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Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nails the coffin shut
Review:

Stone effectively nails down the coffin door on America's fascination with media-delivered sex and violence. And who would have ever known Rodney Dangerfield could be so horrifying? Cool editing and nightmarish scenes. You can't tell me "The Drug Zone" store scene didn't make you feel snakebit yourself.

- JJT

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Natural Born Klowns!
Review: First, my objection to this movie has nothing to do with violence or the quality of the film-making. The violence is stylized and I have seen more gratuitous violence in supposedly mainstream movies. And the movie is made with craft and a lot of razzle-dazzle editing and effects with every sort of technique and mixed medias.

However, I feel the movie fails abysmally as satire or social commentary, which it was purportedly supposed to be all about. Stone has tried every form of explanation to justify this sorry, ugly mess he's put on the screen, but his rationales just don't wash.

First, everyone on screen is repellent. Absolutely everyone. Except, of course, for the Indian shaman which is SO politically correct and such utter nonsense it belongs in some other film (looks borrowed from Stone's The Doors, matter of fact).

Okay, it's black satire so everyone is supposed to be repellent. Well, that would work except his purpose here is supposedly to sho!w how the Media glamorizes and sensationalizes violence and the perpetrators of violence. But, everyone Mickey and Mallory murder are unattractive and unsympathetic as well. We end up with lowlife dregs mostly killing other lowlife dregs. It's hard to care. And I think this failing undoes the movie.

The fact of the matter is that spree killers and serial killers murder your daughter. Or your brother. Or your mother. That they are then made the center of Media attention/obsession thereby giving them fame and a sort of glamour...well THAT is obscene. The fact that we will remember the Dylan & Klebolds, the Dahmers & McVeighs of this world while their victims go unheralded to their graves is an injustice worthy of exploration and comment.

Don't look for it here. Stone makes the worst sort of error in that because everyone around them is venal, Mickey & Mallory don't look so bad. He glamorizes the killers. Just exactly what he supposedly thinks the media is guilty of!, and thereby creates his own sort of love affair with these detestable swine.

Stone's protagonists are just another loathsome couple of airheads on the run in Nowhere USA, killing equally loathsome dehumanized victims. His resulting effort is loud, busy, noisy and obnoxious. It is one of the purely ugliest presentations I've ever seen. But all that heat sheds no light anywhere. At it's core it is empty and heartless. It has become what it is supposedly satirizing, and that makes this effort as obscene as its supposed targets.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: One of the most drastically overrated films of all time
Review: Hamfisted parade of bitter ugliness and pitiful stupidity that deals with two ecentric and rather annoying serial killers that go on a murdering rampage along the highways of texas...or something; with mass media cockroach (Downey Jr.) making them into celebrities. Starts off just fine, but the entire concept and style of the film becomes so repellent and boring that its supposed "satirical" meaning gets flushed right down the toilet, and all were left with is black intensity (which some people actually found fun). Yet, this was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 1994.
The DVD is as good as anyone could hope. Nice picture and sound, informative doco, trailer which isn't actualy the theatrical trailer but the "Director's Cut" trailer and a selection of deleted scenes with an intro by Stone. So if you actually found yourself enjoying this film, you will most likely be satisfied.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow. Truly brilliant film making.
Review: When i first saw this movie i thought it sucked. but i watched it again a few years later and saw how amazing it was. Oliver Stone is a brilliant director. this film is one of the top 5 most well directed films of all time. lots of different camera tricks and stuff make this film great on a visual level. This is a satire on the media and it works brilliantly. it shows how the media cant be trusted and exploits people like Mickey and Mallory to make money by presenting them as heroes. lots of good scenes illustrate this. i love the scene where they are walking down the corridor to escape from the riot. also this film is actually kind off funny in a weird way sort of like " A Clockwork Orange" was kind of funny. dark humor but still funny. Great performances especially Tommy Lee Jones who really was impressive and funny in his role as the psycotic warden. dont judge this movie unless you actually watch it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Change your perspective
Review: If you want to understand how sociopaths are programmed from birth, watch this movie. It leaves no doubt. This movie is vilified for its content more often than for its point, which the majority miss. Society has to endure the result of its failure to adequately protect its young. Don't kill the messenger, rather just do *something* to curb the morbid fascination with criminal TV 'stars', thereby downplaying their 'Jesse James' emulation appeal. Visually, this movie is ahead of its time, and its drole satire elicits sympathy rather than judgement for the subject matter.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: NBK uncensored.
Review: When I first saw Natural Born Killers, I expected ultraviolence and a media satire but what I was stuck watching was a movie about two crazy lovers that come from disturbed families and that drive around inside a deranged and diseased world. I didn't like it. Too much experimentation with techniques and not much use of acting or emotion. The only real emotion NBK has is of rage and hatred, against everything but towards the world and the american society in particular. If you watch the short behind the scenes documentary Chaos Rising that can be watched on this DVD, Oliver Stone says that he was sick and tired of all the lies that we are fed with in our every day life. Which explains why he made a movie like this. The DVD edition of this movie is better in my opinion because you also get six extended and deleted scenes and one alternate ending. The commentary track by director Stone is good and informative. And the violence that was cut from the theatrical release is all here. Most people that like the film says that it is about media satire but it is not. The script written by Quentin Tarantino is about the media satire (and even revolves around the reporter Wayne Gale and his team) but what the viewer is left with in the finished film is a movie about the breakdown of the human society.
All characters in the movie is totally over the top, which is good, but also totally crazy. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey & Mallory Knox make good performances as well as Robert Downey Jr as Wayne Gale (as a Geraldo Rivera look a like with the mouth of australian Steve Dunleavy), Tom Sizemore as Jack Scagnetti and Tommy Lee Jones as warden Dewight McClusky (spelled as in the script) but they are all too annoying to watch and the only one that is left is native american Russel Means in a short but really good role. The movie is still, in my opinion a loud and disturbed look of a society gone bad which misses it's tar!get far too many times. With all extras the DVD edition is the ultimate version of Stone's film. But it is still a movie that is hard to watch and that's the whole point.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disturbing, but unfortunately not that far-fetched!
Review: "Bonnie & Clyde" type couple goes on murder spree, enjoying the negative publicity their "adventure" generates. -- The premise would be just another Hollywood fantasy, but it is sad to realize that something like this could actually happen. After seeing the "Columbine Massacre" on the evening news, and having heard of serial killers throughout modern history, we wonder if this film is so far off target from reality. Some of my college friends found this film "awesome" and "hilarious". I can not share their enthusiasm. To me the subject matter is too serious to "laugh it off". I strongly advise adults NOT to show this film to pre-teens. As for me, once was more than enough!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Dir/Cut of NBK does more for the film than the original.
Review: The directors cut of NBK does alot of justice to the film and Oliver Stones commentary (the best feature of the dvd in my opinion)really sheds light onto the "darker" areas film.

Although somewhat different to original version it still retains enough of the backbone but with quite a few extra shots/sequences previously removed for duration or censorship purposes.

Other notable features on the DVD is the documentary "Chaos rising" (look closely at Robert Downey Junior's heroin inflicted physical condition) as well as the deleted scenes such as the alternate ending (which didn't really work for various reasons) are also worth a look.

Its definately a tough film to review because on a first sitting typically a viewer would have a knee jerk reaction and condemn the film as overacted murderous trash (which at times it can be.) Ideally I think several screenings are really necessary to properly "read" the film.

To be honest i'm not the hugest fan of the film as entertainment but i do enjoy the surreal camera work and semiotic/subliminal driven visuals. Basically its a film you watch but don't take at face value.

It seems to have a structure where one has to try and disconnect themself with what is being presented on the screen and what the underlying purpose of the visual. But on the other hand you have to distance yourself and not take it too seriously NBK is a sort of satire that makes parody of Hollywood conventions and contemporary values in society.

I don't quite agree with what the film represents in the way of the "purity in murder" (which seems sort of contradictory) but one would be foolish to ignore the themes of a monsterous media based society.

I think NBK is definately a step forward in modern film making and is in the same category as FIGHT CLUB as both are not your typical major studio "good guy/bad guy/happy ending" conventional sort of films.

I think it will be at least another generation before people accept and truly understand what this film symbolises.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Spectacular Film Where Violence Is Necessary To Tell Story
Review: I have never met a Stone film I didn't like. But this is his very best. Only Kubrick used to be the only director who could and did need violence to tell his story. Now, Oliver Stone has joined that exclusive club. NBK is beautiful in it's use as violence as a complete artform. I highly recommend this Digifilm (DVD), that includes the deleted scenes (Ashley Judd's and Denis Leary's are wonderful), and a documentary on the making of the film where Woody Harrelson says he was the sanest person on the set. Buy this now!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Holywood exorcist attacks again
Review: For me watching 'NBK' was like an enlightment because showed very clearly and from inside the system how screwed up and chaotical the "modern" society is. The final scenes by the sound of "Burn" from Nine Inch Nails simbolyzes theses new times. The riot scene is antological if not epic. It ilustrates the downfall of civilized society and the law of animals, where logic and feeling are replaced by the bloody and coward fight for survival. And because of the fact that 'NBK's message continues so shockingly and actual it's a movie i recommend


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