Donnie Darko

Quite frankly, I’ve been a wee bit obsessed with this 2001 film lately, the directorial debut of Richard Kelly, 26—who seems kinda like a cross between David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson and Frank Capra. It’s an intriguing wrinkle-in-time story about a slightly disturbed 16-year-old who lives in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington. In early October 1988, a jet engine falls on Darko’s bedroom, but a giant rabbit named Frank awakens him telepathically and summons him outside. Thus begins the “tangent universe,” a parallel construct that, as the rabbit tells Darko, will bring about the world’s end in 28 days and change. It’s a deliciously mystifying movie, and this Flash-animated Web site helps fill in some of the blanks; it includes a copy of Roberta “Grandma Death” Sparrow’s cryptic book The Philosophy of Time Travel, along with other information that helps illuminate the film’s characters.