'Donnie Darko' gets extended for disc version
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
"Donnie Darko" may not have been the first film to build a following via DVD. But without a DVD release, Richard Kelly's willfully odd film about a borderline schizophrenic (Jake Gyllenhaal) who discovers powers he never imagined after an evil giant rabbit informs him the world will soon end most likely would have been forgotten.
"Donnie Darko" took off after being released on disc in 2003. Its popularity led to a limited theatrical reissue last year, for which Kelly assembled a "Director's Cut," adding about 20 minutes of footage.
"Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut" (Fox) is now available on DVD, and rabid — not rabbit — fans will have to own it. The additional scenes and restructuring answer some of the questions left open in the first version. They also alter the focus of the film, and, for this viewer at least, not in a positive way.
Still, it's hard to resist as a counterpart, if not a replacement, for the original. The 2-disc set, packaged in a classy slipcase, looks and sounds the same, although the additional material means more good music on the soundtrack. And the commentary track offers another surprise, a conversation between Kelly and an admiring fan: director-writer Kevin Smith.
An even more obsessed admirer shows up on disc two in a supplement called "1 Fan: A Darkomentary." A guy calling himself Darryl Donaldson purports to be the winner of a Web competition in which fans showed the extent of their devotion by making a film.
More substantial is a one-hour "Production Diary" with on-set footage and the half-hour "They Made Me Do It Too" in which talking heads, from critics to fans, discuss how the cult formed. The extras from the first DVD are not included, so even if you prefer the new edition, you won't want to toss the first one away.
Missing Guevara
Of the various films overlooked by Oscar this year as a potential best picture (or at least potential best foreign-language film), the most deserving may be "The Motorcycle Diaries" (Universal). Walter Salles' drama portrays the trip through South America taken by Argentine medical student Ernesto Guevara (an excellent Gael Garcia Bernal), who would become the revolutionary Che, and his friend, Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna, in a funny, robust performance).
The DVD transfer is splendid, but oddly, it contains no extras.
Irish coming of age
"Cowboys & Angels" had a limited theatrical run (it never did open in Honolulu), but it wasn't long enough for audiences to discover this witty, wonderfully sweet coming-of-age story of two Irish roommates, one gay (Allen Leech) and one straight (Michael Legge), who discover more in common than they had imagined. The DVD (TLA Releasing) should help the film get the attention it deserves.
I had little enthusiasm for last year's "Saw" (Lion's Gate), a grisly Australian suspense thriller, but it grew into a box-office hit. The DVD is short on extras, but comes packaged in a very cool and creative case.
