Movie Mondays: Natural Born Killers

This is one of those movies where when my friends heard I hadn't seen it they were like "WTF? We're watching it." This happens a lot, usually around 4pm on a weekday when we're sitting around scrolling through netflix instant trying to get someone to make a decision about what the heck to watch.

Natural Born Killers is reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino film. This makes sense, because Quentin Tarantino wrote the story that the screenplay is adapted from. It's chock full of artistic, slightly disturbing lighting effects, tinted gels, canted angles, and lots and lots of bizarreness. The story revolves around Mickey and Mallory, a husband and wife duo who have taken to traveling across the US killing people for no reason other than the fame and glory it is earning them. Mallory was saved from her unloving and abusive family by Mickey, a butcher shop delivery man who delivered to their house one day. Together they kill Mallory's parents and then take off, continuing on their killing spree but always leaving at least one person at each crime scene alive to tell everyone that "Mickey and Mallory did this".

It's a bit of a Bonny and Clyde like story, and you find yourself trying to decide whether you're rooting for the couple to escape the police or if you're hoping they'll get caught and locked up forever. The couple is obviously completely crazy but at the same time their love seems so loyal and true that it's hard not to kind of want them to live happily ever after. In a really, really weird and unsettling way.

The film also stars Robert Downey Jr. as a slightly crazy TV reporter. This is back in his coke-snorting days so the craziness comes off quite well.

So, it's a totally crazy, at times disturbing, thrilling, confusing, and fast-paced movie. Totally one of those classic films that everyone has to see once in their lives, just because it's so unique. It's from 1994, too, so it has a fun grungey feel to it that you don't get from modern crime movies. By no means is this a "family film", but if you're in the mood for something a little crazy, check this out.

Here's a trailer. It's not a very good trailer, but it's hard sometimes with these older movies to find decent trailers.

3 Word-Bending Novels

The first really "absolutely-freaking-weird-as-hell-but-still-pretty-darn-cool-because-I've-never-seen-anything-like-it" book I ever read was House of Leaves. That book is awesome. Of course, you kind of have to approach it with a VERY open mind and at least somewhat know what you're getting yourself into before you attempt to read it. My senior year of high school I recommended it for one of the four books we read for book club, and that turned out to be a pretty big mistake. Those 14, 15, and 16 year-old kids just weren't really prepared for the 700 page mess of wordy sentences, copious footnotes, constantly changing fonts, and the necessary flipping between appendixes, exhibits, and chapters. Very few of them managed to finish it in 9 weeks, and what they did read pretty much went right over their heads. My English teacher didn't care for it much either, probably because it's full of run-on sentences, drug abuse, and unnecessary narrative- but that's part of what makes the book what it is.

Besides, I mostly only recommended it so that I could get my own free copy.