I followed the NBK thread here for a while, then started deleting --
too much info. on a film I haven't seen yet is something I could live
without.  But today I finally saw the film (at a multiplex in Maine
where I was the *only* person attending the 4:20 show -- almost a
sort of private screening).
 
It appears there are camps who think NBK is the coolest thing since
serial killer trading cards, and are laughing all the way to the
next conference, where they can praise this film for its postmodern
sensibilities ---- and also camps who think it is the most gratuitous
and senseless spree of filmic violence since -- well, at least since
_Caligula_, maybe *ever*.
 
Odd -- the film seemed to me to be neither -- and yet both.  It
certainly is one of the funniest films I've seen in years -- but
at the same time, also one of the most troubling.  That's interesting
to me, since very few films can make you laugh out loud at the same
time that, in the back of your head, you are thinking "ho boy am
*I* a sicko for thinking this is funny."
 
NBK seems neither an indictment of our pop-cultural fascination
with violence, nor an egregious example of the same -- instead,
it is a kind of logical extension of the very media some seem
to think it mocks.  The "reality" of NBK is its unreality; its
most "meta" moments are its most firmly romantic/modernist;
if it's a postmodern film, it is only so in order to disclose
postmodernism's secret debt to the ostensibly scorned modalities
of high modernism.  If Luis Bunel, David Lynch, and Sergio Leone
had gotten together to make a road movie using previously existing
footage shot by a busload of NYU film students on acid, this film
might have been the result; it damns and curses, but its tongue
is always super-glued into its cheek.  Irony?  What irony?  True
romance is love in the name of death; what can be more fun than
blowing away random people whose heads become stepping stones
in a manic pathway towards nowhere?  Georges Bataille would like
this film; if you can't have sacred sacrifices, at least you can
have *spectacular* ones.
 
I say this as a long time hater of Oliver Stone and his films --
this movie was the most reckless, most innovative, most stimulating
experience I've had at a film in many a year.  Sure, O.S. has an
ego the size of the Trump Tower; sure, the hype is on his side.
But having gone expecting to be disappointed in a predictable
way, I found myself having the time of my life in a most
*unpredictable* way.
 
apologies to any reflections of this sort *already* posted to
SCREEN-L . . .
 
--Russell Potter
--Colby College