The Academy Award Winners That Should Have Been: Part 3

Stone continued his exciting brand of filmmaking with this movie, mixing film stocks, animation, and even parody to make a point - Stone made the film in an over the top style - the way the media glorifies the violence and the two killers who murdered 52 innocent people is nothing but any example of what we as a current society do with our television news and tabloid news - the media in the film is represented by a tabloid reporter played excruciatingly well by Robert Downey Jr. - Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis give very good performances as the two serial killers - they enjoy the killings and enjoy the thrill of living life out on the edge.

This film is also a political film, but of a different sort - Stone moves to contemporary times for the film, and creates a resonating masterpiece of film assembly and film experience, by far the best film of 1994. I encourage people to watch the film for its message - this film is all about that message, and about the style in which the filmmaker chooses to tell it - a style that is nothing but extraordinary.

Amazingly enough, this film became the catalyst in the ongoing debate in violence in the cinema, and in fact, was taken to court in a dangerous lawsuit which tried to hold Stone and his film responsible for someone else's violent actions. (The lawsuit was recently thrown out, as it rightfully should have been). As you have probably heard, two 18 year olds, Sarah Edmondson and her boyfriend Benjamin Darras, went on a multi-state crime rampage in March of 1995, allegedly after dropping acid and watching Stone's 1994 film, NATURAL BORN KILLERS. During this crime spree, Sarah shot and paralyzed a store clerk in Ponchatoula, Louisiana by the name of Patsy Byers, and Benjamin killed cotton gin manager William Savage in Hernando, Mississippi. The connection to NBK first came to light when well known author John Grisham, who was a personal friend of Savage's, went public accusing Stone of being irresponsible in making the film, and claimed filmmakers should be held accountable for their work when it incites violence. The lawsuit eventually took form though from the family of Patsy Byers, who later died of cancer in 1997. They used a "product liability" claim in their lawsuit, alleging that Oliver Stone and Time Warner had incited these two

Go To Page: 1 2 3