Jordan, I respect everyone's right to have an opinion. I firmly believe that life would not be worth living if all of us were not allowed to hold our own beliefs and thoughts.
But it's ironic that you affirm your right to have an opinion (your support #3 in your first post) and yet deny all of us one (your support #5). People like hawksley, duncan, robert, etc. are allowed to like this movie just as you are allowed to hate it.
I also find that your support for hating Donnie Darko (in your second post) is lacking. Just why do you hate this movie? I'm not saying you're stupid for not liking it, but WHY don't you like it?
I read the article you gave and it has virtually the same support you had. "It was stupid." "Retarded, retarded, retarded." "What a dumb movie!" No, that's not technically support.
Firstly, in regards to your first post, there was a plot. A beginning, a middle, a climax, an end. Yes, the film did jump around a lot, but I don't think it necessary at all to have to outline where the film began, climaxed, and ended.
Calling Donnie a dork is only support for your childishness. You don't have to like the main character in a story- ever read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates? (http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/southerr/wgoing2.html) In fact, you know you've met a fantastic writer who makes a character that isn't very likeable and yet you are compelled to sympathize for him in the end.
Donnie wasn't a hero until he made the sacrifice. He had psychological problems, he was a somewhat-typical horny teenage boy, he was a murderer, he was angry, he committed crimes and disrespected one of his teachers (though I believe she, by all means, deserved it). When he was told the world was to end, he laughed. He was far from your typical bright-and-shining, muscular, moral hero who goes out all fearless-leader like in his glory and saves the world. In fact, what makes Donnie so great was that he was human in every way, and just the opposite of "hero". He had his faults, made his mistakes, succumbed to lust and angst and anger. He wasn't a hero at all, he was one of us. And in the end he gained his hero status by sacrificing himself to allow, as hawksley said, "time to continue normally", lest the universe collapse on all of us. Some of us, being human and having human fears, might not be able to make that sort of sacrifice.
Your calling Donnie a "dork" just makes the movie, then, all the better.
In response to the Rusty Spell link you sent, "Donnie Dorko", I fail to see any compelling support for his belief, either. Firsty, Spell immediately disregards the ability to actually like the movie. In lamens terms: "Sure, you SAY you like the movie, but you really don't because you're stupid and I'm not and I have the amazing ability to reach inside your mind and find that your opinion is wrong. And also, stupid."
Then Spell talks about allusions. I don't believe Kelly was at all attempting to make his movie "on-par" with the likes of It or E.T. He was simply paying homage to writers/directs that he respects and that have given him inspiration in his work. At least, that's what I believe. I'm not Kelly; Spell, again, assumes anything he wants to about Kelly and his intentions with the allusions.
Assumptions are such grand support, aren't they?
Supports 6 and 4 of Spell's article will not be addressed, as they are just stupid.
Support 5 is another one of Spellman's assumptions, and completely misses the point. Of course nothing we learn is "new"- how can we learn it if it is? You think cells were something new? Or the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around? Those things have always been there, have always existed- they, themselves, are nothing new. Rather, it is introducing them to human thought that IS new.
I doubt what Kelly evoked to us could be considered anywhere near "basic stuff", and even so, movies and books and EVERYTHING are all about taking "old stuff" and showing it to the masses to draw their own opinions about. The idea of doing moral right and moral wrong has been around since the beginning of time, and yet movies still continually base their plots and themes around it. Carpe diem isn't exactly a new thing but you'll STILL find superb literature on it. It isn't WHAT you evoke in your movies, it's HOW you do it, and it is my personal belief that "how" Kelly got the "what" across to his audience was ingenious.
I'm not going to go on, as Spell's article is nothing but continual assumptions and this was long enough, but I'm really interested in seeing what you, Jordan, and others have to say. I respect your right to have an opinion- by all means HATE Donnie Darko! But please do it for the right reasons. Not just because "it was stupid" or "Donnie was a [insert explicative here]"- WHY was it stupid to you? WHY was Donnie such a dork, and how did that ruin the movie, at all?
If you answer me that then I'll value your opinion far more than I do now.
