her work as an artist. That is until their bliss is shattered one night. Coming home from a play , they are accosted by a thug and Sam is fatally shot. Yet while dead, his spirit doesn’t move on to the afterlife. Unfortunately, though he attempts to communicate with Molly, he can’t. Molly retreats into grief following his death and shuts herself away. After much shock has settled in, Sam slowly finding his footing as a spirit and how he can impact on Molly’s life and clutch tight their bond. Sam also discovers that his death was not just some random mugging gone wrong but part of a dodgy scheme that he’d inadvertently stumbled into earlier in the film. It was organised by Carl Bruner, who he considered a friend but is revealed to be a contemptible weasel. Realising that Molly is now in danger, Sam frets about how he can help his beloved. His possible answer comes in the surprising form of Oda Mae Brown, a fake physic who ironically can hear him. Oda Mae is reluctant and startled by her gift, which she never actually realised was there as she’s faked being a psychic for money. Yet after much persistence, she agrees to help him reach Molly. The trouble is proving to the grieving young woman that Sam’s spirit is still there. Time is soon ticking for Sam as he attempts to warn the devastated Molly of her impending danger and to finally move onto the next life knowing that she is safe.

On directing duties is Jerry Zucker, who brings considerable skill to Ghost. He really finds so many angles and different genre elements to contend with and he largely gets it right. Ghost at its heart is a romance with immense spiritual overtones to it. Yet it also boasts many moments of fine humour and even has thriller elements that are surprisingly strong and boast some unexpected tension, complete with some detours into the spooky realm. It’s a credit to Zucker that most of the hoops keep spinning in sync with each other, only occasionally stumbling in steps that can be easily forgotten given the rest of the picture. Overall, Ghost is definitely a memorably moving movie that knows the ways to get you deeply involved with the immensely heartfelt story at play. And it’s impossible to forget the justifiably famous scene of Molly and Sam at the pottery wheel that develops into a sensual encounter. It is so sexy and romantic, along with changing the way audiences would see pottery forever. Though it’s been parodied to death, the original scene still holds a special place in cinema as a most sexy and tender scene of two people genuinely in love with each other. Sure Ghost works on your emotions, but it gets right to the heart of the theme of love transcending all that it’s hard to really fault as it sucks you in. If you’re not flowing with tears by the end, you mustn’t  have a sensitive bone in your body. For Ghost beautifully and often poignantly highlights that love is in fact eternal and that the feeling of a loved one never leaves, whether they be alive or dead. And I for one bought into it, along with the various melding of genres that I mentioned earlier. Ghost may run a little too long, but that can be papered over given the investment and impact of the movie in general. Maurice Jarre is the man behind the sincere, romantic and frequently atmospheric score of Ghost, that goes a long way to accentuating the themes of love overcoming all and still burning.

Patrick Swayze has the right physicality and decency for the part of the Sam, whose desire and love for Molly is what keeps his spirit alive after he is killed. The part could easily have been bland or boring, but Swayze raises it up to a respectable level and adds his own spin on it that ensures we buy into his mission to save his beloved. Demi Moore, who has never looked more beautiful than she does here, also sells the desolation and passion of her character. And man is she damn effective in the emotional scenes, her tears cause you to shed them too. Standing out the most in proceedings is the scene-stealing Whoopi Goldberg, in an Oscar-winning performance. It is her who injects a lot of humour into the film and gives it yet another dimension. Acting as Sam’s often hilarious and sassy voice piece, Goldberg creates a character of high energy and care. It will be impossible not to laugh at just how funny she is here, being the memorable comic relief yet also finding some soulful honesty too. Rounding out things is Tony Goldwyn; appropriately nasty and sly as the backstabbing man whose actions lead to Sam’s murder. It’s a credit to Goldwyn that you really wish his character the worst and hope he gets exactly what’s coming to him.

A memorable romance that combines other genres like fantasy and sometimes tense thriller into the mix to a largely pleasing and arresting effect, Ghost will both warm and break your heart. So grab some chocolate, get the tissues at the ready and watch this romance that retains a sensitive and soulful presence today.

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