Natural Born Killers
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
This week's Thursday Thread-Up was one of my favorite movies from when I was a teenager, the 1994 Oliver Stone film based on a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, Natural Born Killers.
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
This week's Thursday Thread-Up was one of my favorite movies from when I was a teenager, the 1994 Oliver Stone film based on a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, Natural Born Killers.
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| Show banner designed by Andrew Kern |
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| Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco |
Ben and I spent most of the pre-show playing chess and Ms. Pac Man. We're pretty evenly matched at chess with each of us winning two games, but my new goal is to get this Gen-Z dude up to speed on the 80's arcade classics.
While we were playing chess, Jimmy introduced Gene, Ben, and I to his very cool friend Kandiss. She has a tattoo of a blank easel on her arm, and when Gene asked her about it, she told him that the reason for the blank canvas on the easel is to give her friends and family a place to draw something. That's one of the coolest ideas for a tattoo that I've heard in a long time. Gene is an award-winning children's book author and illustrator, so he was happy to contribute this dancing hot dog inspired by the intermission reels at the Mahoning.
Speaking of Gene, the pre-show featured an animated short about a monster at a drive-in theater that he created back in 1990. He has recently updated it to include the Mahoning Drive-In theater marquee. It was pretty cool, and I hope to show the entire cartoon on here in the near future.
I didn't catch Natural Born Killers when it premiered in theaters back in 1994, but I rented it shortly after it was released on VHS in 1995. The movie brilliantly captures who we are as a violent species. Sometimes that violence is goal-orientated and sometimes it's done just for the sake of violence, but it's been a constant throughout human history. Even those of us who don't directly commit acts of violence glorify those who do, as long as that violence doesn't directly affect us or anyone that we care about. It's the reason why serial killers and other criminals nearly always get more attention than their victims or the people who bring them to justice.
Some critics and fans understand this movie. However, it seems like there are a lot of fans who can't see past the violence, or think that all that the movie has to offer is a criticism of the media. These people don't get it, and that's fine. I still don't understand Eraserhead, though I'm hopeful that it starts making sense to me one of these days. Bottom line is that not every movie is for every person, so I'd be fairly selective in who I'd recommend Natural Born Killers to, but if you're somebody who doesn't see your fellow human beings through a lens of unjustified optimism, this movie is probably going to appeal to you.
