Jane Hamsher, �Killer Instinct�
This piece of nonfiction details the rise of two young eager producers who just happened to meet with Quentin Tarantino before he had done anything, and just happened to buy the rights to the screenplay for a little something called Natural Born Killers. This is the fourth �behind the scenes look� at films that I�ve read, the others being The Devil�s Candy (about Bonfire of the Vanities), The Battle of Brazil (about the film Brazil � duh), and Final Cut which detailed the problems with Heaven�s Gate, which was odd for me to read, since I�ve never seen that movie. This book is different, however, because journalists � outsiders who didn�t need to worry about future careers � wrote the others. This is someone who works with these people every day, so you would think she�d bite her tongue while writing this glimpse behind the scene.
You�d think that, but you�d be wrong. Tarantino comes off as a greedy manipulative back-stabber. Oliver Stone is a sex-obsessed drug addict and alcoholic who can�t concentrate on one thing for more than ten minutes. Woody Harrelson is a yoga freak who worries about the positive ions emitted by the air conditioner and Juliette Lewis breaks Tom Sizemore�s nose and starts shooting at Woody in a scene that calls for no gunplay. Everyone in Hollywood is an asshole and a liar and they sue each other constantly. If Hamsher is to be taken at her word, films like The Player and Swimming With Sharks aren�t meant to be parodies; they�re more like documentaries.
The irony is that Hamsher doesn�t seem to like any movies herself. She derides Reservoir Dogs, she states that the only Oliver Stone movie she thought was any good at all was Salvador, made before Stone had any credibility, and she ridicules several other works, some on valid grounds, most out of spite. But she does occasionally praise films: an aside tells about her being drunk and defacing the Whiskey-a-Go-Go to help a friend advertise her film, SFW (also known as �So Fucking What,� a terrible film, poorly acted and plotted and an obvious Tarantino rip-off).
I like Natural Born Killers a lot, though in the eight years that have passed I�ve seen similar messages carried out with more skill (Bob Roberts and Bulworth come to mind here). I picked this up to see some of the creative effort that went into the making of the film but this is ultimately nothing more than a bitch session, albeit a sporadically interesting and amusing one. Her main purpose seems to be to complain about how much other people complain, which can get pretty goddamn boring. And since I�m complaining about her complaining of other people who complain, I�ll shut up now.
