“You’re wrong if you think the joy of life comes principally from human relationships.”

Well, 2007 just keeps getting better and better. As this began my first thought was basically whoops watching it so soon after Forbush ... but while there’s certainly a similarity in this story of man finding himself and humanity in nature, this has plenty more to warrant the extra hour of running time. It ends with less hope than Forbush, but somewhere in the midst of it is an abundance of the stuff.

I’d kind of convinced myself that it would be another of those 2007 movies to have a tremendous central conceit but one that’s simply not backed up enough by the unexpected stuff that surrounds it. It could easily have been exactly what it is but over 2 and a half hours got tired. But, and I don’t know what it is – I’d say Eddie Vedder’s songs, but they’re actually fairly sparse and I’d heard them before; I’d say Emile Hirsch’s performance but it’s really a mix of fresh-faced Leo DiCaprio-ness and emaciated Christian Bale that we’ve seen plenty of before (not to say it’s still not utterly compelling). I think more than likely it’s the whole combination – there simply isn’t a false note here. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are absolutely heartbreaking as the parents; Jena Malone about as perfectly cast as the almost psychically close sister as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel were in Donnie Darko and Almost Famous, her voiceover contributing to the constant reassessment of ideas this movie is. This really had me hooked from start to finish. It never stops clarifying and questioning its message. I haven’t read the book so I can only comment on Sean Penn’s screenplay and say his intelligence shines through with none of his occasionally grating self-righteousness. The dialogue is just about constant poetry, particularly in Alex/Chris and his sister’s voiceovers. I definitely picked the right movie to watch on my birthday.

I noticed a funny parallel between this movie and Almost Famous today, and no it’s not ‘cos I just watched a Cameron Crowe movie, I’d kinda noticed it before … it features a couple of characters, and the same characters at that, that I would love to have in my own life. Every time I see Maggie Gyllenhaal these days I’m reminded of her big sister role in this movie and she is so the ultimate big sister; and Mary McDonnell makes a fantastic mother – I love how she looks at Miss Farmer with such pity after the scene in the principal’s office … you can see so much in her performance of how people, perhaps especially parents, play an awkward role in life while their feelings are just as real as the rest of us – even when she’s cheering her daughter on in the Sparkle Motion dance troupe, you can kinda tell she’s not that behind the whole idea.

The other thing that struck me was how simple the movie really is in the end – I wrote in my journal a while ago about how I bought the Director’s Cut DVD (having already sold my original copy of the Theatrical Cut) and was already ordering another copy of the Theatrical Version only an hour in. I mean, this movie is complex, yeh … but it’s not exactly on the Ingmar Bergman end of the concentration scale. And why did Richard Kelly feel the need to explain it anyway? I think he really took a lot away from the movie with that cut. To me, at least, it seemed like he was saying, “Yeh, I thought about this … a lot ...” And to me, it’s not him who should’ve been thinking about it that much, his job was to come up with the mystery. It’s the audience’s job to think it to death if they want to. It’s like Phantasm in a way, and the Director’s Cut was like one of that movie’s many explanatory sequels.

In its original form, I think this movie is a masterpiece. Every single performance, major to minor role, is absolutely perfect, and there’s love and pain all over the place. Donnie Darko is part plain whacko, part Dennis the Menace, part superhero, part Alex in A Clockwork Orange. And it ends with that unforgettable cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World”. It really does get better, and I see more, every time I see it. I’ve only touched the tip of a whole iceberg of thoughts I have in these few paragraphs.

Oh yeh I had intended to put something into this review about how I think it’s about the cycle of violence but I guess this sentence is all you’re gonna get now ‘cos I’ve forgotten anything but the gist of it lol.

What? I haven’t reviewed this one yet?!?

This is one of my all-time favourite movies. This viewing was the original theatrical cut, and though I prefer the longer “bootleg” / “Untitled” cut, there’s barely any difference except the length. It’s just, if you love the movie, you just don’t want it to end: that’s why I think the longer cut is better. This movie is pure love to me.

I’m guessing I first watched this movie in 2003 (it certainly wasn’t last year but I remember thinking at the time ‘why has it taken me so long to see this?’) and the biggest reason for my love of it is how much it changed my love of music. In a way, the movie acted for me the same way Zooey Deschanel as William Miller’s sister does for him when he is a young boy – dropping a handful of hints about what rocks, hints that lead to a whole journey of personal and musical discovery. “One day, you’ll be cool,” she tells the 11-year-old in flat-on, talk to the camera close-up before she leaves, one of my favourite shots of this or any movie. If only all of us could have such a big sister. When she reappears at the end, the relief is so palpable. Zooey Deschanel must be onscreen for less than 10 minutes of the movie but she makes a hell of an impression.

I love how real the movie comes across. Of course it’s all partly Cameron Crowe’s autobiography, but even the little things like character names etc come across as very authentic. After first viewing the movie I was entirely convinced that there really was a band called Stillwater back in the Seventies (there actually was, apparently, but they weren’t anything like the Stillwater in the movie).

But most of all, my love of this movie is down to two things – the blending of Nancy Wilson’s score and Kate Hudson’s performance as Penny Lane. When both are working together, like when Penny first meets Russell Hammond, and when she asks William “What … kind of beer?”, and when she’s dancing alone in a post-concert empty hall; this movie touches me like nothing else but love itself. I want to be with these people, I want to sit on that bus and sing “Tiny Dancer”, I want Frances McDormand to be my overconcerned mom, Zooey Deschanel to be my offbeat big sis, I want to be around these people who say things like, “If you ever get lonely, just go the record store and visit your friends.” This movie is as much a part of my life as any movie will ever be, I love it.