A Thread about the film JFK

The best JFK assassination movie: Executive Action
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Finally saw it today... so dull

:(

Little ass-wipe closed down the camps! Took our C-4!
Took 10,000 rounds! 3,000 pounds of gunpowder!
All our weapons!
You want to free Cuba? Whack out the fucking beard!
They got new stuff!
I could show you dozens of poisons! Put it in his food, he'd die in three days.
No trace!
Put something in his beard, make it fall out. He'd look ridiculous...

Allen Ginsburg poem

That is so Celine-like!

when we finally get a court order to examine kennedy's brain, in the hopes of finding from which direction the bullet came, we're told by your government that the president's brain has disappeared! that's not all that's disappeared. with it, the concept of justice.

Ask the question, ask the question.

"Honey, it's incredible. The whole thing. A Lt. Colonel testifies that...Oswald had a Russian language exam as part of his Marine training...only a few months before he defects to the Soviet Union. A Russian exam."

"It's 4:30 in the morning! I have five kids who'll wake up in an hour."

goddamn, Liz, I've been asleep for three years!

Amazing how much of Libra shows up in the movie, down to the detail about FBI files containing photos of Oswald's pubic hay-ah!

this is the only film i can think of that was actually directly responsible for getting a federal law passed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_John_F._Kennedy_Assassination_Records_Collection_Act_of_1992

i think what i actually enjoy most about this movie is the whole black ops/shadowy politics/vietnam/cuba shit, independent of the assassination stuff. it's pretty compelling.

very very few people know about this, ok

now i knew allen dulles very well; i briefed him many a time in his house.

Dulles, by the way, was General Y's benefactor.
I got out in '64.
Resigned my commission.

Kennedy's directives weren't implemented because of...

...bureaucratic resistance.

But one of the results was...

...the Cuban operation was turned over to my department...

...as Operation Mongoose.

Mongoose was pure Black Ops.

poetry

this is just to say

Kennedy's directives weren't implemented because of
bureaucratic resistance.
But one of the results was

the Cuban operation was turned over to my department
as Operation Mongoose.

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
those Black Ops were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

September '63.

the literally single flaw for me (presumably inserted so as not to offend god): "i can't tell you the shockwaves this sent along the corridors of power in washington". a long cliche with a stubby and redundant tail.

there's a circa '03 dance track where the sampled hook is "black ops...assassinations...coup d'etat...rigging elections..." and i wish i could remember what it was called because i would crank that shit right now.

now i knew allen dulles very well; i briefed him many a time in his house.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour),

the way Sutherland throws this line away = master acting class

there's a circa '03 dance track where the sampled hook is "black ops...assassinations...coup d'etat...rigging elections..." and i wish i could remember what it was called because i would crank that shit right now.

― a basset hound (strongo hulkington's ghost dad),

We were good. Very good.

They Didn't Save Kennedy's Brain

never would have allowed all those wide-open empty windows overlooking dealy. never!

every time he goes to saigon on some fuckin fact-findin mission he comes back and just scares the shit outta the president.

A month before, in Dallas, UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was spit on and hit.

http://lastangryfan.com/wp-content/uploads/k-man1.gif

never would've allowed that man to open an umbrella!

The generals in the smoky room is like Patriarchy's finest minute!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYmyMJ0H6DQ

I saw that a few months ago, I think. Is Sorensen in it?

hitchens and cockburn (still buddies at the time) both loathed jfk: cockburn went on to write some very funny stuff abt how all the conspiracy theories are garbage (and also how conspiracy theory is an intrinsically reactionary mindset), plus an excellent description of the type of comrade oswald actually was, a type anyone wd recognise from the marxist* subculture (a "trotskyite dweeb" who made an obsessive pest of himself in meetings, causing them to overrun and everyone secretly hating him; then suddenly there he was on TV and they were all frantically burning their address books and pretending they'd never met him)

*actually most cultures which require AGM's have someone like this, tho they don't always go on to shoot someone

Well Hitchens talks about how conspiracy theorists are a kind of democrat in this.

Is Sorensen in it?

No. Salinger (former press sec) is.

Hitchens' ability to make people completely lose it on TV is in full show here. Salinger just wanted to smash his face in.

democrat or Democrat?

democrat as in a supporter of democracy (nothing to do w/the Democratic party)

wait, is he pro the film or just trolling?

Hitchens argues his way around conspiracy theory as a viable erm activity, just doesn't like the film - mainly because it tries to show Kennedy as a white knight (and thinks the actual conspiracy depicted in jfk is bollocks)

btw I gotta say James Wolcott is so wrong on Mr.X scene. Its the best thing in the film and not too long at all.

idk enough about the Garrison summation, kinda lose interest by the time the trial starts.

ah ok -- yes actually i vaguely remember him taking a less sharp line on CT in general come to think of it, viz that it was some kind of dissident counter to Very Serious Peoplethink, which is probably the start of his slippery slope tbh

(bcz cockburn was correct on this point)

james wolcott is wrong about everything, it's his thing

also he's the worst writer in america

now i knew allen dulles very well; i briefed him many a time in his house.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour),

the way Sutherland throws this line away = master acting class

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 15, 2016 3:03 AM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm btw

and I gotta read Harlot's Ghost. ffs.

xp = I found it...sorta convincing - as, well, CT as a kind of hyper-cynicism that could fucntion as keeping instituions in check. I wouldn't blame ppl for more than questioning the Warren Commission.

The problem is the people who get into it are almost always...not about being a democrat and its pretty destructive in the way it operates and poisons. xxp

the whole movie despite being a ridiculous fiction has a very sinister and creepy edge, it crescendos with this scene and Sutherland really elevates it (compounded by the music and editing.)

i shd watch it in the cinema, my line on stone used to be the world's most brilliant film-maker who's also an idiot, but i liked W (and for neither of those reasons)

no one shd shut up more *talking* abt his films tho

(cockburn noted that gary oldman didn't know how to play oswald, which iirc is true and a good point)

Oswald is the movie's least flashy and most convincing performance -- Oldman plays him as a cipher.

Yeah, the whole mood of thing up to Mr. X is so well done - as for those 20 mins...just when you think the monologue could be losing puff (not that it even threatens to) the scenes around the Pentagon are just marvellous.

None of the commentators -- apart from maybe Wolcott -- really talk about it as a film. Everyone has their own different agenda.

xp to nomar

they don't talk abt it as a film bcz stone had been charging around the place announcing it was a new way of recounting history (bcz he's an idiot)

Oldman plays him as a cipher

this sounds bad not good

not necessarily! I'm not sure how else you would direct an actor play him. In Libra he's got modest abilities but no will, and that's how Oldman plays the part.

as for the Sutherland-DC section: most of that account of post-WWII dirty tricks is true! Young me reading about the CIA and Guatemala would hear the PEEEOWWW and Sutherland's voice as I learned about Arbenz, the Dalai Lama, the attack on Adlai Stevenson, etc.

Best use of those John Williams orchestral swells too; they sound like manipulated street traffic (JFK motorcade echoes?).

no will

this seems a weird read on who and what he was tbh: the entire story of him becoming a soviet citizen and then de-defecting suggest someone p wilful

also libra isn't very good (bcz delillo): the mailer book is much better, gives a much better sense of what a weirdo quite-smart crank-loser he was (and cockburn's "trotsykite dweeb" wd also be an interesting and historically plausible way to play him)

modest abilities

he decided to assassinate the president of america BY HIMSELF and did so