Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones

Have I Seen It Before?: Nope.

Did I like it?: One can’t help but go through a movie like this and wind up with a few questions.

My first question is this, and may betray the reality that I’m missing the point: How did the Coca-Cola Company feel about the use of their polar bears? I can’t imagine they were into it or even sought the product placement out, but then again, I can’t rule it out.

Is it fair to judge satire through the prism of the time that has passed since its creation? Maybe, but it’s as good a point as any to start. America was a violent place in 1994, and we couldn’t stop watching it on TV.

It’s a quarter of a century later. We’re more violent. We’re covering it more. The parasitic relationship didn’t die with Robert Downey Jr.’s character. The only change is that the killers of the 21st century are far less likely to live to their exclusive interview.

If it’s not fair to judge the film through the prism of time, it’s probably not fair to judge it because the problem diagnoses didn’t get fixed. Our politicians are still dishonest if it gives them the slightest advantage, even those we saw Wag the Dog (1997). The trend of humanity to embrace its ignorance continues apace, despite the fact that Idiocracy (2006) is a thing. If anything, I’ve only watched more TV since The Cable Guy (1996), a film which is clearly built on the foundation of Natural Born Killers.

What were the other questions with which I was left? First, was manic Tommy Lee Jones ever really a thing, and I just happened to miss it? Second: Is the forthcoming Venom 2 going to be a sequel to this movie? Only time will tell.

Ma (2019)

Director: Tate Taylor

Cast: Octavia Spencer, Diana Silvers, Juliette Lewis, Luke Evans

Have I Seen it Before: Maybe I have, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t squirming in my seat the whole time.

Did I Like It: I like it the moments after I saw it. I might have really liked it had I possessed absolutely no concept of what the film would be about going in. It may split from my mind the more time passes.

That is to say that there is no problem with the suspense quotient of Ma. It’s forty miles of bad road, and the only qualm that I would have with the film is that it ends up in a fairly predictable place. It forges together elements from Psycho (1960), Carrie (1976), and Misery (1990), just to name a few, it all ends somewhere in the vicinity of the territory in which those movies did.

There was potential for this to go into some truly dark places, and some of those places might have made Sue Ann (Spencer) a more thoroughly sympathetic villain. The borderline-incestuous connections between the people in that small town could have taken some terrible turns, and everyone could have been a little bit damned at the end of the proceedings. Instead, the worst character are punished in appropriate, if morbid, ways.

That’s a minor complaint, though. A horror movie need not have sympathy for its villain to be successful within the context of its genre, and Ma succeeds in so many places where other genre pictures fail. The teenagers all believably behave and interact with one another. If I had a dime for every horror movie that missed the mark in that regard, I’d be richer than Jason Blum at this point. And, despite how the sum of the film’s parts might underwhelm, God help me if I didn’t squirm through every moment of the road to get there. That’s a testament to Octavia Spencer’s commitment to a role that other Oscar winners might have blanched at. One imagines that this film might not make the waves to typecast her, and if she keeps swinging for the fences like this, there may be some other little gold men in her future.