Kevin Costner is one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. He has been in the industry for several decades, and he has no plans of stopping anytime soon. The actor is also known for taking on daring roles, ones that not only challenge himself as an actor but affect public perception too.
One such role that he tackled was in Oliver Stone’s hugely controversial 1991 film, JFK. The film stirred up a storm, and not many leading actors wanted to be involved in such a project, including Harrison Ford. Costner braved the storm, and he batted away the scandal that followed.
Costner took on the role that Ford rejected (Source: JFK) Kevin Costner took on a role that even Harrison Ford wanted to avoid at all costs
Oliver Stone had carved a niche for himself before he took on his most ambitious project, JFK, in 1991. The film revolved around the...
One such role that he tackled was in Oliver Stone’s hugely controversial 1991 film, JFK. The film stirred up a storm, and not many leading actors wanted to be involved in such a project, including Harrison Ford. Costner braved the storm, and he batted away the scandal that followed.
Costner took on the role that Ford rejected (Source: JFK) Kevin Costner took on a role that even Harrison Ford wanted to avoid at all costs
Oliver Stone had carved a niche for himself before he took on his most ambitious project, JFK, in 1991. The film revolved around the...
- 4/16/2024
- by Sreshtha Roychowdhury
- FandomWire
Paranoia, at least the kind stemming from a lack of confidence, isn’t the dominant sensation permeating Oliver Stone’s frenzied and decidedly campy pledge of malignance JFK, the film that briefly made conspiracy theorizing not just socially acceptable, but practically a cornerstone of citizens’ civic duty. No, in practice, JFK is as sure of itself as a QAnon truther, setting into centripetal motion hundreds of specious theories and dancing around the logical gaps like Max Ophüls’s camera did the titular jewelry of The Earrings of Madame de… It’s the crown jewel of the small but potent batch of mainstream American films of the late Boomer era that seemingly rode the collective insanity of the cultural zeitgeist to financial reward and cultural cachet—two other obvious examples being Network, which explicitly “articulated the popular rage” that had more or less been building since the Kennedy assassination, and the...
- 2/12/2024
- by Eric Henderson
- Slant Magazine
It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.
So says Joe Pesci’s David Ferrie during a critical scene in Oliver Stone’s JFK, a movie being revisited for a few reasons. One is that Shout Factory just put out a 4K restoration that reissues both the director’s cut and theatrical cuts of these films. But, we’re also revisiting it due to the fact director Oliver Stone, more than thirty years after the film’s release, is still utterly fascinated by the assassination. His recent documentary, JFK: Through the Looking Glass, served as a bookend to the film, while another documentary, Citizen Stone, is in production and examines how the film, in some ways, served as his undoing, a notion I can’t say I agree with.
Whatever the case, JFK is a fascinating piece of work that was one of the most provocative films of the 90s.
So says Joe Pesci’s David Ferrie during a critical scene in Oliver Stone’s JFK, a movie being revisited for a few reasons. One is that Shout Factory just put out a 4K restoration that reissues both the director’s cut and theatrical cuts of these films. But, we’re also revisiting it due to the fact director Oliver Stone, more than thirty years after the film’s release, is still utterly fascinated by the assassination. His recent documentary, JFK: Through the Looking Glass, served as a bookend to the film, while another documentary, Citizen Stone, is in production and examines how the film, in some ways, served as his undoing, a notion I can’t say I agree with.
Whatever the case, JFK is a fascinating piece of work that was one of the most provocative films of the 90s.
- 1/10/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
“Oppenheimer” has burst into the Oscar race.
With the earnest and urgent cultural fabric of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the philosophical measure of “The Tree of Life,” writer, director and producer Christopher Nolan’s chronicle of the creation of the most destructive weapon ever used stands as the most ambitious and vital piece of filmmaking of his career. Adapted from the book “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, “Oppenheimer” tells the complicated and morally fraught story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer who led the effort to develop the atomic bomb.
Nolan and his stellar ensemble of actors have amassed 27 Oscar nominations collectively throughout their careers. One of those who surprisingly hasn’t nabbed one is Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who plays the titular scientist. With dry wit and womanizing charm that effectively makes him the scientific version of Michael Fassbender in “Shame,” Murphy is an...
With the earnest and urgent cultural fabric of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the philosophical measure of “The Tree of Life,” writer, director and producer Christopher Nolan’s chronicle of the creation of the most destructive weapon ever used stands as the most ambitious and vital piece of filmmaking of his career. Adapted from the book “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, “Oppenheimer” tells the complicated and morally fraught story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer who led the effort to develop the atomic bomb.
Nolan and his stellar ensemble of actors have amassed 27 Oscar nominations collectively throughout their careers. One of those who surprisingly hasn’t nabbed one is Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who plays the titular scientist. With dry wit and womanizing charm that effectively makes him the scientific version of Michael Fassbender in “Shame,” Murphy is an...
- 7/20/2023
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Let's take a brief trip through the looking glass, shall we?
There is not a more tantalizing mystery in United States history than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though the Warren Commission emphatically concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman and acted alone, many people believe their investigation was either flawed or a full-scale cover-up. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists alleged an alliance between the Fidel Castro-led Cuban government and mobsters in the States. Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison believed Kennedy's murder was orchestrated by New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw and anti-Castro Cubans (who were still raw over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion). Everyone from Lyndon B. Johnson to Frank Sinatra has been linked in some way or another to the assassination.
The myriad of theories, many of which clumsily intersect with competing theories, tend to discredit each other. But it's understandable why people need...
There is not a more tantalizing mystery in United States history than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though the Warren Commission emphatically concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman and acted alone, many people believe their investigation was either flawed or a full-scale cover-up. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists alleged an alliance between the Fidel Castro-led Cuban government and mobsters in the States. Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison believed Kennedy's murder was orchestrated by New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw and anti-Castro Cubans (who were still raw over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion). Everyone from Lyndon B. Johnson to Frank Sinatra has been linked in some way or another to the assassination.
The myriad of theories, many of which clumsily intersect with competing theories, tend to discredit each other. But it's understandable why people need...
- 5/16/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Oliver Stone once made brilliant movies like Platoon, which won Oscars for best picture and best director. These days, he’s a tinfoil-hatted fabricator. His new documentary — JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, premiering on Showtime on, you guessed it, Nov. 22 — is rooted in a big lie. It comes 30 years after the premiere of JFK, a film unrivaled in the annals of American cinematic propaganda. Both are based on the undying delusion that President Kennedy was murdered by the Deep State: The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by the military-industrial complex.
- 11/22/2021
- by Tim Weiner
- Rollingstone.com
Ever since President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963, many people have wondered: What actually transpired on that Friday in Dallas? Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? What about the Cubans and the Mafia? Did our government have something to do with it? 28 years later, filmmaker Oliver Stone created the award-winning movie JFK to illustrate his very personal point of view.
What Are Oliver Stone's 10 Best Movies?
JFK chronicles an investigation by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) and the subsequent conspiracy case he brought...
What Are Oliver Stone's 10 Best Movies?
JFK chronicles an investigation by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) and the subsequent conspiracy case he brought...
- 11/4/2013
- by Danielle Bacher
- Rollingstone.com
A good defense lawyer only needs to cast a reasonable doubt to get his client off the hook, we Kennedy followers have learned, and 1960s slugger Oliver Stone proves he's a masterful litigant in this gumbo-filled historical reconstruction of John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Essentially, it's not about Kennedy but rather the tale of New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison who -- not believing the Warren Commission's Report that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot down JFK -- launched a widespread investigation, eventually prosecuting one New Orleans citizen Clay Shaw for the crime. In Garrison's eye, Shaw was a cog in a murderous conspiracy hatched by the CIA, the defense industry, Southern rednecks, Cuban refugees and all sorts of goose hunters.
If any cause or special interest group wanted to hire a filmmaker to document the rightness of their issue, Stone would be unbeatable. In this view of nimble bombast, it's not doubtful that Stone could spin a masterful cinematic web linking John Sununu's resignation with the collapse of Pan Am. Aesthetically, ''JFK'' is crafty, super-skilled filmmaking: propaganda every bit as cinematically splendid as Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' or Leni Riefenstahl's ''Triumph of the Will.''
Dignifying D.A. Garrison, who even in the jambalaya of this country's screwiest state was considered a Loose Cannon, is the savvy casting of good-old-reliable, salt-of-the-earth Kevin Costner. As the obsessed litigant, Costner evens sucks on a pipe, avuncularly a la the great wise man of the era, Walter Cronkite.
Opposing this judicious breadwinner are the wide array of ''conspirators, '' shrewdly chosen among Hollywood's finest nutcase players -- prominently Joe Pesci as a hypertensive co-conspirator and Donald Sutherland as a slithery CIA op. Down the French Quarter line, you've also got died-blonde Tommy Lee Jones as gay Clay Shaw and Ed Asner as a swaggering redneck. Before we even present the facts, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, which side would you trust: gray-suited Kevin or Joe Pesci and the boys.
In the film, Garrison quotes Adolf Hitler as saying the bigger the lie, the more people are likely to believe it; paraphrasing that cynicism, the bigger the movie the more likely people are going to believe it, especially in this post-literate age where college kids only know JFK as the president who got laid a lot. And screenwriters Stone and Zachary Sklar present the ''facts'' in a stentorian wave of shrewd and sometimes dubious juxtapositions (aided and abetted by muted trumpet and stacatto of the snares).
The narrative movement is thus: Garrison espouses theory, interrogates slimeball who lies to him, followed by flashback to ''reality'' shot in black-and-white showing Garrison's suppositions are correct.
Indeed, Stone's savvy, documentary-style black-and-white footage casts an aura of truth over this theoretical treatise. Stone has built his case, starting with documentary clips of Dwight Eisenhower's warning of the terrors of the ''military industrial complex, '' through a winning montage of Camelot (the energy of the New Frontier; the disastrous Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the triumph of ''Ich Bin Ein Berliner'' speech, to Dallas.
Throughout, Stone stretches one thread: the CIA and military industrial complex, furious at Kennedy for not providing air support in the Bay of Pigs and fearing his pulling out of Vietnam, hatched a plot.
At its most questionable, a voice-over enumerates the military/industrial types who would benefit from JFK's death -- while panning over the likes of the Joint Chiefs and LBJ. While Oliver Stone has certainly stirred up the waters, with good conscience and, in JFK's own parlance, ''with vigah, '' most people are likely to regard ''JFK'' as BS.
JFK
Warner Bros.
In Association with Le Studio Canal Plus, Regency Enterprises and Alcor Films
An Ixtlan Corp. and an A. Kitman Ho Production
Producers A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone
Director Oliver Stone
Screenwriters Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
Executive producer Arnon Milchan
Director of photography Robert Richardson
Production designer Victor Kempster
Co-producer Clayton Townsend
Editors Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia
Music John Williams
Costume designer Marlene Stewart
Casting Risa Bramon Garcia, Billy Hopkins, Heidi Levitt
Based on the books ''On the Trail of the Assassins'' by Jim Garrison and ''Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy'' by Jim Marrs
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Jim Garrison Kevin Costner
Liz Garrison Sissy Spacek
David Ferrie Joe Pesci
Clay Shaw Tommy Lee Jones
Lee Harvey Oswald Gary Oldman
Bill Broussard Michael Rooker
Lou Ivon Jay O. Sanders
Susie Cox Laurie Metcalf
Jack Martin Jack Lemmon
Sen. Long Walter Mattheu
Dean Andrews John Candy
Guy Bannister Ed Asner
Willie O'Keefe Kevin Bacon
Earl Warren Jim Garrison
Running time -- 188 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Essentially, it's not about Kennedy but rather the tale of New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison who -- not believing the Warren Commission's Report that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot down JFK -- launched a widespread investigation, eventually prosecuting one New Orleans citizen Clay Shaw for the crime. In Garrison's eye, Shaw was a cog in a murderous conspiracy hatched by the CIA, the defense industry, Southern rednecks, Cuban refugees and all sorts of goose hunters.
If any cause or special interest group wanted to hire a filmmaker to document the rightness of their issue, Stone would be unbeatable. In this view of nimble bombast, it's not doubtful that Stone could spin a masterful cinematic web linking John Sununu's resignation with the collapse of Pan Am. Aesthetically, ''JFK'' is crafty, super-skilled filmmaking: propaganda every bit as cinematically splendid as Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' or Leni Riefenstahl's ''Triumph of the Will.''
Dignifying D.A. Garrison, who even in the jambalaya of this country's screwiest state was considered a Loose Cannon, is the savvy casting of good-old-reliable, salt-of-the-earth Kevin Costner. As the obsessed litigant, Costner evens sucks on a pipe, avuncularly a la the great wise man of the era, Walter Cronkite.
Opposing this judicious breadwinner are the wide array of ''conspirators, '' shrewdly chosen among Hollywood's finest nutcase players -- prominently Joe Pesci as a hypertensive co-conspirator and Donald Sutherland as a slithery CIA op. Down the French Quarter line, you've also got died-blonde Tommy Lee Jones as gay Clay Shaw and Ed Asner as a swaggering redneck. Before we even present the facts, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, which side would you trust: gray-suited Kevin or Joe Pesci and the boys.
In the film, Garrison quotes Adolf Hitler as saying the bigger the lie, the more people are likely to believe it; paraphrasing that cynicism, the bigger the movie the more likely people are going to believe it, especially in this post-literate age where college kids only know JFK as the president who got laid a lot. And screenwriters Stone and Zachary Sklar present the ''facts'' in a stentorian wave of shrewd and sometimes dubious juxtapositions (aided and abetted by muted trumpet and stacatto of the snares).
The narrative movement is thus: Garrison espouses theory, interrogates slimeball who lies to him, followed by flashback to ''reality'' shot in black-and-white showing Garrison's suppositions are correct.
Indeed, Stone's savvy, documentary-style black-and-white footage casts an aura of truth over this theoretical treatise. Stone has built his case, starting with documentary clips of Dwight Eisenhower's warning of the terrors of the ''military industrial complex, '' through a winning montage of Camelot (the energy of the New Frontier; the disastrous Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the triumph of ''Ich Bin Ein Berliner'' speech, to Dallas.
Throughout, Stone stretches one thread: the CIA and military industrial complex, furious at Kennedy for not providing air support in the Bay of Pigs and fearing his pulling out of Vietnam, hatched a plot.
At its most questionable, a voice-over enumerates the military/industrial types who would benefit from JFK's death -- while panning over the likes of the Joint Chiefs and LBJ. While Oliver Stone has certainly stirred up the waters, with good conscience and, in JFK's own parlance, ''with vigah, '' most people are likely to regard ''JFK'' as BS.
JFK
Warner Bros.
In Association with Le Studio Canal Plus, Regency Enterprises and Alcor Films
An Ixtlan Corp. and an A. Kitman Ho Production
Producers A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone
Director Oliver Stone
Screenwriters Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
Executive producer Arnon Milchan
Director of photography Robert Richardson
Production designer Victor Kempster
Co-producer Clayton Townsend
Editors Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia
Music John Williams
Costume designer Marlene Stewart
Casting Risa Bramon Garcia, Billy Hopkins, Heidi Levitt
Based on the books ''On the Trail of the Assassins'' by Jim Garrison and ''Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy'' by Jim Marrs
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Jim Garrison Kevin Costner
Liz Garrison Sissy Spacek
David Ferrie Joe Pesci
Clay Shaw Tommy Lee Jones
Lee Harvey Oswald Gary Oldman
Bill Broussard Michael Rooker
Lou Ivon Jay O. Sanders
Susie Cox Laurie Metcalf
Jack Martin Jack Lemmon
Sen. Long Walter Mattheu
Dean Andrews John Candy
Guy Bannister Ed Asner
Willie O'Keefe Kevin Bacon
Earl Warren Jim Garrison
Running time -- 188 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 12/16/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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