I hope not to necessarily offend any subscribers of this Listserv, but I have to say one thing that is, I totally believe, my duty: To say that Natural Born Killers is perhaps, arguably, the absolute worst film I have ever seen. Some may say this is hyperbole, contending that I say this merely because it was fresh in my memory. As much as this might be a factor to some limited degree, I must say that the awfulness contained within Stone's film is to such magnitude that I assure you that it certainly ranks up at the top of my list of disgust. Why, you might ask? Well, first off, since I am currently typing this directly into America Online, and not off line, I'll be brief. Oliver Stone's pretentions have totally overwhemled this project. His thirst for 'importance' has led him (over the history of all his films) to the utilization of 'straw men'-type antagonists. Robert Downey, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore's (even Woody and Juliette's) characters are all 'sleazy' to the point of cardboard cutouts, that are so one dimensional that anyone with half a brain can topple. His 'indictment' of the media amounts to similar arguments against the USSR in the Reagan era, that like the USSR being the 'Evil Empire', so the Media is an 'Evil Violence Glorification Machine'. What, in fact, was his point? That 'violence is bad'? This is not a new concept. That he attempted to have us embrace Mickey and Mallory and show us our 'true nature'? I honestly saw M&M as nothing more then brainless, disgusting killers, who (as Mickey shows in the interview scene) that he has no more grasp on what is going on as does Stone, and that it all ends up a mish-mash of pseudo intellectual clap-trap. All most irritating is Stone's obvious lack of any humor. His self-importance and ego does not allow such things as true irony or parody or satire to exist. One thing this film fails miserably at is satire. These, in fact, as probably the devices that would be most dangerous to someone of such pretention (I hope to see plently of good parodies of NBK in the future). The visual style he used not only was basically MTV rehashed (perfectly logical in this era of movies imitating bad tv), but was utterly meaningless. Why all the grainy reverse angles in slow motion of Tom Sizemore and Tommy Lee Jones walking down an empty corridor? Why the superimpositions of Stalin and running Horses? Using grainy footage to resemble the Zepruder film in JFK was effective (although arguably 'shadily' playing with socialized audience responses), but here it serves no purpose other than to call attention to itself. As if throwing every film stock, technique except the kitchen sink together has merit. This is something more like an exercise in film school, not for a final finished project that should have more purpose than to self-indulge. Perhaps the most indicting this film can ever get is that it seems the American film audience cannot think for itself. Because this film is made by a big name director, Oliver Stone, because its 'topic' is violence and the media, because periodical and televised crap like Entertainment Weekly and E! news daily do stories about the 'controversy' the film ignites, because Stone sets the film up as 'deep & meaningful' and thus we accept it and thus walk out of the theatre rationalizing this assumed importance. Perhaps more than the film's awfulness, does the audience's (and critic's) praise for this enormous (excuse my french) piece of shit. I'm sure there are more points in which I could elaborate on, but I feel you get my gist... Terry Jinn Murray [log in to unmask]