Film Trivia is back at 7pm on Thursday, February 27th with our classic brand of infotainment quiz show fun, followed up by a special screening of Oliver Stone’s polarizing masterpiece Natural Born Killers (1994).  

Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers, irresponsibly glorified by the mass media. 

Hollywood’s favorite Baby Boomer gadfly took on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino to create his own version of the classic criminal lovers-on-the-run tale. But by the time the film was made, the 24-hour news cycle had transformed American media culture. What began as a fresh take on Bonnie and Clyde became Stone’s scathing indictment of American media, mainstream news, and the public itself. Natural Born Killers was controversial the moment it was released. 

With Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey and Mallory, we get TV-ready media celebrities that America would welcome into their living rooms. As products of traumatic childhoods, they represent America’s favorite type of celebrity: the violent outlaw with a sympathetic edge. Stone takes these characters and reveals how the media manipulates their image while the public projects its desires onto them. 

Beneath this polemic on America lies one of the most experimental feature-length films Hollywood has ever produced. The editing is influenced more by music videos and TV news than traditional Hollywood styles. The film incorporates black-and-white sequences, animation, and a mix of 35mm, 16mm, Super 8mm, Hi8 video, and Betacam formats, creating a multimedia collage more suited to art gallery installations than the multiplexes of Middle America. 

Natural Born Killers is as provocative today as it was over 30 years ago, blending biting social commentary with avant-garde filmmaking to deliver an unforgettable cinematic experience.