The Doors

Year of Release:  1991
Director:  Oliver Stone
Screenplay:  J. Randal Johnson and Oliver Stone
Starring:  Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kevin Dillon, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley, Michael Madsen, Billy Idol, Kathleen Quinlan
Running Time:  140 minutes
Genre:  Drama, music, biography

Venice Beach, California, 1965:  Film school dropout Jim Morrison (Kilmer) is fascinated by the emerging hippie culture surrounding him and, with his friend, keyboardist Ray Manzarek (MacLachlan), forms the rock band The Doors along with drummer John Densmore (Dillon) and guitarist Robby Krieger (Whaley).  With Morrison's poetic lyrics along with his enigmatic and darkly seductive on-stage persona the band become one of the biggest in America by the end of the 60s.  As the band are riding high (in more ways than one), Morrison is involved in a tumultuous relationship with girlfriend, Pamela Courson (Ryan), while his personal demons threaten to destroy everything.

This film is almost the quintessential rock biopic:  The band are formed, become successful, and are then in danger of being destroyed from within.  To be fair, this film is mis-titled.  It's not really about the band The Doors, the focus is almost entirely on Jim Morrison and the other band members barely get a look in.  Although you don't really learn much about Morrison either, there is no context for anything that happens or explanation for his behaviour.  The movie is more interested in depicting crazy rock star excess, as Morrison loses himself in drink, drugs and sex.  According to many people who knew Morrison, the film is pretty inaccurate in it's depiction of him, and is probably at it's best in recreating the sights and sounds of the sixties, from the sunshine psychedelia of the West Coast to the strange, seductive underworld of Andy Warhol's New York parties, however accurate that may be.  The Morrison depicted in the film is such a horrible, toxic character that it is really hard to understand how anyone would want to spend more than two minutes in his company.    Meg Ryan and Kathleen Quinlan are severely underserved in a film where none of the female characters are given any real personality or agency. The film delves a lot into Morrison's fascination with shamanism and mysticism, which can be seen as either deep or deeply pretentious (the film's depiction of a mystical Native American spirit guide was parodied in the film Wayne's World 2 (1993)).  Oliver Stone opens up his box of cinematic tricks which makes the film look very slick and stylish, and means that it is certainly never dull.  Val Kilmer is good in the central role, helped by his striking physical resemblance to Morrison, and the music is, of course, fantastic.       

Kyle MacLachlan, Val Kilmer, Frank Whaley and Kevin Dillon break on through as The Doors

Natural Born Killers

Year: 1994
Director: Oliver Stone
Screenplay: Oliver Stone, Dave Veloz and Richard Rutowski, from a story by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones, Rodney Dangerfield
Running Time: 119 minutes, and a 123 minute Director's Cut
Genre: Crime, thriller, action, satire, dark comedy

Opinions: Mickey Knox (Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Lewis) are a married pair of serial killers who leave a swathe of murder and devastation over the southern USA. They are chased by unbalanced celebrity cop Jack Scagnetti (Sizemore), who has a personal mission against serial killers, and sleazy Australian television personality Wayne Gale (Downey, Jr.), host and producer of popular true-crime show American Maniacs, alongside almost every law enforcement agency in the USA.
While seeking treatment for a rattlesnake bite, Mickey and Mallory are arrested, after a three week crime spree that has left fifty-two people dead. A year later they are in prison, and the warden, Dwight McClusky (Jones), enlists Scagnetti to help transport the two to a mental hospital with the understanding that they will be killed on the way. However, Mickey has plans of his own and agrees to a live TV interview with Gale as tensions in the prison approach boiling point.

Opinions: This film, based loosely on an original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, was hugely controversial on its orignally release for its arguable glamorising of the violence. The movie utilises almost every cinematic technique in the book, the film stock changes seemingly at random, moves from colour to black-and-white, tinted images, weird camera angles, animation, on-screen captions, stock footage, distorted images, clips from TV shows and movies, a frenzied editing style and weird back-projection. Some scenes detailing Mallory's abusive family life are even shot in the style of an old TV sitcom. This is combined with a frenetic and eclectic soundtrack which blends in everything from classical to country to hard rock.
Woody Harrelson is genuinely terrifying as the charismatic but murderous Mickey, and he gets strong support from Juliette Lewis as the frenzied Mallory, both of whom manage to be genuinely touching in their romantic scenes. Tom Sizemore also works well as the sinister cop on their trail. However both Robert Downey, Jr. and Tommy Lee Jones are completely over the top as the TV journalist and prison warden respectively. Which does largely fit in with Stone's excessive style.
The movie is an attack on the way that the media ostensibly condemns criminals while at the same time glamorising them, which is not a particularly new point, and it's treatment here is not in any way subtle, but is effective.
The film is still shocking and disturbing though more for it's style than for anything really in the content. It has aged surprisingly well, and remains a striking and memorable viewing experience.



Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis pose for the camera in Natural Born Killers