Donnie Darko (Blu-ray) (2001) |
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Donnie Darko (Blu-ray) (2001) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Science Fiction |
Audio Commentary-with Richard Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal Audio Commentary-with cast and crew Featurette-They Made Me Do It Gallery-They Made Me Do It art gallery Featurette-Behind The Scenes-B-Roll Footage Interviews-Cast & Crew-Cast and Crew Interviews Deleted Scenes-20 Deleted And Extended Scenes TV Spots-5 Theatrical Trailer-Mad World Featurette-Cunning Visions Infomercials Gallery-The Philosophy Of Time Travel Audio Commentary-with Richard Kelly and Kevin Smith Featurette-They Made Me Do It Too: The Cult of Donnie Darko Featurette-Making Of-Production Diary with optional audio commentary Trailer-The Director's Cut trailer |
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| Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
| Running Time | 247:06 (Case: 241) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper |
Dual Layered Dual Disc Set |
Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Richard Kelly |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Anchor Bay Entertainment |
Starring |
Jake Gyllenhaal Jena Malone Drew Barrymore James Duval Beth Grant Maggie Gyllenhaal Holmes Osborne Katharine Ross Patrick Swayze Noah Wyle |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music | Michael Andrews |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Linear PCM 48/24 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 1080p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Before you read this review I want you to hypothesize for a brief moment... pretend you've never seen Donnie Darko and have never even heard it. If someone you knew tried to explain Donnie Darko to you and they mentioned tangent universes, primary universes, artifacts, living receivers, manipulated living, manipulated dead, fourth dimensional constructs and a six-foot giant rabbit named Frank you would be convinced that it probably wasn't the type of film that appealed for your viewing this weekend. Writer and director Richard Kelly faced the same stumbling block when he tried to sell the screenplay of Donnie Darko to the major Hollywood studios; they just couldn't market the film. Was it a science-fiction film, a teenage film or a horror film?
Released theatrically in 2001 after Drew Barrymore came to the rescue and assisted in raising the funds required, Donnie Darko initially made $US4.1 million in gross earnings against its $US4.5 million budget. Usually this is the point of the review where I begin to discuss the merits or failings of the transfer or extras because when your film returns are that lowly, chances are no-one has heard of it and neither are they likely too. Films that make this type of return on their investment rarely make a blip on the arts-entertainment cultural radar. To put this into perspective, compare the merits of another similar cult-hit movie that was released in the late 1990s, The Big Lebowski by the Coen brothers. That film may be a completely different genre, sure, but it is similar to Donne Darko in that it obtained a cult audience a few years after release. The Big Lebowski was not considered a theatrical success for the Coen brothers, it made $US46 million against its $US15 million budget. Having come after the highly successful Fargo, The Big Lebowski was difficult to categorise in terms of genre (like Donnie Darko) but do you seriously remember the lead actress of Fargo who won an Academy Award for her performance in that film? (Joel Coen's wife, Frances McDormand). However, everyone knows of the Dude played by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowksi and likewise Donnie Darko helped kick-start Jake Gyllenhaal's career.
How did Donnie Darko become a cult-hit? Unlike The Big Lebowksi, it wasn't through festivals or conventions, rather it was simply through word-of-mouth. DVD sales of the Theatrical Cut totalled $US10 million which allowed Newmarket Films to approach Richard Kelly to encourage him to revise his film and re-edit it, including some 20 minutes of cuts he was forced to make for its theatrical release. Those extra 20 minutes help to explain the philosophical premise behind the science-fiction aspect to the story of Donnie Darko and now invariably both cuts invite comparisons from fans and critics as to which is the better or definitive cut.
Like the events in the film, Donnie Darko was filmed in 28 days during August 2000. With a low budget, it was quite incredible to get the acting talents of actors such as Holmes Osborne, Mary McDonnell, Katherine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle and Beth Grant for this film. Real-life brother and sister Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal have since gone on to forge their own highly-successful film careers, as has Seth Rogan who plays the minor part of a school bully.
I am assuming that in reading this review you have watched the film, quite possibly many times. I certainly derived much pleasure in viewing the theatrical and director's cuts again and gaining new insights into the film. Alas, even after viewing Donnie Darko multiple times one is still left with many unanswered questions. What is the role of Cherita supposed to signify? Who is that man in the red suit? How many references to rabbits are there in this film? (There are even more in the director's cut!) How many Franks are there? (What... the manipulated dead one in the suit and the tangent and primary universe ones?)
One final thing I need to add is the brilliant soundtrack. I still can't get Tears for Fears' Head over Heels or Gary Jules' cover of Mad World out of my head, not to mention Echo & the Bunnymen's The Killing Moon, The Church's Under the Milky Way, The Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart and Duran Duran's Notorious. There is just so much to admire about Donnie Darko!
The original video transfer of Donnie Darko on DVD was never that great to begin with. Firstly, it was shot with Kodak Vision 800T 5289 35mm, which produces soft images in dark scenes. Since there are many such scenes in the film, the softness and film grain has carried over on this Blu-ray release.
The aspect ratio of the theatrical and director's cuts of Donnie Darko are both 2:35:1, utilising 1080p 24fps AVC MPEG-4 codecs. Both cuts are 16x9 enhanced.
The original Region 4 DVD had compression artefacts, especially the theatrical cut. This Region B Blu-ray release has both cuts of the film on separate Blu-ray discs, not seamlessly branched (like the Region A United States Blu-ray release by 20th Century Fox) so compression is not an issue here; both cuts have bitrates that average over 20 m/b per sec.
Contrast and sharpness vary. Some scenes, especially night ones, are still soft whereas daytime scenes are sometimes contrast-boosted. There are still minor film artefacts present in both cuts. These are white (negative) film artefacts that appear as specks on the image, usually very briefly!
Subtitles are available for both cuts in English for the Hearing Impaired.
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There is a marked difference in the audio quality between the two cuts of Donnie Darko. The director's cut has a higher audio bitrate and is more dynamic. Director Richard Kelly mentions how the increased budget he received benefited the audio transfer in his audio commentary.
Both the theatrical and director's cut gives you an option to view the film with the default English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track or an English LPCM 2.0 stereo track.
Dialogue is clear and synchronised in both cuts.
The soundtrack by Michael Andrews sets Donnie Darko apart from its contemporaries. The choice of music from the 1980s, together with the use of slow motion and sped-up video effects, sets the music apart. I especially admire the Head over Heels sequence and the use of The Killing Moon (albeit in separate places in both cuts).
The surround channels are kept quiet at times in this film as there is much dialogue. Discrete effects are heard during Donnie’s awakening at the beginning, the flooded school and the sounds of summer from wildlife, even though the film is set in the month of October, it was shot in the late summer month of August. There are also directional cues employed for moving cars, planes flying overhead, and thunder and nature effects. You especially get all channels working in unison when Frank speaks to Donnie in his dreams! The subwoofer has also been boosted in the director’s cut, like the surround mix. Greater bass is emphasised in the falling jet engine and the great 1980s songs.
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Please make a note of the visual quality of these extras as they are in standard definition. Most of the extras present textual disclaimers about the video footage being of various quality!
This is the same commentary as the DVD, as are the others. It's listed here as a commentary track by Richard Kelly, but rest assured he is joined by the lead actor, Jake Gyllenhaal. There are some insights here into the production and preparing, storyboarding and shooting scenes. Director Richard Kelly also divulges information about the philosophy of time travel and how relevant it is to the motivations of the main characters of the film.
The main cast join together to share mainly anecdotes about their joint experience rather than discussing technical aspects of the film. Director/Writer Richard Kelly and Producer/Actress Drew Barrymore dominate this commentary more than the others.
Fourteen leading graffiti artists are given six hours, forty two minutes and twelve seconds to come up with artwork inspired by the film. The artworks were exhibited at Dreambagsjaguarshoes bar in London over a twenty-eight day period.
This is a gallery of the artworks produced from the extra above.
On-set footage taken with a handheld camera. Why this is included/ported onto the Blu-ray is anyone's guess.
These are short, edited interviews with practically the whole crew. This featurette plays like a typical EPK feature.
20 additional/alternate scenes removed from the theatrical cut, and later added into the director's cut, although some were not added at all. These can be played as one feature or individually. Director Richard Kelly also provides commentary on each scene:
Newmarket used TV spots to promote the film during its theatrical release. The theme of Halloween and horror influenced the theme of these TV Spots. The first (0:17) looks solely at the main cast. The second (0:17) uses the titles dark, darker and Darko to explore aspects of the film. The third (0:32) plays up on the horror theme and uses the same intertitles as the second TV Spot. The fourth (0:32), shows Frank and Donnie's desire to play saviour. The fifth and final spot (0:32) brings us new intertitles: visions, time travel and sacrifice ending with the iconic image of Frank.
This trailer uses themes found in the TV Spots to emphasise the dark nature of the film.
These commercials ('Controlling Fear' parts one and two) are full-length advertisements of the infomercials used in the film to promote Jim Cunningham's philosophy and book. These are really well done and come with optional commentary from Linda Connie and Fabian Van Patten who were responsible for the concept.
Twelve pages of Roberta Sparrow's book are included here for you to read about the time travel concepts from the movie.
Again, this is the original commentary made for the director's cut in 2003. At first I found Kevin Smith somewhat annoying as I felt that he was interrupting Richard Kelly continuously, however later in the commentary he does raise some good points, such as the cult-popularity of the film, its rating on the IMDb Top 250 (No. 94 in this commentary, No. 127 at the time of writing this review) and other insightful questions into the philosophy of time travel (i.e. discussing the primary and tangent universes etc.). Richard Kelly mentions that he now does not disown the theatrical cut after making the director's cut. He admits to self-indulgence with his budget to re-edit, labelling the director's cut an extended mix and not stating which cut is definitive.
This is a thirty minute featurette which looks at the cultural impact of Donnie Darko on UK fans and critics. Richard Kelly appears via voice recording on the telephone. Opinions are shared relating to Donnie Darko's cult success, the impact of marketing, the film's themes and even the popularity of Gary Jules' cover of Mad World.
Steven Poster guides us through the production. Using dates as title cards, we see how the film was shot during its 28-day shooting schedule. This is well worth listening to for the commentary. Apparently this extra misses out on about 12 minutes of footage found on the Region A United States Blu-ray release, but it's still a good extra on this Blu-ray.
This trailer was used for the release of the director's cut in cinemas. It's done in a quick-edit style.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region A 20th Century Fox United States Blu-ray release of Donnie Darko has both versions of the film on one Blu-ray disc, and this is not seamlessly branched, so the bitrate for both cuts is lower than what it should be for an average Blu-ray release. The extras for this release are included on a second DVD disc and they only include the They Made Me Do It Too: The Cult of Donnie Darko featurette (28:02), #1 Fan: A Darkomentary featurette (13:16), Storyboard to Screen Comparisons featurette (7:57) and the Theatrical trailer.
The Region ALL United Kingdom Metrodome Blu-ray release is identical to the Anchor Bay Region B Australian release of the film with extras that aren't on the US release such as the 20 Deleted And Extended Scenes (31:50), B-Roll Footage (4:37), Cast And Crew Interviews (15:16), They Made Me Do It featurette (4:48), They Made Me Do It Artwork Gallery (3:11), Cunning Visions Infomercials (5:42), The Theatrical Trailer, 5 TV Spots and the textual featurette, The Philosophy of Time Travel (3:11).
I would recommend the United Kingdom Region ALL or Australian Region B versions of Donnie Darko on Blu-ray over the Region A United States Blu-ray release.
I must say that after all my many viewings of this film, which must now total seven or eight over the years, I appreciate the theatrical cut more than the director's cut, only because it allows me greater interpretation of the events of the film. Having said this, I still greatly admire the director's cut. For a greater in-depth comparison of the changes between the theatrical version and the director's cut go here or here.
Donnie Darko on Blu-ray is a stacked release, including both cuts of the film, three commentaries and a wealth of extras imported over form the previous DVD releases. The audio is definitely an improvement over the DVD, the video transfer less so. If you are interested in picking this up, you won't be disappointed as the extras will keep you busy for quite awhile, as will your multiple viewing of both the theatrical and director’s cuts.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony BDP-S550 (Firmware updated Version 020), using HDMI output |
| Display | Samsung LA46A650 46 Inch LCD TV Series 6 FullHD 1080P 100Hz. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Sony STR-K1000P. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
| Amplification | Sony HTDDW1000 |
| Speakers | Sony 6.2 Surround (Left, Front, Right, Surround Left, Surround Back, Surround Right, 2 subwoofers) |