A Thread about the film JFK

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I hope someone actually get the cash to make James Ellroy's books "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand" into a miniseries. Those two books are much, much further over the top, ugly and entertaining than either "JFK" or "Libra".

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.


earlnash, Friday, 17 October 2003 00:35 (twenty years ago) link

JFK is really massively entertaining and beautifully put together, but of course total bullshit. I saw it around the same time I read a handful of conspiracy books by the likes of Jim Marrs, Gerald Posner, and some others. Posner's was the most convincing, and he thinks Oswald did it. And if you've ever met some of these astonishingly influential conspiracy theorists (I worked on a bad cable TV show that had a couple of them on...Marrs and the guy who wrote Best Evidence), you can see how loony they are. Marrs also believes that UFOs attacked Los Angeles in the '40s. Logic just doesn't prevail in the case of JFK....

still a really good movie!

Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 17 October 2003 05:00 (twenty years ago) link

It always seems to me that the real story is more interesting, cuz, well THAT'S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life.

That's what I always say, too.

oops (Oops), Friday, 17 October 2003 05:06 (twenty years ago) link

We need more films this insane!! Stoney shd do the Florida election in the same style. Gay Cubans agogo, neo-con cabals in smoky rooms, lurking Ay-rab terrorists... k-classic.

This pitch is copyright, btw.

Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 12:50 (twenty years ago) link

Too bad you can't copyright ideas... ;)

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 17 October 2003 14:08 (twenty years ago) link

You sure about that? It's written, anyway.

(I must have time on my hands)

Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:12 (twenty years ago) link

if only stone had based jfk on this theory

(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)

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:19 (twenty years ago) link

WTF? Witnesses? I like ballistics, they are fun. But -- well, are there not easier ways of finding out here? Man stands up with sub-machine gun? In plain sight? And says 'I wan you to meet my liddle fren'

Knoll Edmonds (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:26 (twenty years ago) link

the description of hickey's movements on the web-page is inaccurate: the book suggests he fell BACKWARDS when the cars speeded up, and so wd not particularly have LOOKED as if he was firing a (single acc.theory) shot, just as if he was falling over backwards

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

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:42 (twenty years ago) link

More details - just arrived.

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...

Steinski (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:53 (twenty years ago) link

haha i tried to find one of the pix in question but found myself on a page where some loony was claiming, based on a photo blown up so large you couldn't make out ANYTHING AT ALL, that one of kennedy's SS-men is "grinning in an evil way" hence etc etc

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

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

If you've ever been to the School Book Depository and gotten a look from up there, you'd have no doubt that it's an easy shot, for the most part. As for the whole "he didn't have enough time" thing, they don't take into account that the first shot fired was a complete miss. One in the trees, one in Kennedy and Connolly, one in Kennedy's head.

Or just read Posner's book.

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 17 October 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

People believe this conspiracy shit now for the same reasons they think Saddam partially orchestrated 9/11: they don't know jack about the case, the circumstances, the evidence, and how illogical it is that a shooting like that would be carried out with the shooters (who allegedly weren't of the Sirhan Sirhan "I just don't give a fuck" school of thinking, but wanted to get away) mere feet away from dozens of people, cameras everywhere, etc.

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.

Gear! (Gear!), Saturday, 18 October 2003 03:19 (twenty years ago) link

if stone had based the movie on the slapstick theory then it would have been nowhere near as exciting of course.

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

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 19 October 2003 17:59 (twenty years ago) link

no but it wd be funny, which is better than exciting

mark s (mark s), Sunday, 19 October 2003 21:31 (twenty years ago) link

what about something that's funny and exciting? like your beloved spaceballs!

s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 20 October 2003 01:24 (twenty years ago) link

death isn't funny mark ;)

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 20 October 2003 09:32 (twenty years ago) link

i rewatched Winter Kills last night and it is still quite bad

jones (actual), Tuesday, 21 October 2003 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

two years pass...
this movie is hilarious! if you watch it like a comedy, the stuff gets funnier. like the incongruous bit during one of those crazy Cuban + sociopathic gays meetings, when tommy lee jones makes note of his own erection and says, "more champagne!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:14 (eighteen years ago) link

i adore this movie and its absolute unbridled INSANITY. it's also brillantly done, in terms of editing technique and all that shit. the over-acting, complete lack of subtlety etc. brings it into a whole new level. i actually like kevin costner in this, i think he anchors the movie quite well despite his accent.

obviously JFK complete and utter bunk as history, though of course donald sutherland makes the craziness seem almost plausible for a split second. one GOOD thing the movie did do was inspire the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act that got out a lot of previously classified documents and historical information about the era.

and i agree with gear the movie is hilarious.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:43 (eighteen years ago) link

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

people like that shouldn't watch movies!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I get mad at historical innaccuracies in movies, but I get more mad at blatant bold-faced lying. This movie has both in spades, but I might still have been okay it if not for the fact that Costner and Spacek are so god-awfully unwatchable and that the whole film plays out without one iota of suspense.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link

my favorite "inaccuracy" in a WW2 film is in The Longest Day, when Robert Mitchum leads the charge across the beach, just running across with his soldiers, pistol in hand, ducking the pesky gunfire from the lightly armed Germans.

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link

favorite Costner line delivery in the movie: when he flings open the door and stands in the hallway shouting after Sissy Spacek, "Well so am I, goddammit!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

my favorite: "he'd have about as much use for russians as a cat needs pajamas!"

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link

"that's like saying Touchdown here isn't very smart because he beat me only 2 games out of 5 at chess"

"oh go back to sleep, Jim"

"Dammit Liz, I been sleepin for three ye-ahs"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

roffle!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:19 (eighteen years ago) link

"I didn't think much about it at the time. Just bullshit, y'know, everybody likes to make themselves out to be something more than they are. 'Specially in the homosexual underworld. But when they got him I got real scared. And that's when I got popped."

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

"You don't know shit 'cause you've never been fucked in the ass!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I wonder if this is the macho Showgirls. (This assumes Road House is not macho, but I'm not really sure WHAT Road House is besides being genius.)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link

you know there's nothing more macho and man-sexy than a gold-paint covered Tommy Lee Jones being smacked across the face by a "foppish dandy"-attired Joe Pesci, while a stoned Kevin Bacon masturbates himself behind them.

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

All of a sudden Alexander finally makes sense.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

correction, this is the paranoid, batshit INSANE showgirls.

who could forget the scene where bacon, jones, and pesci are parading about painted in gold watching homoerotic silent 1920's sports footage!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Actually Stone should have directed Hannibal. Now imagine how that would have turned out.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link

how about the bit where RFK gets shot on TV and Costner's so disturbed/turned on that he goes upstairs and weeps and fucks Sissy Spacek.

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link

It's like that very special episode of Call to Glory, but without the fucking. (Why the hell do I remember these things?)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:39 (eighteen years ago) link

"boss, the president's been shot...in Dallas, about five minutes ago"

"oh...no..."

***shot of sinister clock***

"h-how bad?"

"there's no woid yet, but they think it's in the he-ahd"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:41 (eighteen years ago) link

this movie is SO AWESOME

strongo hulkington's ghost (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Let's not forget John "King Creole" Candy.

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:51 (eighteen years ago) link

"So, who are we going to cast as the fascist Nixon-supporting gay hustler? I'm thinking Kevin Bacon."

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:51 (eighteen years ago) link

"you as crazy as your mama!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:52 (eighteen years ago) link

"goes to show it's in the genes!"

"You're way out there, boss, taking a crap in the wind, and I for one am not going along on this ride!"

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:53 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.themoderatevoice.com/files/joe-stone.jpg

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:57 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.musicaos.it/cinecaos/febbraio/jfk_04.JPG

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:57 (eighteen years ago) link

what's AWESOME is the director's commentary on the DVD release, where scenes play out and then Stone says, "well eventually we discovered that so and so was in fact not involved in this manner, someone else came forward and said such and such, but it was an interesting theory we had at the time" (which happens about twenty times during the course of the commentary)

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.jfk-online.com/100okeefe.jpg

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link

http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/history/hsty3080/3rdYr3080/frames/jfkfilm.jpg

i assume this poster was made for a country where Joe Pesci is more popular than Kevin Costner.

miccio (miccio), Monday, 24 October 2005 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.motelmag.com/movies/images/jfk_candy.jpg

"Is this off the record Daddy-O? Good. In that case, let me sum it up for you real quick. If I answer that question you keep asking, if I give you the name of the big enchilada, you know ... then it's bon voyage Dino. I mean like permanent. I mean like a bullet in my head, you dig? You're a mouse fighting a gorilla. Kennedy is dead as that crab meat. The government's still breathing and you wanna line up with a dead man?"

miccio (miccio), Monday, 24 October 2005 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

That's some kinda new cancer - I'd say that's a "going out of business
cancer". You got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho. The government's gonna jump all over your head, Jimbo, and go "cock-a-doodledoo!"

latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 24 October 2005 02:37 (eighteen years ago) link

more where that came from:

latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 24 October 2005 02:39 (eighteen years ago) link

The Texas theater (theater they arrested Oswald) has an absolutely amazing itinerary for JFK assassination 60th anniversary. pic.twitter.com/LDmCwV2sCj

— pugmane 🦃 🐾 🐛 🥫 (@pugmane) November 19, 2023

𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 20 November 2023 19:52 (five months ago) link

I think the only way to read the warren report is a hallucinatory late-night session

Her book even builds a convincing case for Jerrie being a CIA agent with the cryptonym QJWIN, whose role was to recruit killers for an assassination squad that originally targeted Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

She is anxious to point out, though, that hers is not a “case closed” type of book, saying: “Books that claim to have those answers are probably not as credible as books that present the evidence and let people decide.”

I have decided this is insane, but amazing.

omar little, Monday, 20 November 2023 20:09 (five months ago) link

Babushka Lady sort of fucked up really, getting caught on camera dressed up all like a CIA op in a tan trench coat, calmly stood on the grassy knoll - while all other bystanders had hit the deck!

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 20 November 2023 20:24 (five months ago) link

I was thinking about all this shit yesterday as I finally finished off The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins.

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 20 November 2023 20:28 (five months ago) link

one of the best books table has recommended

I hope you like squab!

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 01:29 (four months ago) link

How was your mousse?

omar little, Thursday, 23 November 2023 02:49 (four months ago) link

“Frankie!”

active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Thursday, 23 November 2023 04:05 (four months ago) link

don’t you— don’t you think THIS has something to do with THAT?

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 07:57 (four months ago) link

i promise [grits teeth] i'll make more time for jasper

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:45 (four months ago) link

My life is fucked, Liz! And yours is, too!

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:51 (four months ago) link

in fact, i admired president kennedy. a man of true panache. wife with impeccable taste. [brief cut to liz at ruined brunch]

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:56 (four months ago) link

Christopher Wallace 🐊
@Wallace_Chris12
DeSantis is our generations JFK
He’s

- A family man
- Faithful to his wife
- Young gun who brings energy to the party

I see no reason why we shouldn’t nominate DeSantis

---

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JFK was not faithful to his wife

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 23 November 2023 11:30 (four months ago) link

Ask not if my party can bring the young gun with the energy...

pplains, Thursday, 23 November 2023 16:11 (four months ago) link

The only reason to get him on Elm is you got him in a triangulated crossfire. You put a team there down at the fence. Frontal shot. Flat, low trajectory. Put a third team down in this building on a low floor. When Kennedy gets in the kill zone, it's a turkey shoot.

omar little, Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:18 (four months ago) link

That's a Texas Live Oak, boss. It sheds its leaves the first week of March.

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:32 (four months ago) link


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