Donnie Darko and Number 81

This past weekend I finally watched Donnie Darko (2001), the movie I've been reading about for a year or two as a modern cult classic. Without knowing much of anything about it, I viewed the movie only with the impression that I should like it because Entertainment Weekly told me to. Sometimes, EW recommendations pay off such as when I saw Office Space (1999) after reading about it. I thought Office Space was slyly humorous with a bit of insight into corporate american culture. With Donnie Darko, the story went slightly different.

Donnie Darko tells the story of a troubled rich kid in search of the "truth" (as troubled kids often do in movies). Darko lives his life detached from reality, taking medications and seeing his psychologist while living with a family that would like to hide him away until he gets "better". Darko narrowly avoids death by sleeping in the golf course as his room is crushed by a jet engine. The near death experience motivates Darko to find purpose in life.

From Darko's point of view, the "truth" lies in the hypocracy and inconvenient facts that upper class america wants to ignore. Donnie Darko refuses to conform to conservative america's creed. Is he a troubled and possibly psychotic lunatic or a rebel revealing the dark side of reality that the majority wants to ignore? You make the call.

The movie stacks the deck both ways, with Donnie Darko having visions of time travel and a malicious bunny telling him to do evil deeds. On the other hands, Darko's evil deeds often result in exposing the hidden dark side of "upstanding" citizens. The film wisely underplays these events to keep some semiblance of realism going, a move that proves to be effective. It kept me mildly interested throughout the movie until the big twist ending.

Some things threw me about this movie, such as the decent quality special effects and the hollywood cast. Usually, films of this type are somewhat indie and lacks the polish provided by good financial backing. To see actors such as Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall (sp?), Mary McDonnell, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze and Noah Wyle appear in a dark film was surprising. The movie is well acted, though I wasn't entirely convinced by Jake Gyllenhall in the lead role. Gyllenhall sold me on acting disturbed, but I didn't quite buy the moments where he had to project vulnerability or chaos. His acting just seemed a little mannered to me. Also, I really didn't believe Gyllenhall was a teenager. In one scene, Drew Barrymore is portraying Gyllenhall's teacher and they look the same age.

So why is this movie a cult classic? The best I can tell, it must have to do with the setting. Donnie Darko is like Ferris Bueller, if Ferris Bueller had an axe to grind with the world. It seems a lot of people can get behind that. I just thought it was OK. Otherwise, the themes of time and its effects on identity and memory has been explored in better detail with other movies released about the same time as Darko. Being John Malkovich (1999), Memento (2000) and Mulholland Drive (2001) are better movies about similar subjects. Particularly Mulholland Drive, that movie is a total trip!

One thing I really enjoyed was the music in this movie. 80's classics such as Tears for Fears "Head Over Heels", Duran Duran's "Notorious" and The Church's "Under The Milky Way" get a lot of exposure here. But lets face facts, if Darko was really disturbed in the 80's he would have listened to Number 81:

Metallica - Ride The Lightning (1984)

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when Metallica wasn't a bunch of careerist snobs. There was a time when Metallica was a band on a mission: To rock as hard as possible and not worry about whether other people liked it or not.
Ride The Lightning captures the band at a time when their songcraft was developing and their riffs hit fast and furious. Heavy riffing, growling vocals and rapid fire drums attack on every song. "Fight Fire With Fire", "Ride The Lightning" and "Creeping Death" pound away with the force and velocity of a jet engine (a subliminal Donnie Darko reference I guess) thanks to the rhythm section of drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Cliff Burton and guitarist James Hetfield. Hetfield's vocals bark like a crazed drill sargent as he tackles themes like war ("For Whom The Bell Tolls"), Passover ("Creeping Death") and the electric chair ("Ride The Lightning"). Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett blazes through his solos with precision and speed.

"Fade To Black", a song written about the band's equipment being stolen while touring Europe, is the classic on the album. "Black" is often voted among the best Metallica songs ever by their fans. It may have to do with the song structure, it begins with a quiet acoustic intro, picks up speed in the middle and ends with a melodic guitar solos racing to the big finish. Sort of like "Stairway To Heaven", but faster.

Ride The Lightning is by far the darkest Metallica album, many of the songs carry morbid themes. However, the themes are offset by their performance which sounds like a band fighting for their goals and dreams. A little shocking to hear from the band that would later give us half hearted stuff like the Reload (1997) album.

Don't get me wrong, I still like Metallica quite a bit. I finally saw them play live at a Rolling Stones concert last year and had a great time. But Ride The Lightning simply has a sense of commitment and uncompromising attitude that is completely missing from their current work. Listen to anything they recorded after 1996 and then this album to hear the difference. Now that's time travel!

Journey's lead singer and Number 82

In high school, Journey was my favorite rock band. I followed that band like kids in the 60's followed the Beatles, every album, every single release and video was a major event to me. I had posters of them on my bedroom wall, right up there with Asia and REO Speedwagon. I've owned their album catalog four times over, twice on cassette tapes that couldn't take the punishment of repeat plays and twice on vinyl (a friend borrowed my Journey albums and left them in his car. They were more warped than a David Lynch movie by the time I got them back.) Over the years, I've seen Journey in concert about five times. The first two times was in 1986, two great concerts featuring the greatest singer of all time: Steve Perry.

But, all good things must come to an end and after that tour Steve Perry and Journey all but disappeared. Ten years later, Journey returned with Steve Perry for a new album but Perry's health problems prevented a tour. A few years later Perry was kicked out officially for his health but it's more likely due to his desire to sit around his house and live off his money (apparently the only member of Journey who can do that).

With Perry out, auditions followed (which included Geoff Tate of Queensryche) and the band chose Steve Augeri. Augeri bore a striking physical resemblence to Perry and could sing in a style that fit the original songs. While Perry was rumored to be a bit of a prima donna, Augeri was the singer the band wanted-a team player, someone with more of a rock influence and less ego.

When I saw Augeri for the first time, I was skeptical of how well it would go. That skepticism was erased when Augeri nailed "Separate Ways" at the beginning of the show. He wasn't charismatic or have as strong a voice as Perry, but Augeri was energetic and entertaining. Augeri's presence allowed Journey to rock harder and more often, but the lack of soulfulness made them sound stiffer and more generic.

Unfortunately, Steve Augeri had some throat problems recently which has forced him to step down from the lead singer spot (at least temporarily). As a result, the Journey I'm going to see next month will have a different singer: Jeff Scott Soto. Soto has been around for years and is best known to me as the voice of Mark Wahlberg in the movie Rock Star. Rock Star was a crappy movie, but the music was great! Soto can wail and has some of the R&B influence that has been missing from Journey since Perry's departure. Soto's voice does seem a touch lower than the two Steve's, but I think he'll still come off OK. This will add a lot of drama and interest in this upcoming concert, can Soto be the second coming of Perry or will he be Gary Cherone version 2.0. I can't wait to find out.

With that said, Number 82 is:

Blondie - Greatest Hits (2002)

Blondie is a band who I was familiar with before I started to listen to a lot of music. They were often on television and the radio and seemed to have a different sound each time out. Being a kid, I thought they were somehow related to the comic strip "Blondie" though Debbie Harry always seemed more blase'. Their big hits from their hot streak in the late 70's and early 80's is the reason they made this list.

When I think of Blondie, I think of sitting in my room with a bunch of homework listening to the radio. The breezy laid back pop of "The Tide Is High" always made me think of sunny beaches and palm trees. On the other hand, the flashy new wave rock of "Call Me" reminded me of L.A. streets and hookers (being on the American Giggolo soundtrack didn't help). "Atomic" was known for its rap at the end about the Cadillac that keeps eating cars. "Heart of Glass" was pure disco, when it would play on tv I kept waiting for Jon and Ponch to cut loose on the dance floor. My personal favorite is "One Way or Another", a swanky, swinging rock song with a bit of punk thrown in. That song has been used in a thousand commercials and I think a network used it as its theme song for a while (was it ABC?).

Blondie was a pop chameleon in the best sense of the words. They could adapt to almost any musical trend and bring out the glossier elements of their songs to juxtapose against Harry's disaffected vocals. At times, Blondie brought in some of their Punk edge on "X Offender" or "Dreaming". Other times, Blondie could get a little girl groupish on tunes like "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear" and "Sunday Girl". No musical style was off limits, as Blondie is often credited with having one of the first major rap hits with "Atomic". New wave, pop, punk, disco...it was all there!

Like many groups that become the "it" band, the bubble eventually burst. Blondie did score a decent comeback hit a few years ago called "Maria", a sweeping pop rock tune that brought some luster back to their name. Despite the jaded attitude of Blondie, their music will always remind me of youthful innocence when life was about baseball cards and Battlestar Galactica.

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Kagemusha and odds & ends

One of the things my wife and I like to do is sit down on weekends and watch Akira Kurosawa movies. Kurosawa's films are often sprawling epics about samurais or warlords who struggle to live by codes of honor and pay the price for doing so (or sometimes not doing so) with hundreds or thousands of lives on the line. Kurosawa's films are often amazing to watch to view the size and scope of the settings, memorable characters and a humanistic view of personal motivation. His films are almost like a "how-to guide" on great filmmaking, from the intriguing stories to the realistic acting to the detailed cinematography. The quality of the productions are first rate and carry the thumbprint of his talent throughout the process.

It was with this in mind that we sat down to watch Kagemusha (1980) this weekend. The film was a colorful three hour epic about a warlord who commands his stand in to take his place in the event of his death. When the warlord dies, the stand in (a petty thief) assumes the identity of the warlord to keep other warlords from attacking their area. The film follows the development of the stand in as he struggles to become someone he is not. I won't give away much more of the story except to say this is one tragic film.

Unfortunately, I can't say this is the best Kurosawa film I've ever seen. Multiple lead characters, often a Kurosawa specialty, are a bit more difficult to follow than his other films. Even with subtitles telling me who is who, I had trouble figuring out what was going on and how the characters related to each other. This is also the most talky Kurosawa movie I've ever seen, with conversations bordering on Star Wars-The Phantom Menace length. Nothing is more dull than watching characters endlessly debate each other about what happened in the previous debate (unless it's Inherit The Wind. But back then the filmmakers knew about this thing called story editing to reduce the problem).

Kagemusha did succeed in making me feel for the tragedy of the lead character, a minor criminal who comes to believe in the establishment by portraying its leader. There are some magic moments, such as when the line comes up about how no matter who you pretend to be the shadow of a man will always be true followed by a shot in a latter scene of the stand-in's shadow getting larger behind him. This movie also deserves a little extra credit for rebooting Kurosawa's career and allowing him to film one of his masterpieces, Ran (1985). I give this film a 7 out of 10.

Other odds and ends. I saw part of Catwoman (2005) starring Halle Berry. A ridiculous story so poorly executed its laughable about a meek and mild cosmetics worker becoming Catwoman. Boring CGI, funky costumes (Catwoman looks like an Egyptian Mouseketeer with an S&M bent) and a bizarre green tint to every shot make the old Batman TV show seem like a realistic documentary. What's really funny is seeing Halle Berry give 100% to her performance, seemingly oblivious to how bad the rest of the movie is. What's the old phrase, it's like watching someone polish a vase while the building falls down around her. This is a bad bad movie! I give it -2 out of 10.

Another movie I saw was Henry & June (1989) about the relationship between writers Henry Miller and Anais Nin. It was good, but I couldn't help but notice I was watching yet another movie about a married French woman who has to sleep with many people to feel whole (Belle Du Jour was the same way). What did impress me was Fred Ward as Henry Miller, convincing in a way he usually isn't with every B action movie I've seen him in (Remo Williams? Ever notice there hasn't been a Remo Williams 2 in twenty years?). The guy can act! Who knew?