Donnie Darko and S. Darko

SPOILERS INSIDE!

No I haven't left my blog for dead, I've just been out of ideas as to what to write about and then came along this - perfect. This will be a sort of comparison/review between Donnie Darko and the recent sequel S. Darko. First off I'd like to say that S. Darko is in fact as bad as people say, where the original shines in almost every aspect of film making the sequel fails - it lacks any and all heart that Donnie Darko had. It's is set 7 years after Donnie Darko, it centers around Donnie's little sister Samantha on a road with some friend of hers who's name I forget. They're held up in some small town where some so called crazy guy by the name "Iraq Jack" is on the loose. Donnie Darko is set in 1988 so S. Darko is set in 1995, DD really felt like it was in the '80s the hair the clothes the music, the way people where etc it just had the vibe, S. Darko didn't really fell like it was in the 90s at all, now I'll admit the 90s is harder to capture film wise, but they didn't even try and throw in any classic 90s music. Now remember how amazing riviting and truly fleshed out the characters were in DD? We had the odd but loving girlfriend, the cool teacher who REALLY knew the kids, the somewhat idiotic but never the less faithful friends, the bat shit crazy teacher/mother who thought she was always in the right, I could go on but I think you get the point, now in SD we have these very flat characters who never quite feel whole, the friend who plays a central part in the film is someone we never really get a back story on, she was also annoying and obnoxious. We also the "bad boy" played by Ed Westwick (of "Gossip Girl" fame) - another annoying obnoxious character you couldn't give two fucks about, that you could infact replace with a blank of wood and no one would know the difference.






Now for plot, now I'll be the first too admit that I don't completely understand DD, not sure if I ever will but I certainly understand what happens in the film - it's more the how (and sometimes) the why as to what boggles me, but with SD it just flat out doesn't make sense (don't get me started on that fucking magical feather), it's a mess the scrambles all over the place to just try and find meaning in what it's spitting out but just can't. It's hard to explain with words but I can just "feel" DD, but with SD there's nothing there. It feels like vein attempt to recapture the magic of DD, where if they really felt they had to do a sequel they should have at least tried to add and expand on the plot - and not just be like "Hey that's cool, lets throw it in" (Why exactly does Sam have to die twice?) SD feels like the director watching DD and saying "Hey, yeah I can do that too" and falling flat on his ass when attempting to do so. Yes I think Donnie Darko is a modern masterpiece that I don't fully understand and S. Darko is an unnecessary soulless piece of crap that was never wanted, and isn't needed, god hope the rumours of a third one stay that way - rumours.

DONNIE DARKO FINAL RATING - 10/10

S. DARKO FINAL RATING - 3/10

*Side note, I originally gave S. Darko 4/10 but after some consideration decided to knock it down a point.

Damages - Season 1

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS

So I finished watching the first season of Damages a while ago and I just wanted to kind of air my thoughts on it, here goes. I felt that of course Glenn Close and Ted Danson were amazing in it, this was a role you wouldn't imagine him being able to play but he did it wonderfully. He manages to be a real asshole while yet still make you feel a little sorry for him (the episode "She Spat at Me" sticks out as an example of this) he never faults. The women who played Ellen (I forget her name) and the guy that played her husband (through no fault of their own) paled in when comparing, that is to say they weren't bad (far from it) but when you hold them up against the likes of Glenn Close they just can't match up. As far as the story goes, for the most part I found it very compelling, more so the things set in the past (when they would jump to 6 months earlier, 5 months earlier etc) but the stuff that was the present time line felt VERY stretched out, I kept feeling as though they were trying to milk for all it was worth by giving little tiny pieces leaving you to make your own assumptions based on what you saw (which of course they would later reveal "No this actually meant something else!") - it would have been extremely frustrating watching it week by week, but being able to marathon it on DVD this wasn't nearly as big a problem. This is really my only real gripe with show having so far only seen Season 1, other than that it was a great interesting ride and there's definitely a lot to build upon in Season 2 based on the final "twist". I'll admit I am curious to see what they do, I'm hoping they don't introduce a brand new story but instead use the non-linear format they have and bring us some sort of big mystery based upon what we found out in the final episode.

Friday Night Lights - Season 3

Coming of the back of Season 2 the showrunners of FNL had some work to do, the writers strike hit the show bad. Season 2 just sort of stopped in the middle of a bunch of story lines when we only got 15 of the planned 22 episodes. What they manage to do here is pickup things perfectly, the one great thing they did was not try and close up every story from Season 2, sometimes you just have to let things drop. The first episode creates and sets up a great 4 episode arc with Smash, and brings in a fresh angle on the show with JD McCoy and his (asshole of a) dad. Having a shorter 13 episode season works fantastic in my opinion, you get to see these wonderful story arcs last the whole season (such as the conflict between Buddy and Lyla) and see so many things evolve the more the episodes go on. What I love about this show is how it manages to immerse you in the world, and pull you in so deep that you really believe the honestly and truth of theses characters (even if they do look older than the age there supposed to be). Coach Taylor and his wife Tami have one of the most realistic relationships on TV, it never gets sappy they just play it real and just have amazing chemistry. I love that these characters have to struggle for what they got, sure it's TV so mostly everybody gets a happy ending but people like Tyra really push themselves hard, it didn't just magically fall into their laps. My only real gripe with Season 3 is that whole part where Jason realises he can become a sports manager felt slightly shoehorned in to get him to where he needed to go, but thats me nitpicking in an almost perfect season. If you hate sports (like myself) don't be put off, this at it's core is a character drama, if you like well written Television then this is for you. Some people are put off by the hand held camera work, but for me it makes the show all the more better giving it that flavour of realism. If even with the departure of some characters who are only getting 4 or 5 episode arcs I can't wait to see what Season 4 and 5 bring!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

So having wanted to see this for a while hoping some how that it would be enjoyable nonsense that would at least wash our minds of X3: The Crap Stand I finally manged to see on a flight to the States. Let me just say this, UTTER RUBBISH! This movie really was a utter an shambles, we hurriedly get a little back story on Logan (sorry James) then we see a montage of him and Sabertooth-to be as they fight in the may different wars. Then a young Striker who of course we know from X2 hires them for his "special team" this is the point where I wanted to see more, get to know these interesting characters, see more of them of this team and maybe see them working together as more of a unit. The main problem is that they try and squash to many characters and to much information into one film, and when one of the characters is killed it feels like a wasted opportunity because they did absolutely nothing with them. The film it's self seemed to ignore all continuity, what happened to the drinking of the champagne after they successfully complete grafting the adamantiam to Wolverine that we see in X1? (or 2?). The "reveal" of the final villain at the end was dull to say the least, and I mean did they really do that in the comics, because that felt like another wasted character opportunity. Now I'm not a big CGI hater, I think when used right it can be a good tool but good god did they over do it in this film, now was it me or were his claws just ALL CGI in this? I could rant forever but let me say this, a few action scenes I did enjoy (Agent Zero flipping the guns in the air the beginning - that was pretty cool) and I was glad to finally see Gambit on screen (perhaps he could get his own film too? Or what that just be shit as well?) and despite this major fuck up I still think there are endless great possibility's to be had with the X-Franchise (am I the only one hoping for X-Men Origins: Colossus?). Here's the hoping the sequel is slightly better, I hear it's going to be set in Japan. Hopefully they'll focus a little more on the characters this time, and it wont be so scattered, and you know what the really sad thing is? I'm going to get this on DVD just so I have all the X-Men movies, ughhh. I can't believe I'm saying this but I think I liked X3 a little (just a little) better.

FINAL RATING - 4/10

Alternate universes

While watching an episode of Stargate that revolved around (somewhat) an alternate universe I decided that it is highly feasible that they exist. Bare with me here, for every choice we make it effects our lives. Here's a hypothetical, let's say my parents forget to buy cereal and I am therefore forced to eat toast for breakfast (god forbid), I use a old jam thats hiding away in some dusty cupboard and get ill from some sort of bacteria (like I said hypothetical) and because of this I don't go on holiday to the the US, but because of this I don't die because the plain I was going to go on crashed. (this is all starting to sound a bit Final Destinationish) So essentially I live a longer life because I forgot to buy some cereal. Now this was a more drastic example but every choice we make can effect how our lives turn out. I for one find it extremely interesting, so when thinking about it like "what if I had done so and so, could I be doing this?" it begs the question, how can there not be alternate universes? Course I'm sure someone could come up an extremely good answer to that. Maybe I should stop taking everything quite so seriously and go back to enjoying parallel universe episodes of Stargate, Star Trek and other Star related franchises. Sorry for this random and slightly pointless first post, I'll get better as I go along I swear.