One new and one old, but I had a couple of thoughts to share.
Donnie Darko
I finally got around to watching this one over this past weekend. Dani's out of town and I figured I'd catch up on stuff she's not interested in or already seen. This one came up first on Netflix, so it was the winner.
I've got to admit that my first reaction, when the credits rolled, was "Seriously? That's IT? I've been hearing about this movie, and how great it is, for years. And this is what I'm left with?"
But the more I thought about it over the weekend, the more it's made sense to me. And I've come to the conclusion that it's really the anti-It's a Wonderful Life. I've long ago expressed my opinion about Wonderful Life, but the gist of that story (for the one or two of you out there that's never been subjected to it) is the story of how horrible George Bailey's world would have been had he left to follow his dreams.
Donnie Darko is the antithesis of this, where his imaginary "friend" Frank (a suitably dark take, one has to assume, on James Stewart's imaginary friend Harvey), isn't really his friend, but is there to help Donnie realize that he was supposed to die in the freak accident that occurred in the beginning of the movie. He's shown the path to time travel, as he experiences his world crumbling around him, leading him to the knowledge that the only way to make things better is to go back in time and die, like he was supposed to.
A dark story, but one I'm coming to appreciate the more I think about it. And I never WAS fond of that pollyanna Wonderful Life BS anyway.
Incredible Hulk
Overall, this one was more interesting, and certainly more fun, than Ang Lee's 2003 version. Gone are angst-ridden daddy issues and it's more about "Hulk smash!" than almost anything else.
Which, of course, is one of the problems I've always had with the Hulk. It's such a one note character that it pretty much always devolves into episodes of the military ineffectively shooting at him, as he goes around smashing things. They did a good job of mixing things up this time around, letting him grab pieces of things he's destroyed to use as tools/weapons. But it's still all Hulk smashing things.
Meanwhile, the military response to him has also always bugged me. If Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," then General Ross has definitely turned the bend from obsession (a la Capt. Ahab) to full fledged insanity. Sure, he's brought his strike force and his genetically manipulated super soldier to fight the hulk, but his first reaction, every time things go south, is to shoot him with everything he's got, even though it's blatantly obvious that Hulk ain't getting hurt by those 'bitty little bullets and rockety things — they're just making him angrier. Any yet he keeps plugging away, no matter how many times it almost gets his daughter killed.
The last issue I have with this movie are the similarities to significant beats/moments in this summers other, excellent, Marvel superhero move, Iron Man. I loved Iron Man, not the least of which because of the performance of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. He brought a great layer of humanity and humor to this character, which really served to sell it to me. But the climactic battle between Iron Man and his nemesis Iron Monger is almost beat-for-beat mirrored in the climactic battle between Hulk and the Abomination that Tim Roth's character has become. We move the fight from California to New York, but a busy city street looks pretty much the same in both locations. And when the bad guy starts picking up cars to smash our hero with, you can almost see the design teams sharing code to make the animation work. (And let's not forget scenes of people tumbling out of the sky to slam into the ground, also appearing in both movies).
Ultimately, as far as I'm concerned, Hulk ends up second to Iron Man in this summer's superhero race. But I assume, especially once Dark Knight releases, it's soon going to slide from that spot.
Donnie Darko
I finally got around to watching this one over this past weekend. Dani's out of town and I figured I'd catch up on stuff she's not interested in or already seen. This one came up first on Netflix, so it was the winner.
I've got to admit that my first reaction, when the credits rolled, was "Seriously? That's IT? I've been hearing about this movie, and how great it is, for years. And this is what I'm left with?"
But the more I thought about it over the weekend, the more it's made sense to me. And I've come to the conclusion that it's really the anti-It's a Wonderful Life. I've long ago expressed my opinion about Wonderful Life, but the gist of that story (for the one or two of you out there that's never been subjected to it) is the story of how horrible George Bailey's world would have been had he left to follow his dreams.
Donnie Darko is the antithesis of this, where his imaginary "friend" Frank (a suitably dark take, one has to assume, on James Stewart's imaginary friend Harvey), isn't really his friend, but is there to help Donnie realize that he was supposed to die in the freak accident that occurred in the beginning of the movie. He's shown the path to time travel, as he experiences his world crumbling around him, leading him to the knowledge that the only way to make things better is to go back in time and die, like he was supposed to.
A dark story, but one I'm coming to appreciate the more I think about it. And I never WAS fond of that pollyanna Wonderful Life BS anyway.
Incredible Hulk
Overall, this one was more interesting, and certainly more fun, than Ang Lee's 2003 version. Gone are angst-ridden daddy issues and it's more about "Hulk smash!" than almost anything else.
Which, of course, is one of the problems I've always had with the Hulk. It's such a one note character that it pretty much always devolves into episodes of the military ineffectively shooting at him, as he goes around smashing things. They did a good job of mixing things up this time around, letting him grab pieces of things he's destroyed to use as tools/weapons. But it's still all Hulk smashing things.
Meanwhile, the military response to him has also always bugged me. If Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," then General Ross has definitely turned the bend from obsession (a la Capt. Ahab) to full fledged insanity. Sure, he's brought his strike force and his genetically manipulated super soldier to fight the hulk, but his first reaction, every time things go south, is to shoot him with everything he's got, even though it's blatantly obvious that Hulk ain't getting hurt by those 'bitty little bullets and rockety things — they're just making him angrier. Any yet he keeps plugging away, no matter how many times it almost gets his daughter killed.
The last issue I have with this movie are the similarities to significant beats/moments in this summers other, excellent, Marvel superhero move, Iron Man. I loved Iron Man, not the least of which because of the performance of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. He brought a great layer of humanity and humor to this character, which really served to sell it to me. But the climactic battle between Iron Man and his nemesis Iron Monger is almost beat-for-beat mirrored in the climactic battle between Hulk and the Abomination that Tim Roth's character has become. We move the fight from California to New York, but a busy city street looks pretty much the same in both locations. And when the bad guy starts picking up cars to smash our hero with, you can almost see the design teams sharing code to make the animation work. (And let's not forget scenes of people tumbling out of the sky to slam into the ground, also appearing in both movies).
Ultimately, as far as I'm concerned, Hulk ends up second to Iron Man in this summer's superhero race. But I assume, especially once Dark Knight releases, it's soon going to slide from that spot.
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