Thursday 15 October 2015

Natural Born Killers (1994)


Oliver Stone gives us a film that is completely over the top in style, but completely brilliant.  He barely gives us time to get used to one style or angle before he’s on to the next one.  Now black and white, now colour, this angle, that angle; filmed through a camcorder; animation and a whole section done as a naff 70s sitcom (complete with canned laughter) about child abuse and wife-beating.

Monday 5 October 2015

Kill List (2011)


Director Ben Wheatley’s first feature-length film is all about the perils of being unemployed and bored. Couple that to a dysfunctional family and add a bit of the old ultra-violence and we have Kill List.

A good little film, well acted and creatively made, with a sucker punch of an ending (though not as bad as The Mist). I was just a bit thrown by lots of setup but no payoff. There are so many little drip-fed hints suggesting that everything is going to come together and be explained. Spoiler: there is no payoff; nothing is explained!

Otherwise, right up until the point when I realised that I wasn’t getting any closure (credits rolling) I really enjoyed Kill List. Well acted, moments of cinematic beauty and bursts of brutal violence. But, you know, that's just, like, my opinion man.