Donnie Darko
TMC/The Movie Channel
8 tonight
Donnie, I cahn't quit you! Is that ever going to get old? Will we forever look for ways to associate Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger and their characters past, present and future with that now famous catchphrase? Or will it eventually get old, like Jerry Seinfeld's “Helloooo” imitation of the noise his (ex-) girlfriend's gurgling stomach makes? Hmmm. Dunno. But until then: Frank, I cahn't quit you! Frank is a tall, demonic-looking bunny who intelligent, introverted Donnie Darko (Gyllenhaal) sees while sleepwalking out of his house one night during the 1988 presidential election. Frank informs Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Donnie returns to his home the next morning to discover a jet engine has fallen from the sky and crashed through his bedroom. And then the movie gets weird. Anyone I roll with who has stuck it out to the end credits either loves Richard Kelly's twisted little flick or really loves it—although debates do rage over what the whole thing means. Uhhhh, like you don't get visited in the dark of night by tall, demonic-looking bunnies with orders to perpetrate all manner of mayhem? No? Really? Um . . . we move on: Gyllenhaal, who that same year (2001) starred in the title role of Bubble Boy, gave what's held up to be one of his strongest performances—while Maggie Gyllenhaal actually got paid to pound on her little brother, Jena Malone played the troubled high school love interest she's played in every movie since and executive producer Drew Barrymore came this close to making me believe she was a high school English teacher.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.