Natural Born Killers

Last night I was watching the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers, directed by Oliver Stone and based on a story by Quentin Tarantino. The movie deals with a couple of serial killers, Mickey and Mallory Knox (played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) who go on a three week killing spree through the southern USA leaving fifty-two people dead, until they are caught and arrested. With the pair now a media sensation and international cult heroes, Mickey is approached in jail by sleazy TV producer Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.) to do a live on-air interview in prison. The movie throws pretty much everything at the screen with the film stock changing (seemingly at random), constant switches from colour to black-and-white, tinted scenes, weird filters, bizarre camera angles, on-screen captions, distorted images, stock footage, strange back projection, frenzied editing and even sequences shot like a 1950s sitcom. It was hugely controversial in it's day, and was a big sensation. The first time I saw it it gave me a massive headache, but I have seen it many times now, partly because, once you get used to the style it's one of those things where you see something different every time. There is a lot in it that is really good, and a lot that is absolutely terrible. I thought it was way too weird in places and I'm not a big fan of the second half of the film, once they get inside the jail, but there are great bits in it, although you do have to be in the right mood for it. It did seem to annoy a lot of people when it came out. I sometimes wonder whether Oliver Stone is on a personal mission to irritate as many groups of people as possible. Although it seems to have been a long time since there was a really controversial Oliver Stone movie. Still, there's time for him yet.

Today I went out with my Dad to the Ocean Terminal shopping centre. We had something to eat at the Costa Coffe there (I had a chocolate muffin and a mocha coffee) before we went to look at our own things. I got some books in a three for two offer: Money by Martin Amis, True Grit by Charles Portis and A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, the first volume of a fantasy series which I don't think has been finished yet.

After that we went to my parent's house. The new issue of Fortean Times (the Journal of Strange Phenomena) had arrived in the mail so that was pretty good to read. We had spicy fajitas for lunch.

That's another thing that is quite interesting about the Oscars that I just thought about: The look on the faces of the people who don't win, trying to smile for the cameras but so obviously fuming that they lost. It's kind of cruel in a way the way they keep the cameras on the faces of the losers. I won't be watching it tonight, because it is on too late, but it will be interesting to learn the results tomorrow.