Natural Born Killers (1994)

3/5

Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers is a frenetic film, filled with so much energy and bombast it practically leaps off the screen and slaps you in the face. The movie follows Mickey (Harrelson) and Mallory (Lewis), two lovers who go on a mass murdering rampage, and the media that glorifies it. In the wake of recent school shootings and suicides publicized on Twitter, it feels even more timely than ever. People will always want their 15 minutes of fame, no matter how they get there.

The movie is visceral--it shouts loud and it hits hard--but somehow manages to be less graphic than more modern movies. It is violent, though, in every sense of the word: an offensive assault on our senses and sensibilities. Its aggressive pacing involves us in the story, exhilarating us and titillating us without giving us any room to breathe and process what we see. And we become awe-struck by the images of violence on the screen. Is that not precisely the kind of voyeurism we are supposed to condemn?

But despite what he has to say, Stone uses a sledgehammer to pound his point home. To say it lacks subtlety is to say that an elephant is larger than a mosquito. It blasts its message nonstop, using anything and everything from random video projections in the background of scenes to story elements like Downey Jr's sensationalist television series. It leaves nothing to the imagination, and our imagination is stronger and more horrific than anything Stone has to say.

Tarantino came up with the story, and I can tell that if he directed this it would have been a masterpiece. But Stone's version is messy and chaotic, unvarnished and unfocused. I'm glad I saw the movie just so I can say for sure that I don't need to see any more Oliver Stone films. Not that this is a bad film; it's just not my style. There's nothing deeper here than what Stone shows you. But Natural Born Killers does spark the conversation, and that's definitely worth something.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110632/

W. (2008)

2/5

Oliver Stone's W. claims to be an honest representation of the former President in the hopes of dismantling years of misconceptions, both positive and negative, but is instead a ludicrous farce filled with exaggerations and caricatures. The movie goes back and forth between history and the present, starting with his time in office and intercutting with past events that led him there (including random, unrelated ones). I can imagine this was done for no other reason than to make up for lacking transitions and storyline inconsistencies. There is no progression or escalation, merely event after event after event, which makes the 2 hour runtime laboriously slow. (I thought it was nearing the end before 90 minutes in.) And each vignette is only hinted at, nothing is fleshed out, so we are left with a frustratingly inadequate and incomplete picture of a man nobody really cares about anymore. Not only that, but the rest of the screen is filled with people who are more focused on their horrific accents than their characters, which turn out to be flatter than their real counterparts (and those I've only seen in stilted TV announcements).

The one redeeming factor is the humor that is infused in this film, although I'm not sure it was all intentional. Because everything is so extreme, it is also preposterous to the point of comedy. The movie cannot be taken seriously anymore. Dick Cheney is a raving, power-hungry, egomaniacal lunatic--weren't we trying to dispel myths and prejudices? Condoleezza Rice is, for some bizarre reason, an uglier, female version of Neil Goldman from Family Guy. Below I have included a clip with Neil Goldman; as you watch it, just imagine Thandie Newton in disfiguring makeup prosthetics talking to Bush, and you have the movie W. Don't watch this movie; it's a waste of time.



IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1175491/