Ministry of Geeky Links

Jim Treacher just lit me up with three good tidbits I gotta figure a lot of you will be interested in.

First up, a long Salon article (you have to watch an ad to read) explains the movie Donnie Darko.

Donnie Darko has always fascinated me because it seemed smart and well-made but didn't make a lick of sense. I'm usually amazingly good at figuring out plots within the first ten minutes of a movie, but I didn't figure out Donnie Darko's. In fact, I didn't figure it out ten minutes after the movie was over, or three years later. It gnawed on me that there was something going on that I just didn't get.

Well, this article explains everything that was going on in the movie. It's not just guesswork; it's based on the writer/director's commentary and interviews and such.

As it often happens, the question is more interesting than the answer. Why did that jet engine fall off the plane at the end of the movie? Because Donnie Darko used his telekinetic superpowers to rip it off the plane. Huh? No, that's not a joke. That's really what supposedly happened.

Bit of a let down. Still, I can now check "Finally figure out Donnie Darko" off the lifetime to-do list. Why is Donnie Darko such an unsettlingly authentic portrayal of schizophrenia? Because the writer/director is a freakin' lunatic, that's why.

Then he links this, which is... well, Spider-Man cartoons with all the characters saying inappropriate things. Mostly involving homosexuality and unlikely sexual acts.

Keep refreshing on the link; there's 20 strips.

And then, the "Batman Begins" website, including a teaser trailer. Okay, first they seem to be going overboard on the moody-whispering/"dark" crap, but the punchline, if you will, to Batman's solliliquy gives me some hope. And moody-whispering/"dark" crap is infinitely preferable to absurdly-campy Burton/Schulmacher abortions. Howard Stern called the last entry -- the one with Mr. Freeze -- "the gay Ice Capades." Spot on on that one.