Butterfly Effect

I've wanted to hate the Butterfly Effect for years but still like it. I'm talking about the directors cut and not the theater version. It is so freaking good. Maybe not as good as Primer was, and it sort of eclipsed every other american movie that came out last decade. They are really similar and came out the same year.

They are different films though, and Butterfly Effect is much more the result of studio. But it has a weird kind of magic realism that you don't see in most movies. Something like Donnie Darko but less like a Nine Inch Nails video. It has a dream like quality but also, it has a kind of surrealism that you only get when a work is grounded in reality. Or maybe the typical reality of a Hollywood style film. It feels like a teen drama, but then it goes continuously wrong.

I'm not much on describing the contents of a movie. The weird nihilistic, Aston Kutchor hating tone that some scenes have makes it tempting. You get to see him put through the ringer, like Nicholas Cage in the Wickerman.

This was the only complete movie made by this director/writer combo.