Stone's Cynicism Exposed in Natural Born Killers As a hard-working college student living (without a TV) in this impenetrable gothic galaxy, I'm usually pretty oblivious to popular culture. I wasn't even aware of the barrage of publicity surrounding the release of Natural Born Killers. My attention was belatedly directed to the film by a letter from a friend lamenting the current state of humanity – or lack thereof. Yet, I stayed away from the film for over a month despite knowing it would be thought-provoking to say the least. I learned that I was not desensitized to images of violence, perhaps due to my isolation from pop culture, mentioned earlier. However, I was intent on listening to what Oliver Stone had to say. So last night I spent all 100+ minutes of the film curled up in my chair, with my head in my hands. Now that I've seen the movie, I'm left with questions_questions that kept my body moving in bed all last night and my mind drifting from work all day today. Questions about life, death, humanity and effectiveness. Big, gigantic questions, the kind that could keep me in my own world for weeks if they didn't constantly force me to look at the world around me. This is an article of questions, of searching for answers, of wondering if, in fact, there are answers. Stone's film is extreme in every way. Extreme in its violence. Extreme in its visual imagery, fragments of reality flashing at high speed that don't quite register in the mind. Extreme in the sitcom presentation of a violent family as a normal object of entertainment. Extreme in its depiction of mass murderers revered as icons of popular culture. Extreme in the banality with which the murderers face their crime. Perhaps it was this extremity that initially pushed me to react so strongly to the film. The impact has now lost its initial strength and I can try to evaluate it. I feel ambivalent about the film's success, and by success I mean neither monetary value nor entertainment value. I mean whether or not Stone was effective in conveying his message. In my opinion, he definitely had a message. It seems impossible to me that anyone could walk away from this film without understanding that Stone is criticizing the glorification of violence. If the