By the time I saw Donnie Darko there were a lot of people who were convinced Richard Kelly was a genius. I watched it and I was like... aright, whatever. His first movie was a 48-minute not-quite-feature that was hated by everyone. his third movie was a big budget catastrophe that was hated by everyone. His second movie is a piece of cult and okay, fine, but the fact that it saddled us with that horrific jules holland version of Mad World makes whatever good it has wholly drowned out by every mopey fucking pseudogoth manic pixie dream girl I've ever overheard in a coffee shop. On a more serious note, the basic problem with time travel movies is it's the easiest fucking thing to turn the moral of the story into "it doesn't fucking matter." Best "it doesn't fucking matter" time travel movie? Twelve Monkeys. Worst "it doesn't fucking matter" time travel movie? Donnie Darko. PROTIP: a film student trick, when your movie sucks and makes no sense, is to edit it into a nonlinear "thought piece." By making sure the end doesn't come after the beginning stupid people will think you're profound. Cellar door.
Christopher Nolan's entire schtick in Momento. People still talk about him like he's not a pile of garbage. At least Pulp Fiction has some cool scenes.PROTIP: a film student trick, when your movie sucks and makes no sense, is to edit it into a nonlinear "thought piece." By making sure the end doesn't come after the beginning stupid people will think you're profound.
I saw it when I was 19, right after it came out and during a lonely time when I was all angsty and shit. So I loved the fuck out of it. I'm pretty lukewarm to it and 16-17 years later. It's very overhyped now and I'm more mature but I still kinda like it. It didn't seem like the kinda movie you'd like and cite as an example of anything so I asked. Also I remembered that you hate that version of Mad World. The director's cut seemed kinda Lucasesque to me. And underlined that Kelly had no idea what the thing meant or the plot in general. And he changed music that was fine the way it was. It's fine to make a vague work that you don't really understand and leave to interpretation. It's a hack job to insert a buncha shit after the fact to try to make sense of something that can exist just fine as vague. I haven't seen Southland Tales. The Box was complete shit.