JFK

Rating:
Summary: JFK (Director's Cut)
Review: I'm surprised, after 40 years, that so much effort is still made to discredit Jim Garrison's investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy and Oliver Stone's telling movie "JFK".

Peter Jennings and ABC made a "heroic" effort to convince viewers that Oswald was a "lone nut" assassin. Even PBS sold out with their "Frontline" program, and a couple of others, about the JFK assassination.

As someone who has studied the JFK assassination, as an avocation, since 1968, I highly recommend Oliver Stone's "JFK" as an excellent starting point to understanding why Kennedy was assassinated.

Stone had to abbreviate the story. How could any film cover everything that happened from before Kennedy took the oath of office in January of 1961 until the trial of Clay Shaw in 1969 in a couple of hours? It isn't possible unless some artistic license is taken. An example is "X", the mysterious military colonel, who was based on more than one person but primarily on Col. L. Fletcher Prouty (who wrote the excellent book "JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy". The conversation, in the film "JFK", between "X" and District Attorney Jim Garrison, never took place. But it precisely summed up events which happened over a long period of time in the planning and execution of the assassination. If not for these kinds of artistic license a movie spanning nearly nine years would have to be several years long to include all details exactly as they happened.

The jury in the Clay Shaw trial believed there was a conspiracy, they just didn't have the proof they needed to convict Shaw. And it was no wonder they couldn't. The FBI, CIA and many other government entities did everything they could to thwart Garrison's investigation. His offices were bugged, "volunteers" removed stacks of documents, The FBI threatened his investigators, witnesses were murdered, Governors refused to extradite key witnesses, the judge wouldn't allow the police officer who booked Clay Shaw to testify that Shaw said he used the alias Clay Bertrand when being booked ... no D.A. could win a case under those circumstances. Even Johnny Carson, on NBC's "The Tonight Show", attacked Garrison over national television.

Garrison did a remarkable job, under the circumstances, of coming close to solving the assassination. Garrison's book "On The Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy" illustrates exactly what he was up against in bringing Clay Shaw to trial. If you can find this book buy it.

Why is the Kennedy assassination of any importance 40 years later? You have to understand what happened then to understand what has happened since. Why would the government, the media, authors, television program producers and others want to make you belive a lone nut assassin killed our President? Why did so many witnesses die so quickly? Why was evidence destroyed and modified? Why was Oswald silenced by Jack Ruby? Why was Oswald given Russian language training while in the Marines, sent to work at the largest CIA military base in Asia, then allowed to "defect" to Russia? Why would our government stand by and do nothing when Oswald tells the U.S. Embassy that he wants to give up his U.S. citizenship and says he is going to give Russia secrets about our U2 flights? Why would he be allowed to do that? Why, when he wanted to come back to the U.S., was he promptly given his passport, never debriefed, and even given travel money by a CIA cover group? Why wouldn't he be charged with treason? Why did Oswald pretend to be pro-Castro working out of the office of Guy Banister, a private investigator who was former ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) and former head of the Chicago office of the F.B.I.? Why would Oswald hang out in a place within a couple of blocks of the Secret Service, the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the O.N.I. offices in New Orleans if he had truly defected to Russia? Was Oswald being set up to be the "patsy" for the assassination? Why didn't the Warren Commission take Jack Ruby to Washington, D.C. where he said he could tell the truth? Why did Ruby suddenly contract a virulent form of colon cancer in his lungs just after being told he would get a re-trial? He claimed he was being injected with cancer and he died within a couple of months. Why would JFK's brain disapper from the National Archives along with autopsy photos? Why did LBJ have the limousine flown to Ford Motor Company and the windshield with a bullet hole removed and destroyed, as well as the carpet and parts of the interior replaced destroying that evidence. These, and hundreds of other questions, will come up as you watch "JFK" and do some searching on the internet.

Rating:
Summary: incredible
Review: i absolutely love this movie. terrific acting, great directing, theories for thought. oliver stone is one of the greatest director right now. definitely my favourite.

Rating:
Summary: COMMON SENSE
Review: Wow. It amazes me that after 40 years, there are stil idiots out there that even ponder the thought of Oswald as a lone nut. How many times do all the "coincidences" and "special circumstances" need to be rehashed for us to realize something is fishy and it sure ain't the perch cooking on the stove! One of the reviewers in this section cites the half-baked, wholly inaccurate "Case Closed" by gerald Posner as 90% correct! Uh, excuse me? What version were you reading? His booked has been ripped apart by experts like Cyril Wecht, yet the media continues to have Posner as their "go-to-guy".Does it strike anyone funny that Posner is practically the only "JFK author" who gets prime time every November? Posner was on the radio a few days ago, (imagine that!) and made this statement (paraphrase:) "All of the documents in the JFK killing have been released. I have read them all." Uh, excuse me again, what about the thousands of documents still classified as "National Security" risks? Sir, you are a liar. That's not the only lie this man tells, and his demeanor and approach strike me as that of a charlatan or snake oil salesman. Even Posner himself now tries to play the fence by criticisizing the Warren report! Why? because he knows that Barr McClellan's book on JFK and LBJ is about to prove Stone's movie is closer to the truth than you would believe! JFK is a film that presents many theories, some untrue and/or disproven, but the film's central thesis is correct: a conspiracy killed JFK. Common sense tells us that bullets cannot be magical, a fat balding man in Mexico cannot be Lee Oswald, a Civil Air Patrol picture of David Ferrie and Lee Oswald is widely available proving they knew each other, and a man who defected to Russia cannot avoid facing any charges and simply waltz back into the USA and pull off this well executed murder. One needs only fast forward to the "coincidental" killings of RFK and MLK to see a pattern. If you can't see that pattern, you're as mixed up as the Warren Commission report. Common sense ladies and gents. You don't have to believe weird theories to see the truth. All you have to do is watch the bullet slamming into the front of JFK's head in the Zapruder film. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Stone's JFK hit the heart of the conspiracy debate, because for once, the truth was told and those in power got real, real nervous. Good. I can't wait for JFK2.

Rating:
Summary: VERY IMPRESSIVE FILM
Review: Whatever you feel what went down that fateful day you gotta give him a hand for having the gumption to tell a political story.Hollywood is a gutless and braindead junkyard.I become interested in the JFK case when I first seen this film in the theatre back in '91.I was really impressed by this film.Film has it's own langusge and Oliver Stone is a master of using film to tell a story.This is one of the most engrossing films to watch.It should be studied by film schools and used as a bible on the art of becoming a movie director.I SENSE STONE believes there's a conspircy and cover-up.And a clue leads me to think a general LANSDALE played a important part.All the actors were very good but I was especially impressed by John Candy as Dean Andrews and Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw.I love this film and think its a one of our great american films but there's one or two flaws.First as much as I love Joe Pesci I think he overdid the David Ferry part.He comes off as a ranting clown.Also some of family comes of f bad in diologue.I know Oliver used some F-words so Jim Garrison doesn't come off as a flawless saint.I wish he could of been more
]subtle.Oliver Stone is not a subtle type of guy.He's the closest thing next to a modern day Sam Fuller.Like Fuller he's passionate and very opinionated.He pisses off alot of folks butwe need more people like him .

Rating:
Summary: It's Stone's Throw
Review: The beauty of Oliver Stone's "JFK" is that it has and will for a long time still, engender a mass of hate, love, incomprehension and good old America debate.
Just this last week, being the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, there were two documentaries televised: one supported the claim of the lone gunman theory and the findings of the Warren Commission while the other supported the two+ gunman conspiracy theory with all the attendant evidence in support. Is there any wonder that we as a Nation have no idea what/who/why happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas? Stone's "JFK" seems heavily dependent on the second 7 hour BBC produced documentary (ridiculous in that it is better researched that the Warren Commission!) for many of it's facts, though the BBC program looked at Jim Garrison's contribution to the investigation as a sidelight not the main event.
Be all of that as it may, this film is a lollapalooza: a fascinating, dramatic, though obviously slanted look at what was the most important and riveting event in American history until 9/11. And Stone does a tremendously effective job of marshalling all of the facts, fiction and theories into a dramatic whole. This is not a documentary, this is a film based on fact. And since the only fact we all can all agree on is that someone shot JFK in Dallas on 11/22/63, it seems to me that everything else is open to speculation and interpretation.
Kevin Costner gives a bravura performance as Jim Garrison: a man so conflicted and so troubled by the assassination that he feels compelled to bring someone to trial for it. His summation scene, which goes on for nearly 45 minutes towards the end of "JFK" is so moving, so strongly felt, so incisively acted, so emotionally aware that we actually see Costner underneath the performance as Garrison: the third wall is removed and it is Costner not only speaking to us, he is speaking for us.
We will never know exactly what happened in Dallas on that Friday afternoon 40 years ago, but we do have this film and Costner's performance as a reminder of what can happen when someone of intelligence and foresight tackles a problem and proposes a hypothesis: right or wrong is not the issue, making the effort is.

Rating:
Summary: oliver stone delivers
Review: sure, he's taken real life events and fictionalzied some characters and there alleged involvement with the assisination. most directors have creative license to make a movie that is more compelling to its audience. so the scripted words in JFK are not historically accurate.

what Mr. Stone manages to do is make swiss cheese out of the Warren Commission report. after viewing this movie, it appears to me that this report is the biggest work of "non-fictionalized" fiction ever written. many questions are posed that are not easliy answered. IMO the report isn't worth the paper it's printed on, with the exception of buttwipe.

this movie really is a remarkable achievement. kudos to OS for not scrapping the project after the original JFK script was stolen during filming/production....

Rating:
Summary: Smoke, Shadows, Lone Gunmen---and Plots within Plots
Review: Stop the tape a minute, tell Mr. Zapruder to put down his camera, get comfy beside me here on this nice grassy knoll, and ignore that guy with the umbrella---he's probably one of ours---and let's ask one of the great, burning questions of our age:

Is Oliver Stone's "JFK" worth a watch?

You don't need a Warren Commission to tell you the answer is an enthusiastic Absolutely! Oliver Stone serves up a typically kinetic, visually arresting, deliciously conspiratorial and roaringly over-the-top film in "JFK", in which you're best served to worry less about historical authenticity, and just sit back and enjoy the movie for the feat of cinematic virtuosity that it is.

Right from the start, Stone leaps in with style, wit, a well-equipped army of solid ensemble actors, and a crack team of skilled editors helmed up by his faithful Director of Photography Robert Richardson (who has worked on all of Stone's projects, from "Wall Street" to "Natural Born Killers"); Stone digs in from the beginning and goes to work with the aplomb of a natural---and gifted---storyteller.

Stone has a little help from his friends, to be sure: Jim Marrs, (who wrote "Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy") and the still-crusading Jim Garrison (the New Orleans DA who wrote "On the Trail of the Assassins" and even appears in the film as his nemesis, Earl Warren!) worked with Stone on the screenplay.

That "JFK" is a work of passion is quite evident, and redounds to the credit of its screenwriters. That it is a work of somewhat dubious historical authenticity is, alas, not so evident---and again, that is due to the cinematic wizardry Stone works in putting you on Dealey Plaza on that sultry Dallas afternoon 40 years ago.

All of this style and substance is put at the service of a contention that seems an article of faith by Stone: that President Kennedy was cut down not by a raving Marxist madman with a grudge and a mail-order rifle, but by a shadowy cabal of politicians and industrialists entrenched in the very highest levels of American government.

"JFK" puts you at the side of young New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison(played adroitly by Kevin Costner in one of his best performances), who, four years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, begins to delive into a sordid underground of New Orleans tycoons and orgiasts, spies and con-men, Cuban exiles and CIA spooks, mercenaries and mobsters. His suspicion aroused, Garrison reorganizes his office into a single-minded legal SWAT team designed to investigate the shadowy New Orleans bon vivant "Clay Bertrand", who may have had a hand in a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy---and to not only question the findings of the Warren Report, but to launch an investigation into the complicity of the White House into the death of the former president.

For all of its political immediacy and slick cinematographic techniques, "JFK" is more sweaty Southern potboiler than stern Yankee conspiracy theory, owing far more to sultry Faulknerian southern town mysteries and the forbidden, sweltering interludes of Tennessee Williams. Stone uses every resource at his disposal to ratchet up an atmosphere of oppression and menace: characters don't just talk, they sweat rivers, their eyes dart nervously about, they pace like caged tigers, the camera tracking their edgy, jerky movements.

All of this is supported by impeccable acting: "JFK" is studded with top-drawer talent, most of whom engage in a feeding frenzy of scene-chewing. Costner is given a foil in Tommy Lee Jones at his most sardonic as the elegant and poised Clay Shaw; Kevin Bacon is creepily sinister and volatile as Garrison's useless 'witness' Willie O'Keefe; Joe Pesci lets the hairpiece do the acting as the unstable David Ferrie; Jack Lemmon anticipates his "Glengarry" act as Jack Martin, condemned to be forever pistol-whipped by a hulking Ed Asner (who plays the bilious, mysterious Guy Bannister); and John Candy literally sweats bullets and chomps a cigar. And what conspiracy theory movie is complete without an obligatory appearance by Donald Sutherland (whose voice is just fine as Agent X, but seems---well, just a bit *too* much for a film this serious).

All of this works some powerful ju-ju: the movie is spookier than a decrepit New Orleans antebellum plantation at midnight and spicier than a pot of gumbo.

If "JFK" raises questions about one of the more dubious periods of our collective American memory, that's well and good---though the viewer should beware: Stone plays fast and loose with the historical record. But in building up an account of the assassination, Stone has created a modern masterpiece, a film that transcends the limitations of its subject and produces a creepy-crawly classic.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: If you want to know why just watch it..........

Rating:
Summary: A powerful, important, but not wholly factual movie
Review: You have to approach Oliver Stone's JFK in two ways: first as a motion picture, then as a representation of history. It is often hard to separate the two, but one must never forget that this is a movie, a dramatization that features a number of added fictional elements to make it more poignant and gripping. How true a representation of Garrison's life and work is this? I can't say for sure, as I have focused most of my attention on the work and ideas of a number of other dedicated researchers, having always regarded Garrison's case as tangential at best. Garrison, even with a little fictional help from Oliver Stone, never had much of a case against Clay Shaw, but the evidence he puts forth in his unwinnable case does, to my mind, satisfactorily prove that there was a conspiracy involving unknown individuals to kill the President. Still, though, this is an over dramatized production wherein a number of facts are tweaked, created, changed, or deleted; Garrison is a controversial figure who comes off much better here than he does in real life, so one can certainly not accept this film as fact. I have read and studied the JFK assassination at some length, and I consider Garrison's case an interesting but rather small, gnarled limb on the tree of conspiracy; there are a number of far larger and weightier limbs on that tree, and when these are eventually hacked down and fall at the foot of the American people, the whole world will be rocked by the force and immensity of the event, and the reverberations of that fall will echo throughout all of our future history.

JFK succeeds admirably as a movie. The blending together of actual footage and historical re-creations in a sometimes almost surreal way is very effective, the humanity, passion, and integrity of Jim Garrison shines out like a beacon of truth, and Garrison's passionate closing argument is emotionally powerful and believable. The film is rather graphic, but it has to be. One of the reasons I bought this movie when it came out was its inclusion of the Zapruder film, the key piece of evidence that, among other things, shows the horrible force and destruction of the kill shot. Autopsy scenes and photos, both real and re-created, may also be disturbing to some, but they are historically accurate. The film features an incredible number of well-known actors and actresses: Kevin Costner, whom I don't really like as a general rule, delivers a truly powerful performance; Sissy Spacek is certainly convincing as Garrison's annoying, emotionally torn wife; Brian Doyle-Murray makes a convincing Jack Ruby; and Gary Oldman simply is Lee Harvey Oswald. An almost unrecognizable Tommy Lee Jones brings Clay Shaw to memorable life, but the finest performance here, in my opinion, is that of Joe Pesci in his role of the unforgettable real-life character David Ferrie. Great actors such as Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Walter Matthau, and Kevin Bacon are brilliant in small yet important roles. Jim Garrison himself even makes an appearance as, of all people, Earl Warren.

JFK doesn't have very many answers, but it asks a lot of the right questions. The one problem this film has, though, is the fact that it covers so much information and characters. Those who have not studied the assassination in any depth before, those who have not read such material as Stone drew heavily from (principally Jim Marrs' Crossfire and the research of Robert Groden), may find themselves a little overwhelmed by too much information, much of it presented in the form of rapid-fire dialogue and dream-like video montages.

This movie, much like Garrison's case, spread the word to the public at large; it exposed the shadows of dark, mysterious forces whose possible connection to the assassination has never been fully explored; it tore down the incredibly shaky conclusion of the Warren Commission; it pointed fingers not so much at individuals and groups of possible conspirators as it pointed the finger of truth at the American public. We all deserve to know the truth about Kennedy's assassination, and it is up to us to demand and get that proof, to tear down the walls of secrecy and confidentiality behind which what is left of the evidence lies, to take our country back from the kinds of men who would engineer a brutal public murder and then secretly change the entire course of our great republic for the worse. I think that anyone who looks at this case will know that the government has lied to us all for the past forty years. That's not really the point of this film, though. JFK compels you to look at the evidence yourself, it exhorts you not to take the government at its word without sufficient proof, and it expresses the qualities a great nation must rediscover if it is to prosper in the future.

Rating:
Summary: PARADIGM SHIFT?
Review: The last words he heard were, "You can't say Dallas doesn't love you, Mr. Kennedy." The sky was blue and the sun was shining as gun shots echoed in Dealey Plaza. At that moment, all he was fated to be was done and his self-named Camelot vanished. Immortalized in death, the man became a myth, and a mystery was given life.

Oliver Stone's JFK -- DIRECTOR'S CUT (Warner Home Video) is a new two-disc Special Edition with an extraordinary commentary track by Stone that explores in detail the paradoxes and enigmas of Kennedy's assassination and aftermath. New to this addition is the superb feature-length documentary, BEYOND JFK: The Question of Conspiracy. If everything in this movie were fiction, it would still rank as one of the great political thrillers and a superior piece of filmmaking. Highest recommendation.