Sitting down to write this post I’m reminded that I wrote a song called “Lee Harvey Oswald” years ago. Or at least I tried to. I’ll have to look back through my old journals. I remember being inspired by a line from Oliver Stone’s JFK film where Kevin Costner asks “Who cries for Lee Harvey Oswald?”

Who indeed…

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On December 8, 1980 John Lennon was shot dead in New York.

Here’s The Day John Lennon Died…

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Five years after his assassination, this made-for-television drama tells the story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I wasn’t aware of John and Yoko a Love Story before my girlfriend discovered it online, but it’s definitely worth watching. The 1985 flick picks up at the height of the fallout of John’s comments about The Beatles being bigger than Jesus, and vowing to quit playing live as the hysterical teenyboppers make hearing the music impossible. From there John meets Yoko at one of her art exhibitions and we’re off to the races. The New York Times praised the acting by both Mark McGann and Kim Miyori in the title roles as well as the actual Beatles recordings which make up the soundtrack here.

Watch the full movie on my YouTube channel…

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With the tragedy of the JFK assassination marking its 50th anniversary this month, I’m continuing my regular posts exploring that dark day in Dallas.

Not only was the assassination of JFK one of the most important events in U.S. history, the mystery that surrounds the tragedy created the modern conspiracy theory and continues to plague us with questions five decades later.

For a contemporary audience, it’s impossible to separate filmmaker Oliver Stone’s masterpiece JFK from the killing of the president in 1963. Both celebrated and scourged, Stone’s “counter myth” about the killing of Kennedy continues to divide audiences, sticking a bold, pointing finger directly into that wound in our national consciousness.

Oliver Stone’s son Sean played Kevin Costner’s son in the movie and here he sits down with his famous father and Buzzsaw host Tyrel Ventura to talk about Hollywood, conspiracy theories, the JFK film and the secret history of the assassination.

Here are Roger Ebert’s comments on the film’s superb cast and stunning editing in his original review of the 1991 film:

As Garrison, Kevin Costner gives a measured yet passionate performance. Like a man who has hold of an idea he cannot let go, he forges ahead, insisting that there is more to the assassination than meets the eye. Stone has surrounded him with an astonishing cast, able to give us the uncanny impression that we are seeing historical figures. There is Joe Pesci, squirming and hyperkenetic as David Ferrie, the alleged getaway pilot. Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw, hiding behind an impenetrable wall of bemusement. Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald. Donald Sutherland as “X” (actually Fletcher Prouty), the high-placed Pentagon official who thinks he knows why JFK was killed. Sissy Spacek, in the somewhat thankless role of Garrison’s wife, who fears for her family and marriage. And dozens of others, including Jack Lemmon, Ed Asner, Walter Matthau and Kevin Bacon in small, key roles, their faces vaguely familiar behind the facades of their characters.

Stone and his editors, Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, have somehow triumphed over the tumult of material here and made it work – made it grip and disturb us. The achievement of the film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche. John F. Kennedy was murdered. Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone. Who acted with him? Who knew?

Here’s the full interview:

What do you think? Do you have a theory about the assassination? Leave a comment and let’s see if we can’t come to our own conclusions.

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This past Sunday over 2 million viewers tuned-in to the REELZ channel to watch a brand new documentary about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. With the tragedy marking its 50th anniversary this month, I’m planning on regular posts exploring that dark day in Dallas.

Not only was the assassination of JFK one of the most important events in the history of the country, the mystery that surrounds the tragedy gave birth to modern conspiracy culture and continues to haunt the consciousness of a society that finds itself plagued with questions five decades later.

The viewing audience for JFK: The Smoking Gun shows that the killing of the president in 1963 still captures the public mind in a manner that remains undiminished from that moment the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. It also represents the very latest examination of the crime of the century.

Here’s the IMDB summary:

Seventy-five percent of the American people still refuse to believe the official story of President John F. Kennedy’s death. They do not think he was killed by a lone gunman but by a mysterious cabal that somehow conspired to have him killed. How can this be? How can a crime this famous, witnessed and investigated by so many, remain a mystery? This is what veteran Australian police detective Colin McLaren is determined to find out. JFK: The Smoking Gun follows the forensic cold-case investigation McLaren conducted over four painstaking years, taking us back to that tragic day in Dallas at Dealey Plaza where the shooting took place, to Parkland Hospital where the president was pronounced dead, to the Bethesda Naval Hospital where the autopsy was conducted and to the conclusions of the Warren Commission that have remained controversial to this day. Driven by a seasoned police detective who, thanks to modern technology, finally had access to all the facts and to witness testimony, the documentary uses logic, reason and time-tested investigative techniques to solve a crime that is every bit as shocking and incredible today as it was when it first happened 50 years ago. Colin McLaren believes he has found “the smoking gun” that killed JFK. Once you’ve seen this film, he’s confident you will believe it, too.

Here’s the full film:

What do you think? Do you have a theory about the assassination? Leave a comment and let’s see if we can’t come to our own conclusions.

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