Current IMDB score: 8.1
Director: Richard Kelly
Main Actors you care about: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, probably a few others.
Why I liked it: This was like a precursor to understanding movies on a deeper level. At the time this came out it was like the gateway movie into better movies. I found this movie randomly and had no idea what it was about when I started watching. After I watched it the first time I felt different. This movie made me think about free will, time traveling, sacrifice, society, and many other things. This movie is filled with thoughts if you haven't already had them. It's a good like freshman year of college movie. If you watch it after that then you've probably already explored a lot of the thoughts this movie can produce.
What stands out: I think the style is what stands out the most. The weird parts could have been a big turn off. I think the style was of being thought provoking made the weird parts seem not so weird.
Thing(s) I would change: I don't know. The only thing that sticks out to me was the "Go back to China, bitch" line was so harsh. I'd say it wasn't needed but kids were that harsh in high school when I was there at times so I guess it's okay. Maybe it just seens out of character for his friends to say that. They don't do anything else that mean.
Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion" -> hilarious line. This line is so funny because it's coming from such a crazy person. If you keep going though this line is rather interesting. It's showing the ridiculous of caring so much about something that matters so little. But life is mainly about figuring out what matters and then doing the crap out of that thing that matters. So maybe this ridiculous woman is crazy for caring about her daughter's dance troupe so much but also maybe she's living life to the fullest with full passion? It's hard for me to get upset with people that care about such stupid and mundane things (to me) when life is all about finding this "stupid and mundane" things. One woman's Sparkle Motion is another person's Cellar Door.
The bubble out of his chest scene was pretty crazy. Mostly because I didn't fully understand it later until I remembered the scene that said "Not if you travel within God's channel." It's really a scene about free will and he's seeing other people's free will through God's channel and then starts seeing his own. Really interesting scene. It's during a party scene so you could just take it as Darko being on drugs or drunk if you wanted to though.
Similar Movies/TV Shows: The Fountain, Mr. Nobody, Back to the Future? Predenstation
"Side" note: This youtube article explains most of the movie.
