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Natural Born Killers |
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Natural Born Killers is a 1994 motion picture directed by Oliver Stone and starring Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson. Rodney
Dangerfield, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Sizemore and Tommy Lee Jones are also featured.
Quentin
Tarantino wrote the screenplay, which Stone, Richard Rutowski,
and David Veloz
extensively edited. Tarantino, unhappy with the rewritten version, publicly
disowned the script and asked that his name be removed from the screenwriting credits. Despite Tarantino's objections,
his name still appeared in the credits.
The movie intended to highlight the sensationalised way crimes are depicted
in the media and the way killers are virtually regarded as cultural heroes. But
it was criticized by the press for its excessively graphic and violent content,
and because of this many people (including many of the film's biggest fans)
often seemed to miss the real point of the film: it is a highly stylized
critique of violence glamorized by the media. The film opens with Mickey Knox (Harrelson) and his girlfriend Mallory (Lewis)
in a roadside cafe. Mallory kills a man when he acts inappropriately toward her.
Mickey, meanwhile, knifes two other customers and shoots the chef and the
waitress. They leave one witness alive, as is their custom, to tell the tale.
_____________
When the film was submitted to the ratings board it was initially given an
"NC-17" rating. Stone then re-edited the
film several times to reduce the rating to an "R".
Among the scenes excised were:
- Mickey raping a female hostage in the hotel room after Mallory storms out.
- A shot through the bullet hole in Wayne Gale's hand after Mallory shoots
him.
- A quick shot of Warden McCluskey's head on a pike after he's overrun during
the prison riot.
- A guard being thrown into an oven of the prison's kitchen during the riot.
Additionally, other scenes totaling nearly 60 minutes were included on the
VHS and DVD release of the film by Trimark Home Video:
- A rant by comedian Denis Leary.
- A courtroom scene during Mickey and Mallory's trial showing Mickey stabbing
a witness, Grace Mulberry (played by Ashley Judd), to death with a pencil.
- The Hun Brothers, professional body builders and still-living victims of the
Knox's killing spree, talk about their admiration of their attackers. The Knox's
had used chainsaws to cut off the Brothers's legs. (Ironically, the Knox's
admiration for the Huns is what kept them from killing the twins.)
Source:
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
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- "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our
hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948) |
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Trivia
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- Denis Leary and Ashley Judd both made cameo
appearances in the movie, although both were edited out of the theatrical
release.
- Several murderers are alleged to have been inspired by the movie Natural
Born Killers. For example, 18-year-olds Sarah Edmondson and her boyfriend
Benjamin Darras supposedly watched the movie before carrying out a robbery that
resulted in murder. Relatives of one victim filed a lawsuit against Stone. (see
External Links for article relating to these incidents.)
- Additionally, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of
the Columbine High School Massacre
were fans of the movie. They used the acronym "NBK" as a code for their mission:
"God I can’t wait till they die. I can taste the blood now - NBK” and
"“the holy April morning of NBK"are just a few examples.
- The prison riot was filmed at an operating prison. Many of the inmates in
the prison scenes were real prisoners, including several convicted murderers.
- Downey admitted that his use of an "Australian Accent" was a technique he
adopted to accentuate his character's apparent dignity.
- The fate of the inmate known only as Owen was not explained in the original
theatrical release; it is implied he is some sort of guardian angel. In the first scene in the movie,
Owen briefly appears sitting at a table in the cafe, but his image fades out and
vanishes. In the special edition DVD, an alternative ending was shown, where
Mickey and Mallory are both executed by Owen.
- The shoot time for the entire film was 56 days. The editing process took
nearly a year.
- The character of Mickey was inspired by real-life spree killer Charles
Starkweather.
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| Details
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- Actors: Woody
Harrelson, Juliette
Lewis
- Directors: Oliver
Stone
- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.
Read more about DVD
formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
- Rated: Unrated
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- DVD Release Date: January 16, 2001
- Run Time: 119 minutes
- ASIN: B0000542DH
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Natural Born Killers: The Original Screenplay Book
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and/or