Bluray double-bill (Part 2)
I haven’t seen Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS in a very long time. I saw it twice in the theatres and couldn’t get enough of it, being the bloodthirsty little demon I was in my 20s. I last watched it on VHS or early DVD in the early 2000s, so it was high time to revisit this film.
The rapidfire editing has since been surpassed speedwise, but it retains a rather poetic and lyrical feeling to it that more modern films often lack. Robert Richardson’s cinematography still holds up very well. This was shot on 35mm, 16mm, Super8, and video, and at the time it was a very large postproduction undertaking to get it assembled. I do love the myriad textures and fluctuations of color and black and white, it certainly captures the unfettered minds of our two protagonists, Mickey and Mallory Knox (a wonderful Woody Harrelson and an impish Juliette Lewis). The writing, revised from an early Quentin Tarantino script by Stone and two others, mostly holds up despite some overdone humor notes and simplistic views on media/violence/etc.. The filmmaking and acting are what keeps this fresh and engaging.
I didn’t get the same rush as I had back when it was released, a sign of my own changing tastes and mellowing/melancholia. It is certainly a fantastic document of the 1990s, and I don’t see something like this being made in Hollywood today (unless you count Tony Scott’s DOMINO, a 2002 film which I revisited recently and quite favorably). The rock and roll energy and brazen experimentation mixed with a crazy sick loving and longing, a blood drenched vibrant twisted heart, that passion is tougher to find.
Get with it, Hollywood, we need more crazy twisted shit. Stuff your Hobbits and Die Hards.
James Fazzaro 