Movie Monday: True Romance+ Natural Born Killers

So these are the movies that my boyfriend and I have called Tarantino's Pumpkin and Honeybunny Spinoff movies. True Romance was written by Tarantino and Natural Born Killers was originally written by Tarantino but... he doesn't like to associate himself with it. And they're both about couples that are similar to Honeybunny and Pumpkin from Pulp Fiction. So... yeah. These are similar movies... but there's a good one and a bad one. I think I have more to say about the bad one... so I'm going to start with the good movie- True Romance.

True Romance

So this movie starts with Clarence falling in love with Alabama- a call girl his friend hired for him in order to get him out of a rut or something. Alabama hasn't been a call girl for very long... but she mentions a man named Drexl that is her pimp. Clarence hallucinates Elvis Presley- known as The Mentor throughout the movie. Clarence marries Alabama and then The Mentor tells him to kill Drexl... and he takes the cocaine from Drexl which he plans on selling and that gets him in trouble with some poweful people.

There's a scene in this movie... that I don't like. And... you'll know when it happens... I mean hopefully. It's quite racist. I kind of forgot about that when I started writing this review and I was totally going to be like "This is a fun movie! I totally recommend it." But then there's the one scene... and I wouldn't even say skip the scene because it is kind of relevant to the plot... someone dies in it... and Christopher Walken is in it and I really like him in this movie and this might be his best scene... but it... no. I don't like the scene.

Other than that... the rest of the movie is fun. You really feel that Alabama and Clarence love each other and I would even say they need each other. Even though they get into these crazy situations- they kind of make each other better people and they have a happy ending.

Natural Born Killers *Trigger Warning: Themes of Sexual Abuse*

Okay... This movie... was hard to watch. Tarantino wrote the original script- but it changed a lot and Tarantino saw the first scene of the movie and said "Take my name off of this." And fun fact- he never really liked the movie until he met Johnny Cash and Johnny Cash said he was a big fan and he really liked Natural Born Killers.

Another music connection to this movie is with one of my sister's favorite artists from the 90s, Tori Amos. She was originally approached to play the role of Mallory. The director wanted her to sing her song Me and A Gun. This song is one of the most beautiful and powerful songs of all time. It is just Tori Amos's voice with no instruments singing about her rape. He wanted her to sing this as Mallory who we see is abused by her father in the movie. Amos apparently slapped the director in the face at this suggestion... and honestly good for her. My boyfriend was looking up the facts on this movie- he knows who Tori Amos is but hasn't heard her music... and when he said it I said "No way! What was the song? Me and A Gun?" And he was like "Yeah." And I was like "He deserved that slap... you need to listen to the song." And then we did and he agreed.

So this story is about Mickey and Mallory- a couple that kills. And they're pretty famous for their killings at this point. Everyone is talking about them- everyone is following their story. There's a documentary that's being filmed about them... we see how they met, we see their fights... we see a lot.

Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's abusive father- which we see in a sitcom style flashback. It's probably the best scene in the movie and you could just look up this scene online if you don't want to watch the full movie and it's really good. Rodney Dangerfield also wasn't really given the full idea of what exactly he was playing in the movie... so that kind of made the tone a little more interesting. It was very creepy and a great scene overall. Mickey gets arrested for stealing Rodney Dangerfield's car and then after he gets out of jail for that- he comes back and kills both of Mallory's parents... and that is where everything starts.

This movie was... a very artsy movie about very trashy people. But it kind of BOMBARDS you with symbolism and messages. Every few seconds there is like a black and white shot in the movie that is supposed to show the inner thoughts of the character. They use that wayyy too much though. It makes it really hard to watch. And there are some scenes where it would be way more effective if they didn't do it so so often. It's just... hard to watch. I had a headache that day and it's kind of a good movie to watch when you have a headache but also a bad movie to watch for your headache.

We got the DVD which has an alternate ending that... is good... but also doesn't make that much sense.They have a character that they left in just for the alternate ending.

And while I didn't think Alabama and Clarence's romance was that bad... it's not a romance you would want of corse... but Mickey and Mallory's romance is one that's really bad. Mallory basically goes from an abusive relationship with her father to an abusive relationship with Mickey... it's just kind of bad. And yes- Mickey I think as just as bad as Mallory's dad... if not worse really. I mean they really kill a lot of people and cause a lot of violence.

I thought the cast of both movies and the acting was really pretty good. I really like Patricia Arquette and I thought Christian Slater was good in that role too. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis were both great in Natural Born Killers and it seemed like they worked really well together. The weird thing is I didn't like Natural Born Killers... but I think I would watch it again.

By the way- I believe True Romance is on HBO Max- but my boyfriend actually got the DVD at a thrift store and we found Natural Born Killers on sale in Barnes and Noble... idk if it's available on streaming at all.

And that concludes all the Tarantino and Tarantino type movies I've seen so far! I might watch more but my posts on those probably won't be until 2022... I will hopefully be reviewing Horror Movies Next month and Christmas Movies for Christmas!

Bye!

-Shannon