A Thread about the film JFK

And the Rooker! How can you forget Michael Rooker?

...

I seriously need to stop raving about all this before I stain my pants.

Never stopped Stone!

And Stone was up front (eventually, maybe? I don't remember if he said this all along) about the history being fucked; "it's a myth, yeah, but it's a myth to counter the equally-false one we've been handed by the gov't," sentiments to that effect. Hell, I'd like to see more intentionally-fucked history in movies, without it being played for laughs; there could be a lot of material there.

As for the ensemble cast thing: anything else about the movie aside, has the "huge cast of famous people" thing been done better than in this? Altman's good with that, but I don't know if he ever did it quite this well, especially if you don't count Short Cuts.

(Okay, I forgot about that one. I'd have to see it again, though.)

sadly this important historical revelation is nowhere reflected in stone's film

"the parallax effect" and "three days of the condor" are two pretty good 70s 12-ft-lizard movies abt assassination politics

JFK is *made* by that mr. x/sutherland sequence,but yep those techniques of multi-film stock/editing craziness etc seemed brilliant/insane/eye-popping in '92. nobody else had done anything like that.
in fact 'nbk' was just re-hashing most of them shot for shot and
no-one noticed as they hadn't seen jfk in the 1st place. it was a seriously under-watched film at the time, but at 2 hrs 20 minutes
even in it's original non-director's cut that isn't surprising.

stone never ever ever said anything about it being the whole truth.
it was well known that x was based on prouty, although
obviously the waters are yet more muddied around the conspiracy by the fact that he goes too far the other way in trying to convince us of his version, but hey it asked a lot of questions, and it made people ask more questions etc etc.
empire magazine gave it some kind of weird 'inspiration' award about 5 years ago for some reason and stone showed up, gave a speech looking genuinely touched, moved etc.

there was an *astonishing* episode of DISPATCHES (channel 4, uk)
which i had seen early 90's ('91 ?) not long before seeing the movie,
and that was all facts no theory, it definitely helped to see something like that beforehand.

sutherland's fave bit of all his 80's/90's work he says.
3 months prep for 1 days' acting by all accnts. one day !

" does that sound like a bunch of coincidences to you mr garrison ? ...not for one moment"

Of course, Alexander will be when he stops blaming the gays and ethnics for everything that's wrong with the world. Naturally. I should really see Salvador. It's got James Woods and it's not a revisionist take on American history. Whew.

Yes, Sutherland was great. Though I really wish they'd given John Candy more scenes.

That documentary "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" and the follow up are also worth watching if you are interested in the Kennedy assassination. I think Stone nicked more from it than he would want to admit.

still a really good movie!

That's what I always say, too.

This pitch is copyright, btw.

(I must have time on my hands)

(posner quotes ballistics expert donahue to refute criticism of the "magic bullet" theory but gets his name wrong)

(ps my friend adair's decisive refutation of posner's book: "Jesus, look at that man's HAIR OIL!!") (this shd also have been in stone's film)

it claims the secret servicemen surrounding him DID know, but covered it up as it was an accident and oswald had already shot jfk fatally and why introduce irrelevancies which wd damage an innocent if clumsy colleague's career needlessly blah blah

the witnesses on the verge etc were anyway notoriously all over the place as to where the various shots came from in terms of puffs of smoke, drifts of smoke and sounds of shots complete w.echoes, plus already looking all directions away from the cars bcz oswald had already fired twice (missed car altogether first time, hit kennedy AND connaly second time)

hickey WAS armed with this gun: that's historically attested to, and visible in some of the photos, esp.the later ones where the motorcade is speeding to the hospital and he's holding it pointed upwards

plus also there's photographic studies of what direction a pumpkin wrapped in masking tape will lurch if you fire a gun into it

Blimey Mark. Full-on shit there. Er, I'll go with it, but LHO managed a fatal shot? Or maybe he *would* have if CIA guy hadn't? I'm well outta my depth, my Dad was mad into it and I was all yeah yeah: classic conspiracy scene: Annie Hall.

The motorcade sped on...

i think oswald did it end-of-story, but if you want a good conspiracy, menninger's is my favourite on aesthetix-of-slapstick grounds

Or just read Posner's book.

Quite honestly though the most despicable thing about JFK the film is that it names and implicates Clay Shaw as being involved in the killing, when in reality he was just a businessman with an extremely tenuous connection to the CIA. Garrison was a scumbag, really. Tried to indict a guy from Cali in the JFK plot, because he once wrote him the prez a threatening letter.

I have a friend who always gets pretty mad at historical inaccuracies in movies (esp regarding world war II movies).

i do remember exactly where i was when i heard the news of rfk's assassination: i was at the kitchen table in a little welsh farmhouse where we went every year for our summer holiday, listening to dad's little portable radio… tho all i remember is sounds of muffled shouting and chaos, like the bbc radio new was broadcasting live from the scene

i also remember that this occurred during the broadcast on the same radio -- which i listened to at the same kitchen table -- of the moon landing: as my memory has it, it went "giant step for mankind", muffled shouting, shots, chaos…

stone shd make a movie abt THAT when sirhan sirhan gets out, sirhan can play buzz aldrin

tommy lee jones shd wear this wig in all his movies tbf

^ that's right (for a change)

feel like this summing up (which doesn't once mention clay shaw) is not going to do the work of convicting clay shaw

not guilty (good verdict)

Can we please go back to posting random bits of dialogue now that Mark S is done watching?

Best movie ever.

Can we do them from memory, though?

Kevin Costner: what I’m saying is that in order for the government’s theory about the assassination of JFK, née John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our nation’s favorite son, to make sense, we must prescribe to what i am calling Magic Bullet Time theory, which is actually quite interesting if true. Roll the footage

The government's gonna jump all over your head, mark, and go "cock-a-doodle-doo!" Good day, sir!

Costner: I don’t like the looks of this one bit. Let’s put some grits on the iron and keep the coffee coming honey, there’s gonna be some paperwork filed tonight

xp That's what I mean.

That is precisely the point of a loooong JFK thread.

this Oswald character, I agree that he must have been involved. But here's the thing -- I don't think he acted alone.

It's JFK's fault.

i wrote about a specific style of fandom-led conspiracy thinking that has become quietly quite popular over the last 10 years and is now making its highly public debut! https://t.co/hpZpqmGR6J

— Kaitlyn Tiffany (@kait_tiffany) May 17, 2022

xyzzzz ain't got no reason to lie, he already in ILX!

When you’re taking about the greatness of John Candy, never sleep on his role in JFK: “The government’s gonna jump all over your head, Jimbo, and go cock-a-doodle-doo.” pic.twitter.com/3XgLh6Mrzr

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) May 18, 2022

"Ya got the right ta-ta but the wrong ho-ho" may be the greatest line in movie history.

stop eatin' that crab meat and listen!

like i told the fbi: that call was a figment of my imagination!

All I wanted to be was a Catholic priest

If it's a suicide, I seen weirder, Jim.

The president has been shot! He has been taken to a hospital but he is going to make it. Johnson will carry out the responsibilities of president until Jack is able to recover. We really dodged a bullet there, boys

Why don't we drop this subject. It's one thing to engage in badinage with all these youngsters, but this sort of thing could be So. Easily. Misunderstood.

More champagne!

Here's to the New Frontier. Camelot in smithereens. I'll drink to that.

I've seen enough in this place to write a book.

A week after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Kennedy's widow, Jackie Kennedy, was interviewed by Theodore H. White, an interview that ran in the December 1963 issue of Life magazine. In the interview, Jackie stated that the show's original cast recording had been a favorite bedtime listening for her husband (who had been Lerner's classmate at Harvard University),[16] and that his favorite lines were in the final number: "Don't let it be forgot/ That once there was a spot/ For one brief, shining moment/ That was known as Camelot".[17] She also made a direct comparison to the Camelot storyline, saying, "There'll be great presidents again... but there'll never be another Camelot." The veracity of her claim about her husband's love of Camelot has been disputed.[18]

>:(

I always lock my files!

Don't fuck this one up!

There's a lot of smoke there, but there's some fire.

this murder of JFK...you better believe it's gonna make the papers tomorrow morning, boys

Grace, put another kettle on the oven. I think me and the boys have some more work to do tonight at this kitchen table

Suddenly got curious about what movie Lee Harvey Oswald was watching when he was arrested. Turns out to be WAR IS HELL (1961) which is now, incredibly, a lost film. This conspiracy goes all the way to the top!

— Shadowplay (@dcairns) June 10, 2022

Look at how close they got to De Gaulle.

to xyzzz's point:

I'm watching JFK again months after I revisited ORDINARY PEOPLE & KLUTE & my goodness, we really don't talk about Donald Sutherland remotely enough, do we?

What he can do in a scene - even just a key line read like "what did *we* think?" in ORDINARY PEOPLE - wow. pic.twitter.com/Z9qNqbBeT7

— Jen Johans (@FilmIntuition) November 21, 2022

Forget supporting actor. Sutherland deserved to win fucking best picture in 1991

With Edward G. Robinson he's the best actor never to earn an Oscar nomination.

Surprising...Should have been up for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, though they'd never give an acting nomination to a film like that.

Robert De Niro – Raging Bull as Jake LaMottadouble-dagger
Robert Duvall – The Great Santini as Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum
John Hurt – The Elephant Man as Joseph Merrick
Jack Lemmon – Tribute as Scottie Templeton
Peter O'Toole – The Stunt Man as Eli Cross

Preferably over De Niro and Lemmon. Nominate him twice.

no word yet, but they say it’s in the head.

we got out near the geese, and only then did we realize we had forgotten our shotguns! stupid right? so, uh, of course, we didn’t get any geese.

what is the matter with this family hahaha???

Didn't Hoover say something about leaves falling in November?

as a former fbi man, it’s— it’s difficult to accept this.

what is the matter with this family hahaha???

― difficult listening hour,

one of Oswald's charmingest moments

Vietnam started for real and there was an air of, I dunno, make believe.

Dulles, by the way, was General Y's benefactor.

I got out in '64. Resigned my commission.

Dey should give'em a a medal for killin' Kennedy!

Gary Oldman no longer believes Stone’s conspiracy theories but he did at the time of the movie. So did I but I was 17 to be fair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP50JfsJ9zU

Ah always lock mah files!