99: Donnie Darko with Fiona Dourif

[Music] Welcome to Podcasts Like It's The 2000s. The podcast where we talk about the films of the Outs here from our Perch in 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Philistone. I'm your other host, Emily St. James. The fun fact about me is when the rabbet asked why are you wearing that stupid man suit? I took some very different ideas from the exchange. I did not close a pocket universe. I just was like, you know, we're going to need to talk about pocket universes and time travel. But before we do that, with us today to start a brand new mini-series that we are calling Richard Kelly Reichart, where we talk about the films of Richard Kelly and Kelly Reichart from the 2000s, with us none other than Dr. Cassie McKay herself. Fiona Derr, thank you so much for joining us to talk about Donnie Darko with us. Oh my god, I couldn't be happier to be here. I also had to re-watch that movie last night. And it really holds us. It does. It's pretty wild. I mean, we'll talk about what this movie did when it came out and all of that. But did you see it? Sorry, Emily, please. I want to ask one important question. Do you think Richard Kelly and Kelly Reichart have ever hung out? No, I got. But I wish they did. You don't think like at a party somewhere? You know, Hollywood is like smaller back then. You don't think it was maybe. Maybe. They got a link like at a bar once and had some awkward conversation or they just talked about time travel, obviously. I mean, that's, I mean, that's what the love is like. So Fiona, did you see this around the time that it came out? Do you remember when you saw this for the first time by any chance? Not a quiz, just curious. No, I saw it pretty close to when it came out. It came out in 2001, right? Yeah. I was actually, 2001, I was 19. Okay. No, I was turning 20 and I was actually living abroad. So I think I didn't see it. So video maybe. I think it's not on the HS like at a friend's house. I mean, to be fair, most people did not see this when it came out in theaters. Most people saw this as a cult classic culty video thing. Emily, did you see it in theaters? No, I live in South Dakota. They did not, they this movie did not make it there. I like it really like, I remember at Sundance that year, it debuted and made a big splash. And then it came out Wikipedia told me this. It came out the same day. The Patriot Act was signed into law to give you a sense of like, totally cool time. Time and yeah, I'd bombed in theaters and then people discovered. I saw it on video and I said this at some point. This is one of the movies I've seen the most times in my life. And I've seen it twice since 2003. Why are you watching? You win it. Yeah. We're all in. And then I watched it for a podcast a couple of years ago and I watched it for this. So yeah. Yeah. This was so I'm from Toronto originally Fiona. Very cool. That's worth. And oh yeah. Okay. I worked at many video stores while I was in film school. And this was a very much a college guys coming in and renting this movie ad nauseam and claiming it to be a hidden masterpiece that no one had ever like, you know, just mind blowing ly brilliant. And as a film student at the time and a snobby one at that, I did not fuck with this movie back then. I was just like, I don't really whatever this movie's just and then I re it was that in Boondock Saints. Those were the two like video movies that everyone was every college bro was watching. And I watched it the other day and this movie is legitimately like interesting and good. And I'm excited to talk about it. But it does feel like it was this diamond in the rough. I guess that people felt like, I mean, Emily, when you saw it in South Dakota on video, had you already sussed out? Like had it already kind of been a thing at that point? I don't remember why I watched it. It was it was very early in its cults growth. I remember, I think I loved the so salon dot com website that still exists, but was like much bigger at the time. Used to run like this movie explained articles. They have a still famous like four page one or several thousand words about Mulholland Drive. And they wrote one about Donnie Darko. So I as a salon reader, my brain was like, well, Donnie Darko Mulholland Drive, they're the same. So I went and I rented it. And just like, I would say that I a lot of the stuff I now find kind of hard to take about this movie. I found hard to take at the time, but like the ending of it, the like way all the pieces in it together just hit me so hard. And still does. I still think this movie works really well. It has a lot of 25 year old screenwriter dialogue. But it's like like the way everything pulls together at the end really rocks. Like it's really well done. Yeah. Is this so Fiona, just so you know, we recorded our Southland Tales episode earlier this today. So this morning, we we talked Southland Tales. A movie you've seen haven't seen. Do you know, I was trying to yeah, the I haven't looked up anything about Donnie Darko. So this is great. It's great. It's great. You do. This is like you're going to learn a lot today about Donnie Darko. Yeah. This is going to be my like whimsical kind of music about about Donnie Darko. But I think it's more fun that way. But I did whip up what what else he had done. And it's the box of Southland Tales, neither of which I think I have seen unless you can jog my memory with South Land. Well, you would know if you remember it. It's it's it is a famously normal movie like I'm just not even remotely. Now it's like post apocalyptic Los Angeles. It's like mid apocalyptic Los Angeles. Yeah. Kind of like I'm just going to tell you the cast Fiona, just so you get a sense of this. The rock Sarah Michelle Geller, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Wallace Sean, like I could keep going. I mean, it's just like it's Sean Lovitz. Sean Lovitz, Tony Polar, Sheri O'Terry. Oh, amazing. Yeah, it's it's a truly insane cast of you're just like how did you bring all these people but anyway, also so was Donnie Darko. I was like, is that going to be boss? Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about Noah who's great in this by the way like I know, no, it's but like it baby Noah Wiley. I mean, I kept on having to pause and like, look in the cast. I was like, is that Noah? Yeah, I'm believe is that Ashley Tillsale? Like it's like people popping up. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Or it's like, yeah, I have always been I believe that Drew Barrymore got really into this script. And signed on and that allowed them to get the Noah Wiley, the Mary McDonald's, the people. Yeah, her flower films, her production company got involved quite early on and that got it to like basically 7.5 million was the budget. So like just enough to be able to make it. So or no, my apologies, 4.5 was the was the budget 7.5 is what it made in theaters. And it made like an additional 10 million on video, whereas where it really was like that 7.5 number includes the re-release that happened a couple years later. So yeah, initially it just bombed. Yeah, I mean, they give us an offices for our listeners who might not have seen Donnie Darko taking place during an election year in the late 1980s. Donnie Darko tells a story of a troubled teenager who receives disturbing visions from a tall bunny rabbit telling him that the world will come to an end. Seeking answers Donnie investigates time travel and an attempt to turn back the clock and prevent the world seemingly impending doom actions which pose bizarre and life changing results. Donnie Darko opened on October 26, 2001 against K-Pax. 13 ghosts from how riding a cars with boys and training day. It was a simpler time. Yes, it was. It was. It was. Yeah, Drew is Drew's got riding cars with boys as well. So I mean, I have a question about the fan office. Did you say that he went back to try to prevent the end of the world? I don't. It says that Donnie investigates time travel in an attempt to turn back the clock and prevent the world seemingly impending doom. I could push back on that too. This was Google. So take that for what it's worth. So you're asking the right question and it's a question I asked my roommate who had not seen this film. We watched it together and she had never seen it. And both of us at the end were like so did not to jump to the ending but whatever. Did Donnie actually like was the movie a vision of the future or is it another version, an alternate timeline? He has so. Yes, please, please. So I actually like I like I went really deep on this back in the day. I don't remember all of it. I favorite movie five times. Yeah. Yeah. I like when what happened? is and I do believe you can get all this just from watching the movie not necessarily because I didn't like what I didn't like read his book or whatever and then I didn't go that far. I wasn't some nerd. I like what happens is there is a universe that breaks off from the main timeline that he realizes basically he realizes he was supposed to die for time to work the way it was meant to. And so everything is this other timeline is that isn't really what we're saying. He's living through it because he escaped death. And so like he realizes that this timeline is decaying because it didn't work properly basically. So him going back in time saves the world. Oh interesting. Like he has he that I don't know that he knows the ins and outs of it in the way that like Roberta Sparrow would be able to explain it to him. But when he goes back in time he knows. You mean grandma dad. Yeah grandma dad he knows that he is going back to sacrifice his life to save the world. He has accepted that partner. Oh, interesting. And he's like, I don't know who like was in the car with Frank. Yeah, drive over. Yeah, the girl who was bullied. I am. This was this was like Fiona's just like from Washington last night. Sure. I was like he was supposed to die in a freak accident with like a lodge falling on his room. Right. He was like he was not there. Right. So he kept like waiting up in the middle of the streets. And and that caused like a glitch in the universe like a glitch in the matrix. If you if you want he had this whole conversation with no widely about God's plan and following like getting on the right path so the right things happen and thus you can travel. So the portal in the universe was correcting itself through all these little visions so that he could die so they could go back in time. I think that is basically meant to sort of be the takeaway. Like when I a couple years ago I did this other podcast. We paired this movie with them. I saw the TV glow on next picture show. And somebody there did all the research and basically like Richard Kelly has given a very iron clad explanation of what happens that to me makes everything less interesting. But is very much like these people are basically trapped in a time loop until Donnie resolves it. And so like with each loop it gets less stable. He had not like if he had not like driven into it's it's I guess some Russian doll rules where like every time through it's a little less coherent. That is not in the movie though you don't see that's like it is here's the thing if you've watched this movie 17 times it is you know like for you it has made sense. I personally prefer the much simpler explanation of like on some level he has into it. He has to like sacrifices life to save the world. But like the deeper Richard Kelly thing of like these people are trapped in some sort of loop. And they need to escape it. And so on and so forth is like it's there if you like really go digging around especially in the director's cut which isn't as good. Oh, I thought the director's cut and then changed it because I was smart on you. Yeah. So it feels like you have been in another movie similar to this Fiona. You were in tenets a movie that is also confusing. Okay, so explain tenet to fill claims it's confusing but I know it's perfectly. I was also playing it. I was a character that explains it and I was still like. Also, I work with an actor, Jaylin who plays nurse Mateo who's tenet a movie of all time and he's like it's perfect. It makes perfect sense. If you get if you get in there, I think he you can you can get it. I don't I was really grateful to be that movie. I want to be an actor. It was very fun to make. Yeah, I did you explain it to you in a way that that you at least felt like I get it enough or was it kind of just words. I think so. No, I had I had this monologue that explains why everything why we're going backwards. I was like, I think I'm from the future and I'm dead. And I need to make you definitely from the future. Yeah, I need to make sure. Something happens. So do we think that in this theory, Emily, that Robert Pattinson is Johnny Darko in this in this theory. Here's the thing I think that people get hung up on in movies like this like tennis, like honestly like inception or interstellar they want to understand everything they want to have they want to have a map of the story that makes perfect sense without realizing that like. The story is the characters exploring a space that doesn't make sense and that the exploration of the space that doesn't make sense is the story itself as opposed to like now we're in a new world it's like I don't he dark and living through this weird series of instance I need to figure out a way to make sense of them. And the way he ultimately makes sense of it is to sacrifice his life did that accomplish anything you know we don't know but like it is like a movie about the emotional choice of taking your own life to save everybody else. Yeah, and so like I think that we people get hung up on story logic and things like that when the experience you're meant to be having is that of the characters and like that is a thing that kind of bugs me about modern film discussion culture online, especially where it's like I need to know and again if you watch this movie over and over it's all in there it's just like you know. The movie that you compared this with on that podcast I saw the TV glow is movie that does not at any point try to explain itself right the rules of itself whereas I think it has a whole monologue where a character explains the rules of what's going on really yeah I don't remember I take I'll take you know I think Emily might be the authority yeah she's definitely the author I don't need to suggest otherwise I I'll just that I think that. There's this like take inception or tenant for you know example where like there are people explaining the rules of these movies and so the audience I think feels like that's a cue to hold on to that stuff and to over analyze it as opposed to he's just giving you rails have fun with the thing about Richard Kelly so for instance I saw the TV glow there is a monologue where character explains the rules of what's happening but that character is perhaps lying like you. Like you get you get the idea that it's ambiguous this movie Richard Kelly has characters explained to you everything that's happening but the presentation of the story is vaguely lynchian vaguely ambiguous in the sense of like you're not entirely sure if all of this is true so it's like this weird mix of tones that works to be clear I think this movie works but it is also like kind of across purposes in a fascinating way yeah I didn't care about the rules of the world. I think the movie that this reminded me of most is American beauty. It was like American suburbia like mundane suburbia with this like existential profundity kind of woven in in a way that felt like that felt cool that felt like we want that like I mean I went so deep with it my head I was like this is about like a lot of things like that. I was like this is about like I'm people searching for God. For sure yeah in a way that I thought was was interesting and I sort of I think I like surrealism and it like Magnolia did the same thing right you know there was something about those frogs raining down where I don't know why it hit me like it did but it was like moving to an extent that I didn't understand. But was like very emotional and you know and I think that's what this movie was that's like the vein of this in a way that I really I really like I think I think we're like I think our society. I think it struggles a little bit after religion to find the purpose of it all. It's cool. I like it. Yeah. I like it. If I can put on my wood. literary critic hat for a moment. - For a moment? - Like religious fiction, like stories, like retellings of Bible stories, things like that, largely is supplanted over time by science fiction fantasy horror. Like that, or we're filling those same gaps in our need for like transcendent understanding of the universe with these other things. And like I think that this Richard Kelly is really interested in the search for God. And like once you get to a place where you're seeing through time, effectively you're seeing God, that's a similar thing to what's happening in tenant and inception. Like these are stories about when you see through the fundamental fabric of the universe. And even if there's nothing there looking back at you, you're still like getting a sense of the design underlying everything. And like fundamentally you just end up in a place where you're thinking about the divine and some level. - Yeah, you're taking the big, you're making it like in your life, yeah. I think that was like-- - And to that point too, I would say, you know, this movie's a coming of age movie, right? Like this is a high school movie, which I think makes it arguably probably the most accessible of Richard Kelly's movies. But I also think that's the time in your life when you're starting to think about those things. Like the world is starting to, you know, you're, I mean, first of all, there's the whole adolescence and you don't really understand what's going on with your body and you don't understand how you're feeling about other people. But then you're also thinking like the enormity of the, like you really start to grapp with like bigger, headier issues around that time in your life. And I think that American beauty very much obviously is halved into that too. But like the scenes with Jenna Malone and Jake Gyllenhaal in particular, I felt were very akin to like the West Bentley for a birch stuff in American beauty. I definitely saw that. - Yeah, totally. Also that crazy scene with Drew Barrymore when Jenna Malone meets Jake Gyllenhaal. I thought that, and she kind of explains, I feel like the theme of the movie where the, the, the, the Graham Green story, the destructor. It was like this kid understands it 'cause he is it, right? He's gonna like, these kids who aren't after the money, they, they break into a house, they burn the money, right? But they destroy the house from the inside out. And, but because of that, they like bring new life, right? They, like they destroy in order to bring new life, right? I think like that's the theme of the movie. But then this like crazy English teacher does this thing where she's like, sit next to the man who you find the cutest. - That's it. - I think like what is, what was that in the script? Like what was that, I had, I, I posed that question to you guys 'cause no teacher would ever do that. - Oh no. - It felt like, he mad at me, he was going for something. - My, my explanation of that is that it was written by a man in his early 20s. (laughs) And he was like, what if a teacher did this? Would not be cool. - This is the thing, it's like Drew Parabore's playing like the edgiest teacher that's ever been in a high school. And I also feel like it's a shortcut to just, you know, I've been alone in N.J. Jolomey. - I think like you don't read into it Fiona. - I will tell you this, they're the, one of the explanations for this in the mythology is that she is someone who's aware she's caught in this pocket universe time loop thing. And she's trying to like basically hasten the story a lot. - Really? - Yeah. And she's like, you know what, I know you two need to be together. So just pick who you think is cutest. And you're gonna. - That's not the thing. - Oh, it's the thing. - Yeah. - Now I think it is much, I think it's preferable to just be like Richard Kelly, thought he was kind of an edg lord. And like that makes way more sense to me. - That makes sense to me. - So this movie had a 71 score of metacritic from critics, it had an E.4 from audiences in the 4.0 average on letter box. Roger Eber gave the film two and a half stars. So he had seen Mohol and Drive two weeks previous to this film. - Listen, I like this movie, but if you see it that close to Mohol and Drive, I think maybe it soffers a bit in comparison. - But I think Mohol and Drive like a switchgum flipped for Eber where like all of a sudden these kinds of movies made sense to him in a way that they didn't previously. - Right. I think this movie, part of the reason why it really worked for me. So first of all, I was born in '81. So this was like, you know, prime viewing time for me. But that type of boy, like the Jake Dillenhall character is like, is just like the person, my personified type. It's like exactly that. It's just like, worked on so doubles for me. I was like, I want the complicated, but like smarter than everybody kind of dark. - Broken. - Broken virgin. Yeah, I just, you know, I think I held a lot of weight for me. - I was gonna finish your thought. - No, no, that's it. - I was gonna ask you. - You were like, he's hot, that's all I got. - You and I, you and I, it sounds like we were born within a couple months of each other. And I was gonna ask you, if you would date Doni Darko, I always loved that guy, except he had to be also Christian. So there was like a level of like, - That's another layer. - Self-loathing. - No, but it's the self-loathing in him that's like really kind of working too. I think he has that. Also, why was he, why is he on pills and having visions before the fuselage? - Well, this is Emily's theory of how many loops has he been in. So it's possible that like that he's breaking down psychologically because of the amount of times he's been through this. - I genuinely, Richard Kelly would shoot me for things, but I think you can totally read this film as like him having a death dream. I don't think it's as satisfying, but like he hears the airplane crashing through the roof and like has this extended reverie and then he dies. I don't think that's a satisfying is like him accepting his death, but it comes to the same place anyway. So yeah, I think, but I do think, and in that case, it's just, yeah, he just is suffering with what some sort of early gets a friend of it. He's like having treated medically and therapeutically. And in which case, yeah, he's been doing it dealing with this whole life. - Oh, interesting. So they're not, it's not like in consequence. They're not. - I think, I prefer that it's like he has had started having visions of this thing that's going to happen, but you know, that's. - So in terms of the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal, originally, this role was offered to insanely enough Vince Vaughn, was the first person they offered it to. He turned it down because he felt he was too old for the part. Good on you, Vince. - How old was he? - He was definitely too old for the part. - I'm looking this up. - Gyllenhaal was a little too old for the part too. Sometimes I looked at him. - Interesting. - I would've seen when he made this movie. - That's a good question. Well, first let me just say that Mark Walberg was approached to play Donnie, very different movie. - Vince thought would've been 30 when they were coming. - Exactly. - And Mark Walberg's got to be close to that age too, right? Like these guys are way too old for the role. - Gyllenhaal's around our age. So he was born in late 1980. So he-- - '21. - Yeah. - Okay. The only person that made sense, I think, that they came close to making it with was Jason Schwartzman. - Sure. - Who I could see. - I could see, but-- - Jake Gyllenhaal had this like haunted thing that I think they're really needed. - And-- - And a little bit of a scumbun energy to him too. - Well, he obviously is perfect for-- (laughing) - In my-- - For you? - Yeah. - He's your teenage, your teenage so? - Yeah, yeah. I mean, even now, I was like, I would, you know. Yeah, I thought it was perfect except sometimes he looked and he looked like he was in his 20s. And then sometimes-- - Yeah. - But I think he's supposed to be 16. - Yeah. - He's supposed to-- - Yeah. - He's always read a little old, which I think is like, by the time he's in his late 20s, he's playing like 30 something dudes. Like, when he films Zodiac, he's like 25. He does not look 25 in that movie. - Obviously. - No, he doesn't. - Great movie. - But it's a great movie. I am, so the crystalline thing is interesting because crystalline was a big help for this movie, getting it distribution. He saw a cut of it early on, had made some suggestions in terms of title cards to punctuate where we are in time, to sort of ground you so that you know where you are in the timeline, which I think is very smart. Something that he would-- - Yeah. - Yeah, it's funny 'cause my roommate, many years ago, worked at Bad Robot. And she saw an early cut of Dunkirk without the title cards. And she was like, I didn't understand what the fuck was going on. I didn't know where I was or anything like that. So I do think it's kind of funny that many years later, crystalline takes his own advice and puts the title cards into Dunkirk so that you can actually understand where the hell you are in the timeline. - Yeah. - But he was a big fan of this movie. He helps get it distribution through new market, you know. And it makes sense. - That is so much sensible. - It's so much sensible. And I think there's something that's like, yeah, there's some, there's like a college boy element to the movie that I understand. I understand can like feel maybe a little silly or something or, yeah, my friends who don't like Nolan say the same thing. They're like, oh, he's like these cool ideas that you kind of have to weave in and out of. But, you know, where's the emotion? I think that, I think this, I think this transcended the time travel, like coolness of it. for me. I think I think I think I think it helped that it was set in high school and yeah there was something about as there was something about the planeness of the world but these like surreal events happening like it didn't it felt it felt like a fever dream in a way. I was like horror moments. Yeah I had a horror yeah in a way that I felt like full like lynchian and and interesting and kind of unconscious and I don't know I like transcended for me I was I was actually quite into it last time I was delighted to be watching it. I said I said this in our South Laundale's episode so you can listen to me the labor it in two weeks but it really the thing that this movie has going for it is the high school setting. It starts off seeming like a pretty normal high school movie gets weirder and weirder and like it is like an experience we've had all as adolescents of being like oh the world's more porous than I realized and I can see the edges of things and I can see that it's all kind of bullshit and we should all vote for do caucus. Like that's we've all most adults have had that experience have grown up and gone through that and South Laundale's is really not orienting you in genre in that way. The box is a twilight zone episode but it's less immediately approachable because that's like what if your parents were in the twilight zone episode but like we'll get to that but yeah this is like this is so immediately a universal thing that people can even if this is not pulled up this high school is fucking crazy it's a great high school I went to high school there so I dated Doni Darko. Yeah there's like kids like doing drugs in like in the bathroom and like the whole place feels like just very charged but I think part of it too is the introduction to the high school has that amazing needle drop of the killing moon by echo in the bunny which is just like you're just watching just being like this vibe is fucking amazing like he's just the needle drops in this movie in particular just feel like it's such a vibe and the visuals with like tears or fears and and Durand Durand and pet shop boys like all of that was so incredibly well that it really you feel like you understand this high school from the job in so many cases they chose like the second song like they had to like they couldn't clear the first choice yeah it's no I thought about that too I also thought about you know how they say that music from your like early 20s or adolescence it has an emotional value that if you listen to music they if you discover music in your 30s and 40s it doesn't like it hit you I was in a coffee shop the other day and like the postal service came on just moved it this is ridiculous but it was because it shook you back to college yeah I discovered when I was 22 or something and and I feel like maybe the music in Donnie Darko had that going for it for me in particular where yeah they're like it just reminded me of a time emotionally unconsciously that felt very exciting and new and then what was up with yeah the intro of him walking through the high school and like a kid snorting coke with a prince right there I was like what are they what is this place and I I feel like the choice is kind of thought I wanted to read into it um it was like anything can happen at any time right there they're they're they're like that's in a world that is not exactly ours um you know it's also a little bit dangerous I think is part of it like there is this element of danger to it that I think helps the movie but it's the clock yeah it's the classic thing of like when you you are the older you get the more you overestimate how like crazy your adolescence was it's that thing of like your or your childhood was you know where people are like um we used to play in the street until 9 p.m like and this is just Richard Kelly being like I used to do coke right in front of my principal I mean this boy I do feel like it's it is worth noting as you said Emily this this script was written when Kelly was 22 years old he was you just graduated USC film school he was earning money as an assistant in a post production house he wrote the script in 28 days the same period as the film was influenced by Halloween like again John Hughes like all the things that you would think he was and I don't say this is a you know drug it really but like yeah 22 at a film school you know all these things make sense what's interesting to me about this is how often the people who are create things that are deeply nostalgic for the eighties were like way too young to truly experience like Richard Kelly's born in 75 so at the time when Donnie Darko sat he would have been like 13 14 which obviously you're like aware in cognizant but you're not like in high school watching people do you know it's similarly like the Duffer Brothers uh stranger thinks they're way too young to have experienced the eighties in that it's just like it is a nostalgia for a thing you know about second hand which I always find really fascinating or nostalgia for like the world seen through the eyes of 13 year olds like absolutely high school was great who knows what they were getting to car accidents and drinking and driving and that's interesting I think you guys are right I think I think that Donnie Darko ultimately was like a kid thinking about cool themes it it ended up coming together I like that I read I think the reason why it's a cult classic because it hit on something this isn't how the vibes are just very cool the vibe is very cool and then I think there's like a thread that he's getting that that has to do with destruction and meaning and like an out of lesson angst and oh yeah like a yeah just a search for something profound uh that is there is there I felt it I loved it I don't care that like because I didn't even get when I was watching the movie that he purposefully tried to kill himself at the end like I still don't mean that is he just goes up to the car because he killed his girlfriend or his girlfriend died goes up to the car and gets in the car did he like purposely drive under the few flush he like drives into the time portal somehow I believe in the director's cut they got the like visual effects budget to finish that which like makes it more clear but also this is the problem where you're like how does he trigger the rewinding component of it right there's a so okay this part is explained in film and I got it the first time I watched it oh well you're smarter than showing and I know there's the scene where he's showing a portal and earlier Noah Wiley that's just his name now I mean that is his name but that's his Nick characters name but yeah please keep going. Noah Wiley's like there's wormholes and so the implications that the wormhole leads to an earlier point in time there's like a voiceover that explains all this right like you take the metal thing through oh yes this I remember yeah is you got to have a metal vessel to travel through the portal that'll do it like the wormhole leads back to donnie's death which is why that's where the engine comes from so because the engine falls off the plane that that the mom and sister on and so the implication is also that like that plane would have crashed and killed everyone on it except that donnie like sealed off the other universe okay okay yeah yeah yeah yeah but this part of the movie like becoming clear to me like didn't matter actually yeah I like enjoyed the ride anyway and go ahead no that's I think I was thinking I was at the end of that it was um like it was the destructor kid and like yeah yeah this this like 16-year-old is this like force that is both doing good and destroying but like taking kind of unconscious really dramatic action like like flooding his school in the middle of the night because of bunny told him to yeah because the bunny told him to but yeah but I feel like that was like some explanation of excess of like essential angst or you know being a kid if I'm like dramatizing that you know I did when I was a kid and I don't really know why I do have a idea I mean we we can certainly have a therapy session if you want to unpack some of that but I do mother of a three-year-old but I do think that that there is this destructive quality at that age like when you think like and there is the sort of the Halloween party and the costumes and the drinking and the driving and there's just all of this like the bullies like why are they bullying people like it's [BLANK_AUDIO] Is this weird power dynamic that exists in high school? All these things are there. - It is kind of the ideal movie for a 19 year old. Because like everything in it has an explanation that you can go deep on. And yet also if you know too much about it, it kind of stops being good. You kind of like have to know, like you kind of have to know just enough to understand what's happening, which I think this cut gives you and then actually not really care about going any deeper. 'Cause if you go any deeper, Richard Kelly has explanations for you. And they're just kind of-- - What's funny about that is it makes me think of the Noah Wiley scene, 'cause his name is Noah Wiley, obviously in this movie. Is this thing you talked about earlier, if you know where he goes into the science class and Noah Wiley explains wormholes and time travel and what have you. And then it gets religious and Noah Wiley's like, I'm gonna stop you right there. I don't wanna get fired. I'm a teacher in high school and I don't wanna be talking about faith. - Is he appears to be at a private school? We're in theory, you could talk about faith. It's very strange. - Yeah. - It is interesting. I also a little piece of trivia that I loved is that there's a scene later in the film where Noah Wiley's eating a hard candy and apparently he did that because he believed his character to be diabetic. A bless him, which I just love. It's just a little bit of backstory that Noah created from the character. - I'm a one-kid type better. - Yeah. - Which I think is just lovely. - I'm gonna ask him about that. - Please do, please. We'd love to hear what he has to say about that. But it's, yeah, it's just, he is, he's not in this movie a ton. This is a big sprawling cast of people. They've all kind of got bit parts for all the types and purposes. But like everyone totally understands the assignment. I feel like Patrick Swazie gets it. I feel like Mary McDonnell who plays the like kind of horrible mom is great. I think she's a wonderful mom. - I mean horrible in the sense that there's like this edge to her. - Oh, sure. - Yeah, she hates the other moms. - Yes, she does. - And she's really good. - God bless her. She's reading a paperback copy of Stephen King's app. - Yeah. - Yes, she has. That's right. What was that about? I loved, he was like Patrick Swazie as Tom Cruise in Magnolia. - A little bit, a little bit. Yes. - I think you guys remember watching VHSs in high school. - Mm-hmm. - I don't, if you went to public high school, it was, the teachers would be like, just watch this video tape. - I just, I don't know my hair for Patrick. - You know, TV rolled to the top of the class. I remember that, but all of that self-help stuff. I wonder if there was more of it back then, than there, or now it's just disseminated over all of these platforms. So it's less in your fit. - Oh yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, I don't know. It was super loud in my life, but I'm from California though. - Sure. - I had that, I had that thought watching backgrounds, which has a similar character. - I'm kind of, quite emsy. - That's okay. It has a character who has self-help tapes. And I'm just like, was this that common? Like, growing up in South Dakota, where we helped ourselves or the Lord helped us. - Everything was normal. - No, no. - Yeah, it was, it's just modern day religion, right? Like, secular religion, you know? - Yeah, yeah. I'm curious what you guys thought of the parents in general, Mr. and Mrs. Darko. They had this really, and the sister played wonderfully by Maggie Jillinhal, and then the younger sister played by, I don't wanna mispronounce her name, because. - So, Vey Chase. - Vey Chase, unfortunately, passed away today. - What's the way? - Yeah, that was very, very sad. Very, very sad. Very sad. And it seemed like complications from meningitis, or, yeah. - You would, you being a doctor, obviously, Fiona, you would understand all of this. - I kinda know what meningitis is, no big deal. - You're like, I don't want to brag, guys, but I know what meningitis is. - Oh my gosh, yeah. I've really, I've really, I've really, I've been in a real doctor, so I'm like, getting, - Oh, wow, all right. - I know. - You really know. - I really, I really loved, really loved Vey Chase as a performer. She's great in this, she's great in the ring. She's great in Lilo and Stitch, and Big Love, she was wonderful in this, well, so. She seems semi-retired, because, you know, that's, - It's called the illness and what happens. - So, yeah, RIP. - The family dynamic is just really interesting. Like, I think it's got this, like, I think, when we're around the family dinner table, it has a little bit of like, it made me think of ET for whatever reason, like just the kids energies of, you know, having older, middle child, younger child, and the way that they interact with each other. Obviously, Maggie and Jake are brother and sister, so they have this sort of energy to begin with. But like, the parents seem like very kind of, laissez-faire about the way that their children are being raised, that I think is just interesting. And I don't know if that was like an 80s thing, or if he was just, I don't know, the parents were interesting. - Where is Donnie? Remember, like, he would disappear every night, would just be written on their refrigerator. I think, I was a latchkey kid, where was anybody else a latchkey kid? - I wasn't, I don't think Emily was. - I grew up on a hog farm, so. - Really? - Hard to be a latchkey kid on a hog farm, yeah. - Well, but they didn't, did they know where you are? Were you were? - Generally, yeah, you know, I mean, like, it's weird 'cause like, in some ways, I was like running wild around this enormous empty space, but like, it wasn't like a traditional latchkey kid existence and that I wasn't like a getting home from school and plopping down in front of the TV or whatever, you know? It was like, I had to help out with chores, so. - Let me define the terms here. What I mean by key is, you would like, go out and play and then have at a certain time. But there was no like, tracking, really. - Yeah, yeah. I think just by virtue of the fact that my parents worked where I lived, they just sort of always knew where I was. So it's, yeah, yeah. - So, but also for you Fiona too, like you started acting relatively young, like you weren't like, shh. - Wait, 23. - Oh, really? Okay, then I take it all back. - No, no. - I don't know what I'm talking about. - No, I, I, um, there was something about, I felt like they're family dynamic and bring it back to Johnny Darko. - Yeah, please, yeah, yeah. - They're family dynamic felt like they were trying to show kind of real, like, argumentative, difficult, but suburban American mundane life, right? Where the parents were like real people and they were kind of annoyed and they fell asleep in front of the Super Bowl. And, right. You know, they, um, they really just wanted the daughter to get into Harvard and everyone was worried about the kid. They were almost like almost non entities to me, except the mom had a little bit of an evolution. - Yeah, I mean, they, they're, yeah. They're, Donnie's death at the end, obviously, has a powerful effect on them, but there is, I think to your point Fiona, there's like, they care about Maggie and they care about the youngest daughter. Donnie seems to kind of be in this, like, this one's not gonna work. - I don't seem a little checked out. - I doubt they're committed to sparkle motion though. Like, I think that, yes, yes, yes. - As you I, it does, like, but we can also intuit from the fact that they're sending him to this clearly very specialized therapist. - Yeah. - And they're like, going to all these meet that they are like worried about him and concerned about him and they are aware he's extremely smart, but like in this sort of destructive path, I think like, - Therapist played by Catherine Ross. - There's a thing that's always so hard to do in movies about teenagers, which is revealing the parents have interlives too. And I think this movie gets there with Mary McDonald. You see that she is a person separate from her kids. It kind of doesn't get there with Holmes Osborne, but I'm not sure that it needs to 'cause he's just there to be kind of like a sick calm dad. Yeah. - She's played many times before and wonderfully. - Yeah. - Yeah. I felt like, I felt like it was, that was just a period of the 80s, the way they're related. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, that just felt like, that felt representative of the time, or even 90s, and I was a teenager in the 90s, but yeah, that you would get therapy and help, but it wasn't like helicopter culture yet. - Totally. - Yeah. - Yeah. And you know what's seen I really liked from Mary McDonald at the end was the wave between Ian and her and Jenna Malone. - Yeah. - Yeah. And I was like, oh, he's getting at like, sci-fi, all of our brains are connected kind of thing. - Or that they've been through this loop before. - They recognize each other. - Yeah. - It's so funny, it's so funny that the final shot is that little kid waving. - I'm also racing his head, the kid who plays Aaron Brockovich's son. - Oh. - Yeah. His voice was, I was like, why do I know this voice? And then I looked him up, I was like, that's why I know this voice. - That's incredible. - I was like, was that in the script, or did that kid just do it? - I don't think that kid just really, just did it. - I didn't know that kid just did it. You know what he means? - Yeah. I want to have a break for a second, the giant bunny rabbit that with this freaky mask that piece of paper. wearing. Um, is it I can maybe you know this Emily, because you know, you know, all things Donnie Darko. Uh, I mean, is this a reference to Harvey and some capacity or other? I don't know. I, that would sort of make sense. I, my, I remember the time, like the first time I watched this, the, the time when I just was like, Oh my God, this movie's amazing is when you see the guy in the bunny costume step out of that car and all the pieces lock in together. But yeah, it has to be, it has to be like a little Harvey riff. One other thing I noticed is that like, um, the, the marquee at the theater has evil dead, but also last temptation of Christ. And this movie is kind of a weird mashup of those two movies. That theater being the arrow in Santa Monica, a great theater that, that we have frequented on many times. They should, they should do that double feature. I like, they should do that double feature. They should. Why not? The next one come out like this year. Yeah. We covered the passion of the Christ. Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, no, but yeah, now he's doing, uh, he's back and he's pissed. He's, yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's gonna go to hell and he's gonna kick some ass. I'm honestly, and he's gonna take names. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. I don't know. I, the, the Frank reveal of the, of the Halloween costume is kind of like a, of course, but also I just never put two and two to, like, when I watch it the first time, I was like, that's a, that's a pretty great reveal. When you see the feet, uh, outside the car after our, grouches been run over. Um, yeah, the, the Frank of it all is a real high wire act because like, and you've been, you've obviously been in horror films, Fiona, you've been some, you've been in some chucky's and the like, um, you know, it's a balancing act. And if you tip, it becomes goofy and you wanted to stay scary and you wanted to stay like grounded enough in reality that it can feel real and be spooky, right? And I think this movie does that, but it's tough because it is a giant rabbit. I guess, but, you know what I think, I think there's something about the costume and that image of the rabbit that really worked and helped the movie become iconic because I, uh, I, yeah, it was both childlike and disturbing and distorted and, um, surprising. And yeah, I thought the outfit was great. The trick with horror movies or monster movies is you can't show the monster that much. You show the monster that might like, it, the monster, if that bunny rabbit is actually like coming to you, it's like immediately stupid. But they, but they did that in chucky, you know, when chucky is scary, it's, he's a doll that's not moving, but has tons of potential. Um, he is scariest when he's not wielding a knife. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, and I thought the, I thought the movie theater scene was great, you know, um, she sleeps for a long time though. He gets up, he burns down a house, comes back and she slept for the whole movie. Yeah, the whole thing for 40 minutes is something, you know, yeah, that is not an easy movie to sleep through either. Like, no, it's not. Last habitation though, that you could use through last impatient if you wanted. I'm just saying, oh, I guess it was a double feature. Yeah. They went from both of that. Yeah. Yeah. I ultimately think this movie's about God, no big deal. Yeah. I'm like, it was written by like a man in his 70s who had like thought about a lot of wisdom in life. And then decided 22 year old straight out of film school. About a man starts for meaning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that. Squarespace, he squarespace, the impulsier, he should remake this and make it like aggressively Catholic. Like I'm in. I'm in. Sure. Uh, I still haven't seen that. So, uh, is it, is it aggressively Catholic? More Catholic than you think. Great. There's nuns. Um, yeah, I, I agree with you, uh, Fiona, that this movie is, I think it is a faith movie. I don't know that it's necessarily about God, but I think it's in faith of a larger that there's something bigger than us have play, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think it is like a movie about the question of free will versus predestination. And if you assume the thing that I think about a lot with, with time travel stories, um, I thought about this a lot with the TV version of 12 monkeys, which is a movie that effectively says, if time travel exists, but also you can't actually change anything because time is a dimension we are trapped within and not a thing we can alter. Therefore time kind of becomes God. Like you are sort of like pinned down by it. And that means that, uh, you, uh, there is no free will. There's just predestination. This movie's like playing in that space and saying, if you could see the paths, everyone's following, you would effectively be able to see God. And what would that look like? It would look like weird jealous. I mean, out of people, I mean, I think that's almost a line from Noah Wiley, right? Or from that conversation of them is like, what would happen if you could see time travel? And then, and then it became like, I know, Wiley kind of bowing out saying like, this is something that will get me fired. I can't talk about like the truth of God, basically, right? Um, yeah. And there's also the like the portal, the, the things that come out of people's chests that like we're a bis like thing, the movie the abyss that is, um, uh, is that it leads him to his parents closet where he finds the God. So like, there's also this like time and fate being intertwined as well a little bit. This idea of like, what are we destined to do? Plays into it as well. Um, I just, there's a seed in this movie that made me think about the movie that we're covering next week, actually, which is old joy. I don't know if you don't just need an old joy. I can't wait to see where this is going. Um, there's this seed where they're out in the woods. And there's like random furniture and they're all just like sitting on like random couches and like, which is very much like a kind of a kid thing to do, or it's like you find some old shit and you just take it out to the woods. So you can like hang out and whatever. Like it felt very stand by me, very Stephen King that like kids would just be like hanging out of the woods sitting on like gross couches. I don't know. But, you know what I mean? Yeah. But in old joy, they also do that. But anyway, continue. I loved some of the set design for me or just the, the, the like look of the movie, some of the cinematography was, was not of the present moment. I mean, um, yeah, and like glossed over or something. It was like heavily filtered. Um, yeah. And yeah. And then there was something, yeah, like lovely nostalgic. Um, yeah, the, the, the, the, of all of it of the high school and the kids and the bus and I mean, it wasn't exactly 1988. I don't know really what it was, but it was, it was a little timeless at times. Yeah. It wasn't now for sure. Um, and I wonder if somebody who's like 20 now sees Johnny Darko, what happens? You know, somebody who like, I think it's still hitting for kids. I think I think they make back rooms is what happens. Oh, yes. Or obsession for that matter. No, yeah. In the theater since February, which is insane for me. You got two good ones to see right now. I know. I know. I know. Believe me. I know. I've been, I think, I think everybody I know is texting me about obsession. Um, yeah. I'm excited. It's all completely exactly up my alley, but I haven't seen it. I can't speak to that, but I think that, I think you're like it, but I do think that like this movie is tone and I, Emily, we spoke about tone in in South Lentails, but like, I think the tone of this movie is actually pretty on point. Like I feel like it, it understands the jokes and the jokes are mostly at the expense of, um, why can't I think of the actress's name and plays that crazy mom? Oh, Beth Grant. Yeah. Beth Grant, of course. Who's amazing? Always amazing. Um, but like, there's this, I understand why people saw this movie in 2001 or in the early 2000s and was like, who is this guy? Like this Richard Kelly's got vision and there's something so, uh, mesmerizing about sequences in this film, right? Where you're just like, wow, this guy could do anything. And then he, he does do anything in South Lentails, but it's sort of the beginning of the end. But it is just a really, it moves really well. I think this movie is a little over 90 minutes. It's going 100 minutes long. I haven't seen the director's cut, but I hear the director's cut is longer and not better. But it's, yeah, it's explaining too much. Yeah. It's like, it's actually quite hard to see now. Like that the, it's like everyone has realized we should just be watching this cut. So, right. It's, it's longer. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. And I know because I like stop. You're like, wait a second. Yeah. I get really tired pretty early. These days, um, well, you know, you're, you're working at the pit. I imagine that's, I'm not you. Yeah. Yeah. We work hour hours. Um, you mentioned sparkle motion, Emily. Uh, them dancing to notorious is, uh, you know, I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. Yeah. Uh, them dancing to notorious is, uh, is tremendous cross cut with Donnie burning down Patrick's Waisy's house. It's a great sequence. Yeah, and I do think that like, there's also that like, do you remember that there's the scene where Donnie realizes that there's this girl in his class that has a crush on him. He sees that she has like a notebook with like Donnie's name on it and then he like takes her earmuffs. - Oh, just to be that, yeah. Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't know. - That stuff. - It's like this movie constantly walks the line of being to me. And then put like, especially with Tririda, but also like the scene where like Donnie like gets on, does a tight five on the mic where he's like addressing everybody at that assembly. He's like, you just gotta go up for the field hockey team. And it's like, okay. Sure. Like part of what be part of the appeal of this movie, I'm convinced is everyone regardless of gender has been a 16 year old who thinks they understand how A, how the world works in every particular and B, that they are the most important person alive. And that they, if like the to say they may have to die to save the world, you know, like. - Totally. - And like I think that is, but yeah, there are scenes where he's like, I'm gonna tell it like it is. And you're like, Donnie, my God. - No, no, that's right. It was like, it's why I kept going back to American beauty. I think that was the beauty. It was like, it was somebody who would like reach the rent being like, this is all bullshit, you know? And then, and then you can see this kind of divine, right? It's like stepping out of your, mundane perception and then you see portals or whatever. But maybe he was, problem was he was like, maybe schizophrenic and also too much explanation. I don't like want to. - I don't know what this movie is saying about mental health. I'm not sure really what are you saying about mental health. But. - There's a whole thing that happens in the 2000s. - Yeah. - There's a billion movies that are like, our kids are over-medicated. Our kids are taking too many pills. We are not letting them experience life. And then the second the smartphone is invented, that strand goes away. And now we're like, the kids have too many phones. So. - As we're sort of wrapping this up, I do, this movie barrels towards like the Halloween party, which again is such a like, I just love any movie that's barreling towards a party of some sort. Like that, like, shit's gonna go down at this party. Donnie's Halloween costume. I remember being a really big Halloween costume in the early 2000s. The gray hoodie with the skeleton black t-shirt. Am I making this up? Does anyone else remember this? - No, I think you're right. And you know what? I'm hereby vowing to be Donnie Darko this whole week. - I'll be shooting in Pittsburgh. If I'm not in Pittsburgh, I'm gonna be Donnie Darko. - Well, if you do, please send us a picture. We'll post it and it'll all come full circle. We'll all loop around just like a Richard Kelly movie. - Sorry, I don't mean to cut that, that question off. Emily, do you remember Son Darko? - I don't offhand, but again, middle of nowhere South Dakota, I was maybe the only person who'd seen this movie. So I mean, I think we could, (laughing) I think we could safely say that Phoebe Bridgers really liked that costume because obviously she wore a skeleton thing for the better part of what two years during her puns. - If there's one person alive who's been through a Donnie Darko experience, it's Phoebe Bridgers. Like she has, she gets it, she absolutely gets it. I also, the end of this movie also has like a bunch of kids riding on bikes, which again, like the 80s, just kids riding bikes. It's just more of that. - It's a lot. - We did it. I was on like bike bikes, you know, through LA. - Phil's, love that for you, Phoebe. - Yeah, I think so. - Phil's gonna be like, we gotta take their phones away and give them bikes. - Give them bicycles and antidepressants. - Pager. We actually like three pagers. Pagers were like 95, right? - Yeah, yeah, no, they didn't have the res, yeah. It was great. I do think that like the very end of this movie that we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, but still like, it does have a sense of everything's kind of locking together, which is very satisfying when it feels like whenever a movie comes full circle and you feel like, oh, I get it, I think this movie comes close to that. I was still a little confused when it does come close to feeling satisfying. - Yeah. - I think for me, it hits that sweet spot of the puzzle pieces lock into place in a way where you feel gratified that somebody somewhere understands what's going on. And there's also just enough left, just enough left unfinished that you can fill in some of those pieces yourself. And that's why the director's cut is less exciting to me because everything that was left unfinished gets finished. And like, it. - What's the difference? What happens? - And the director's cut, I don't remember this exactly. I haven't, it's very hard to see now, but do you want me to tell you exactly? - Yes, please. - Do I have it in front of me for what it's worth? As outlined by the salon article that Emily mentioned, drawing from the book's text much of the film takes place in this unstable tangent universe. And the end of the movie is more of a, okay, sorry, I'm trying to, I have primary universe by a wormhole, the interest to which is the vortex scene at the end of the film, and which is an exact duplicate of the primary, except for extra metal object, known as the artifact, which in this case is the jet engine. If the artifact is not sent back to the primary universe by the designated living receiver, that's Donnie, within 28 days, the primary universe will be destroyed upon the collapse of the tangent universe into a black hole. Fjordos faces perv, I agree with you 100%. - And like, yes. - In the movie, they like, in the director's cut, they sit down and like sort of explain a version of this, and you're just like, okay, I guess it is so much better to have it be a vibe. - I guess a vibe. - I guess a vibe. - Give us a vibe. - I have sort of this like theory of like, directors like Lynch and Miyazaki, where they're, you can tell, they know why everything in this movie's happening. And because you can tell, you don't need to worry about it. And I think Richard Kelly seems like that. And then his inclination is always, I have to explain absolutely everything. And that's when he starts to like fall apart. - Yeah. There are two other things that I wanted to just quickly say before we wrap this up. Because I do think that, we talked about this a little bit on South Atlantic Tales, but I do think that Richard Kelly is a talented filmmaker. Right? Like I do think that you watched Donnie Darko and it's hard not to watch and be like, this guy's got juice. Like there's more to be done here. He only made two other films. In 2017, he revealed that he has a new idea for a sequel to Donnie Darko, which is much bigger and more ambitious than the original. Take from that what you want. In 2021, he announced that he's done an enormous amount of work on the script. And he was inspired to do so after meeting James Cameron in 2010 who found the film disturbing. And Kelly explained what happened to Donnie at the end of the film. Cameron suggested to Kelly that he continue working on the project, which made Kelly realize there was something more epic to be done with this story. Whether or not we see anything in the Donnie Darko universe as anyone's guess, but I do think that when James Cameron comes up to and says like, that's some cool shit. I imagine you're going to be like, you're totally right. You're totally right. We need to do more. You know what I realized? Like part of the reason why I was so receptive to this movie. The guy, this is going to make this person sound pretentious, but he's not. But the guy that I'm sort of dating is really into, he's really into for weight. Well, I never got into, but he was like, he was telling me about the interpretations of dreams and just the rea, the, you know, to the associate, the free association with it, how there can be this like underlying consciousness that's trying to look for what wish fulfillment is. And I like, I think that there was something about watching this movie that made me feel like it was that and that made it sort of interesting and valid or something totally. You know, and I was like, let's end it there. Like I don't need the portal of the universe to like, begin and end. I think these are like, sort of unconscious drives that are, we see like happening to a kid in high school in a way that feels like surreal and interesting and like a dream. But when I hold it, when I say the words living receiver and manipulated death, you get really excited, right? You're like, I want to know more about that. I want you to explain these words to me. But I think you're, you're, you're talking into something that I do think is interesting, because I think that we've talked about this many times, I'm only on many movies of just like, when a movie doesn't have faith in its audience, right? And it feels like it has to hold your hand or it feels like it has to tell you all the answers. And I personally, I think the three of us feel this way, we're like, it's more exciting when a movie is not spoon-feeding you things, right? Where it's like, you have to draw your own conclusions. And it's, I mean, whether or not it's something, you know, like I saw the TV glow or a David Lynch film where it's like on its face, it's like, you know, we're gonna just take you on a weird psychedelic kind of ride or something like this where I'm like, I don't want it explained to me because A, I'm really sure it makes any fucking sense. And B, it's just more fun to just go along for the ride. And I wish that I'm hoping that movies like Backrooms and Obsession being as successful as they are are movies that I don't think are holding your hand particular, it's Backrooms in particular. I mean, that's exciting. - Yeah, I agree. I have this whole spiel for all the press I've been doing with the pit, which is like part of the reason why the pit really works is because it treats audience like it's smart. You know, I mean, and we really do, we like, The writing of the show is just like you guys take all this jargon and follow the kind of emotional through line of it. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's a secret that Hollywood should learn. It did take me six or seven episodes to realize that was set in the hospital. When, when Narsena was like, this is a hospital, I was like, oh! It all makes so much more sense now. The one other thing that I think is interesting is that this movie ends with a cover of Mad World, a tears for fear cover by Gary Jules, which in 2003 was released as a single and it was number one in the UK for three weeks during which it was the country's Christmas number one of that year. It's a great song. I mean, the original is a great song, but it's a great cover. It is just, it's a great vibe. It's a perfect way to end the film. It's so haunting, but also like somewhat optimistic. It feels like, yeah, it's also the most played version of the song on Spotify above the tears for fear is original. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of our podcast, can I actually can I ask you one question? This movie has a lot of like really great actors who had like careers outside of this film who clearly came in and shot two or three days just to help it out as someone who when you when you get a script for like a micro budget movie and they're like, can you come in and do two, three days like what makes you spark to doing a job like that like a drew very normal, you know, we're open to that stuff if the scripts good. And if it's something that I feel like. It's something where I have like faith in the vision, you know, I I fought tooth and nail to get into this fronzen fjolum movie that we just shot head full of ghosts. And you know what I'm been six, seven scenes or something. It's like not a huge, I'm not a huge part, but they're interesting, right. There's my thoughtful serious movie people who make things that I mean, their movies are like exactly my taste, which is part of the reason why I wanted to work with them, but yeah, it's if you know a good script is rare actually. Sure. And it's why like, you know, writers can still be discovered because you read a lot of scripts in Hollywood and and then you get one that isn't obvious. I also imagine timing has a lot to do with it. You know, you're this to show you're on. Oh, yeah, nine months of the year. But, but yeah, I mean, I, you know, don't tell anybody this, but like I work for basically free if it's good enough, you know, because it's that's great. It's good to make it's good to make good stuff, you know, I'll ask Noah. And help that please ask Noah about the hard candies and the diabetic, oh, the diabetes. But don't, don't ask him if God is behind time travel, because then he'll have to stop talking to you. He'll have to stop talking to you. It'll be like, I can't talk about that. It is. So at the end of our podcast, we rate our films, zero to 99, zero being the lowest obviously 99 being the highest. And what we try to do is rate it from when we first saw it and when we watched it just recently for this. So Emily, do you want to go first? Yeah, when I first saw this, I was probably like a song video, probably early 2002. I probably was like at like 89. And then I watched it so many times. I probably did get up to like a 99. I probably thought this movie was like a masterpiece. I don't go quite that far now. I think if you want to bring up American beauty makes it interesting to me to situate it in that movement. I call end of history cinema, which is like all these movies, American Beauty Matrix Fight Club, this some others that are like, well, we've reached the end, the Cold War's over. We reached the end of everything. And we feel kind of empty inside, which like, precise a lot of like what came next. But this is very much in that movement, a very interesting example of it. The older I get the harder I find Donnie in some scenes to take, especially when he's like just just giving everybody the business as we'd say. But I do have a great time with this film. I think I'm going to say like a like 81. I think it's a good rip or in good time with some with an ending that just really hits the ending is great. Fiona, what about you? I would say I saw this movie when I was 25 or something and was like, I will do anything to have sex with Jake Gyllenhaal. And, uh, God, you got over that. Of course. I And I would say I was like 97, right? And you know, I'm still in the 90s for this movie. I don't want to this conversation. I was like higher before we had it. So I was like fever, fever dream of existential eggs. Like that is what this movie is for me. That's what it should be. Like you guys ruined it a little bit. Listen. I'm 92 now. Right. That's great. Before before I was a professional writer of fictions. I was a critic. So I get very like, Mired in my own bullshit. So don't listen to me. We certainly weren't trying to ruin it. We were trying to bridge in the experience for you guys. You're right. Though I just like I didn't. I think it would be like a lot coming back in the open portals of the way. Like it's just I have very. I need it. Yeah. Be clear. 16 year old Emily would have thought that Donnie Darker standing up in front of the assembly and telling everybody to like join the field hockey team or whatever. She would have been so into that. And now 40 something Emily looking back on those days. But why did I date him? So what I saw this film as I mentioned earlier, I saw it as working at a video store and hearing way too many college bros tell me how brilliant it was. So I kind of bumped up against this a little bit. So I probably would have given it like a 65 back then. But I'd say now I'm in like 88 89 territory. I think it's a I think it's a really good movie. I had a really great time rewatching it. And I'm so thankful Fiona that you were able to take the time to chat with us about it. I'm obviously people can watch you save lives whenever they want on HBO Max on the pit. I am here as a health care hero. I'm a few max. You big your first day of shooting was yesterday. Hey, I mean, even more thankful that you took the time to and I will say to I went to the academy museum. I was just saying that you guys did it the finale last week, which was I just want to say that this getting to see that show on the big screen is really special because that show is so immaculately well made as you very well know. But that Q and A. I was happy in. I was just flown into town and was having I didn't want to I didn't want to talk on a panel. I remember like kind of like I'm always happy to do publicity for the show because it's like winning a lottery. But the whole. It feels like winning a lottery. But I didn't want to talk. And then that guy was just we had this F.Y.C. panel or who was the funny guy from pod saves America, I guess. I was roasted. And the show runner and didn't ask anybody any questions was just like what's in the hand sanitizer. What's in it? It was it was really uncomfortable. But I'm sure. Unfortunately, my books are published by crooked media so I can say no more. I'll just say this to say I love John's show. I wrote this F.Y.C. panel with the same energy and I don't think that anyone was maybe told that that was going to be the energy. So you had like three EPs being like what the fuck is going on. I will say it was I've been to a fair amount of F.Y.C. panels just because you know I want to hear people talk about how they make their shows. But with my roommate and we've been to a bunch of them and they're usually pretty boring. Because they're usually like really formula questions and you're just sort of like whatever. This one was at least you didn't know what the fuck was going to happen. I mean, I had I felt bad because I think a lot of the you know a lot of you know there's a lot of money put into the F.Y.C. of that by the pit. You know what I mean? I think there was a lot of people who were like really annoyed but like on my end it was kind of. This is that's the funny thing is that the cast you could tell was having a great. I was just like. At the end of it there was like a bottle dropped and our showrunner who's hilarious was like sorry that was my gun. It was it was. It was a crazy panel. Right. I actually I heard I heard about this second hand from a different friend who was there. I do want before before we let you go there do you have another like do you have a project you hope people will like seek out from your career like us. Maybe one that's more under the radar that you're like really proud of. I always like to ask people who have. You're coming out something in the future. Yeah, I mean do you guys know. I've brought Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good night. Good night mommy. Good night, mommy. the lodge and their last one, which I think was their best best one that went under the radar as Devil's Bath. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Devil's Bath I think is like a genuine masterpiece. I think they make really great, can weird, surprising, smart movies. And I love, I'm like, I'm a genuine. I think they're geniuses. And I did their last movie in Ireland. I just got back. It's called Head full of ghosts. I played David Harper's wife. And I'm very excited to see that movie. And I hope that I hope that that kind of horror, you know, gets like, gets, I feel like a surprising psychological horror is kind of having a moment as it should is my favorite type of film. And people should seek that out. Is it, do you think it's going to do the festival circuit? Do you think or? It's a high distribution. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's also fully American movie funded by America, set in America, shot in Ireland. So we got to figure that out, guys, but. Yeah. Yeah. Not that they didn't do an excellent job in Ireland, because everybody was really strong, but it was like, it's pretty silly. It's based on one of the great horror novels of the last 20 years. So I'm really excited to see it for that reason. And Phil, you should read the book. You'll love it. It looks excellent. And it looks like it's just like just scare me. It's like, I don't, I was not, I will, I don't know how scary this book is, but it does this incredible thing where the last page makes you rethink everything you've just read. Right. Yeah. Like it's where it's like, it's lives in the ambiguous space, which you know, I love of, is this real or is this supernatural? There is this just like mental illness and it stays there. The whole book and then the last sentence you're like interesting. Check it out. I'm very excited. Bonnie Darko is trying to do that. A little. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to walk a line and then make it a time traveling portal, which we've done. Yeah. With the giant bunny. Yeah. Whatever. She only thank you so much for doing this. Cool. Yeah. and have you come on here and talk with us, and hopefully you'll come back in the future. We'll talk movies again, it was just a wrap of joy. - I love it. - It's nice talking to you guys. - Nice talking to you, too. - Bye. - Bye. Bye. ♪ Like the Esquire, it's like the day we see the world ♪ ♪ It's like the day we see the world ♪