Every November... I Get The JFK Blues

President John F. Kennedy

Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was ambushed and killed in broad daylight as he drove with the First Lady through Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. On that fateful day this country lost something... and has been haunted by it ever since.

Dallas

I believe somehow, if you’re an American, whomever was President was when you’re born puts some kind of stamp on you, It did for me… so my President was John F. Kennedy. Sure, I was a just two years old when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963… but somehow what happened on that day long ago in Dallas haunts me forty-eight years later… in fact it makes me want to howl at the moon sometimes. Every year right before Thanksgiving, I get a little melancholy, it never fails. Why you might ask? For younger generation the question who shot J.F.K. might mean as much to them as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  With short attention span theater of the mind, many don’t even remember that Americans are still fighting not one, but two wars as I type this blog… why would they care about a president who was around during the time when televisions used rabbit ears (many would even ask what are rabbit ears?)  Because we’re Americans and I think what happened that day ripped into the red, white and blue, and we really never really recovered from it… I speak in the big picture of things. It was a domino effect that has somehow brought our country into the mess we’re in even today!

David Ferrie

“Oh man, why don't you fuckin' stop it? Shit, this is too fuckin' big for you, you know that? Who did the president, who killed Kennedy, fuck man! It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' shooters don't even know! Don't you get it?”  That’s a piece of dialogue said by Joe Pecsi when he portrayed David Ferrie in the film J.F.K.. David Farrie was one of the cast of bizarre characters that somehow seemed to be involved in the plot to murder the President… great dialogue that pretty much sums up this gigantic cover up that has loomed large over America the beautiful for almost fifty years.

As I grew up, I remember feeling the silent reverence of my parents and the older generations, the deep feeling of disbelief of what had happened to President Kennedy. It was something that was talked about in hushed tones; it was something so horrible that a child’s ears should be covered; spared from the horror of what happened… it has been like an opened wound for so long. Then the assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King and the President’s brother Senator Robert Kennedy only made things even more surreal; it was like stir up the pot and get blown away by a lone gunman! For those like myself, we're not buying into it anymore; at least not the Warren Commissions report of what happened; a crazed lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald is going to protect the United States from a rouge president by blowing his brains out… and then the gunman himself is shot dead (on live TV no less) by shady nightclub owner named Jack Ruby… WTF?! Then Ruby dies in prison just when he wanted to spill his guts. How did this happen? I need answers! One of my biggest fears is to leave this good earth without getting them fucking answers! I'm sure that dogs who did this most surely are all dead... they lay still under cold marble... but the truth remains, waiting to be uncovered. J.F.K. wasn't a saint... we now know. But it truly seemed that he wanted what was best for America. And he was starting to push the envelope. It's been noted that J.F.K. wanted to withdraw the military advisers from Vietnam (that never happened and look what happened!) J.F.K. also wanted to do a major shake up (or even more drastic, the removal ) of The Federal Reserve (the private bankers who masquerade as a branch of the U.S. Government) who many believe rule the roost to this day... Kennedy pissed people off... a lot of people wanted him gone. But who really had the power to remove the President of the United States?

I remember back in the 70’s the theories about a conspiracies started popping up with guys like comedian Mort Sahl; who pretty much stopped being a comedian (and was black-balled when he tried to shed light on this murderous act of treason.) Still this considered a fringe group, not to be taken seriously… after all how could it be? Yeah, every President since George Washington has had his enemies, John Kennedy was no exception; Cuba, the mob, white supremacists...  But you really have to have some dark powers to kill the President of the most powerful country in  the world… a man who only 13 months before brought us back from brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union? Does the Mafia have that kind of juice? I doubt it? Only New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison had the balls big enough to try and uncover this crime (his story was the basis of Oliver Stone’s J.F.K. fill) and to bring a case against someone who might have been part of the cabal to kill the President. That man was New Orleans business man Clay Shaw (he unfortunately was acquitted and his story was almost entirely forgotten for almost twenty years, until Stone’s film.) So many conspirators, so little time.

Clay Shaw

Thank God for the famous Abraham Zupruder film…the wild card, which was something that whoever killed President Kennedy didn't count on. Zupruder was a private citizen, who just happen to be filming the president motorcade that fateful day and caught the assassination in his little movie camera lens…(and for that I think he should have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery with all the other men American heroes.) Amazingly the Zupruder film was not shown to the public until 1975! But when it was, we started to realize how ridiculous the Warren Commissions Report really was. Oswald was right, he was a fuckin’ pasty!

In my lifetime we've had the breath knocked out of us three times; J.F.K., 9-11 and the devastation of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina (Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Lincoln, the other two great tragedies that have momentary knocked our great nation to her knees.) For me the murder of J.F.K. doesn't leave my consciousness… it's in me, it will always be with me… every November it haunts me like a ghost.  Say what you will about Oliver Stone’s 1991 sensory overload film; which if nothing else kicked up the dirt again and asked again those questions about November 22, 1963. Do you care? You should… as Garrison says in Stones film. 

Jim Garrison

Jim Garrison: All these documents are yours. The people's property, you pay for it! But because the government considers you children who might be too disturbed or distressed to face this reality, or because you might possibly lynch those involved, you cannot see these documents for another seventy-five years. I'm in my early forties, so I'll have shuffled off this mortal coil by then, but I'm already telling my eight-year-old son to keep himself physically fit, so that one glorious September morning, in the year 2038, he can walk into the National Archives, and find out what the CIA and the FBI knew! They might even push it back then, hell it may become a generational affair, with questions passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, but someday, somewhere, somebody will find out the damn truth.

Yeah maybe it’s too big, and maybe David Ferrie was right? Maybe I’ll take the big sleep and never know? But I’m gonna give it a shot and try and stick around as long as I can, and maybe someone will crack this mystery once and for all? 

Steve McQueen 30th Anniversary Tribute Event Jules Verne F

Going Down to Cuba/Cuba Show

Red Sun - Charles Bronson vs. Toshiro Mifune

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The New Steve McQueen?

I just found the new Steve McQueen! And she’s a girl (and she’s Swedish!) Yeah, really and she sports a dragon tattoo on her back. Every few years a breakthrough foreign film merges from the ranks and more likely than not with a interesting female in the lead; Run Lola Run and Amelie come to mind.  Well, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (a trilogy actually) is that film and NOOMI RAPACE is the girl.  Thanks Blockbuster Express and Redbox kiosks I’ve seen parts one and two of the smash trilogy (the other THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.)  Directed by Daniel Alfredson the films are based on the novels (which are nicely stocked at the moment at my nearby Costco) by the late author Stieg Larsson.

 In TGWTDT he weaves an intriguing tale  about a rough hewn little gal, a computer hacker with a dark past named Lisbeth Salander. While dealing with her own problems, Lisbeth takes an interest in the investigations of a disgraced journalist Mikael Blonkvist (Michael Nyqvist) who’s computer she’s hacked into. The journalist has been hired by an aging industrialist who last wish is to find out what happened to his niece who disappeared without a trace in 1966. The two desperate characters reluctantly join forces to solve the mystery and unravel something very dark indeed.

By accident I watched the second film THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE first, so for me the first film was a giant flashback… I actually kind of glad that it turned out like that. I enjoyed having the pieces fall into place while watching TGWTDT. I don’t want to write too much about it, because I want you to see these films (although I have not yet seen the third film, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST… I give it the benefit of the doubt that it’s on par with the previous two.)

So you ask me so where do I get the McQueen comparison? Well as of late, I have been on a McQueen jag (the 30^th anniversary of his death was yesterday, November 7th.)  Unfortunately unless you’re a really hip or of a certain age, he’s amazingly just not well known anymore to the American public as say Clint Eastwood his cinema contemporary (both born in 1930 and both ruled the screen with action and few words.) In TGWTDT Rapace’s tight-lipped character of Lisbeth goes through the trials that McQueen did in so many of his classic movies. Rapace rides a motorcycle (The Great Escape), she’s has a revenge aspect (Nevada Smith), she’s an investigator (Bullitt) she’s on the run (The Getaway), she’s an outsider with a technical abilities (The Sand Pebbles), she’s physically beaten and has a tattoo (like McQueen in Papillion) and even a caper aspect like The Thomas Crown Affair.

Am I stretching? maybe, but can you think of anyone else out there better? I can’t? An American version of TGWTDT is in the works, so yourself a favor and catch this trilogy (yes, watch it with the subtitles) because you know and I know Hollywood will screw it up.

* Update (Febuary 2012) I saw the NEW VERSION of TGWTDT directed by David Fincher (of Zodiac and Seven fame)... and the new Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is excellent. See Link Below.
http://thatmanray.blogspot.com/2012/02/rooney-mara-other-girl-with-dragon.html

THE SAW IS FAMILY: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2

IT'S ALL ABOUT FAMILY

When I was a kid I loved the classic monster movies, they were a staple to my movie viewing diet. But as I got older “my diet” changed, I didn’t need to be scared or maybe I just didn’t scare that easily? But every October, I just feel the need to watch some fn horror films. Yesterday, I stopped off at my local all purpose electronic warehouse store to see what I could find? And for the right price of $4.99, I found THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (THE GRUESOME EDITION!) I remember renting this picture back in the 80’s when it was first released on video, and thoroughly enjoying it.  

HORROR MASTER TOBE HOOPER

Was it was as crazy and deranged as I remembered? (Maybe even more so?) I remember seeing the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE at my local movie house when I was a kid (and have not seen it since.)  That film started a whole new genre of scare flicks; “the slasher movie” Directed by TOBE HOOPER, the first film almost had a creepy documentary feel to it. Massacre 2 is more like a carnival fun-house ride, with plenty of laughs to break up the gore. The film set up;  it’s been over a decade since the original murders of the first movie, the crazed clan of psychotic cannibals (JIM SIEDOW, BILL MOSELY and BILL JOHNSON) now do there work out of a highway amusement park called Texas Battleground Land. 

Bill Moseley's steel-plated head shines as "Crop Top"

  

The trio is kind of a crazed version of “Three Stooges” with “Cook” (Siedow) as its “Moe.”  Siedow is one funny old bastard. In a parallel universe his performance would be worthy of an Oscar. He’s a man who loves making his award-winning chili (any guess what his secret ingredient is?) Cook has a food truck that he and the boys tool around Texas with (which makes me laugh considering the current food truck craze.) Moseley’s character of “Chop Top” is so wild, jerky and freaky; now I know where “Beetlejuice” got his act from (he’s the scariest of the three.) Bill Johnson, takes over Gunnar Hansen’s role of the chainsaw wielding “Leatherface.”  When he’s not taking a chainsaw to someone’s body, Johnson almost gives the character a gentle giant turn (I also enjoy his little chainsaw dance.)

  

CAROLINE WILLIAMS FLIRTS WITH LEATHERFACE

 And what’s a slasher movie without an attractive screaming heroine? Chainsaw 2 has perhaps my all-time favorite CAROLINE WILLIAMS. In the Texas natives film debut, she really goes for it! Williams plays "Stretch" a rural late night D.J. who unfortunately is also the favorite of the murderous SAWYER FAMILY.  In her little “Daisy Dukes” she runs and screams all over the place, she even has a love scene of sorts with Leatherface while wearing a human skinned face mask of her former co-worker;YUCK! (Special appreciation to special effects wiz (and sometimes actor) Tom Savini.

Dennis Hopper as ex-Texas Ranger "Lefty" Enright

 

Also throw into the mix DENNIS HOPPER, as former Texas Ranger "Lefty" Enright. He’s the Captain Ahab of the piece,  he’s spent the past decade roaming the state of Texas trying to avenge the death of his nephew whose character was a murdered by the clan in the first film.  Who else but Hopper would be worthy enough to strap on his own chainsaws and to give the clan a taste of their own medicine?  Massacre 2, again directed by Tobe Hooper from a script by L.M. KIT CARSON (always give the writer credit) has really cooked up (pardon the pun) a wild piece of cinema that has really grown in cult status over the years. Also worth mentioning a really soundtrack with artists such as: The Cramps, Oingo Boingo, Concrete Blonde and Stewert Copeland, among others.  So if you get want some good gory Halloween fun, check out TCM2; but you might have second thoughts about eating off a late night food truck?

* On a personal note, I worked with director Tobe Hooper on the film THE TOOLBOX MURDERS 2004. (Hooper shot the whole picture at THE AMBASSADOR HOTEL in Los Angeles, where I worked in its filming department.) Hooper was the nicest, most soft-spoken fellow you'd ever want to meet.

Screenwriter L. M. Kit Carson

CLINT SENDS US TO THE HEREAFTER

On the big screen Clint Eastwood has sent many a varmint to the hereafter to meet his maker, in fact in a couple of his westerns; “High Plains Drifter” and “Pale Rider” he even played avenging gunmen (that by all accounts were ghosts?)… still when I heard about Clint’s current project, I was surprised, but then again as a filmmaker Clint’s always full of surprises… “The Hereafter” is no exception.  Screenwriter Peter Morgan (“Frost/ Nixon” and “The Queen”) has penned a movie that features three stories; a French journalist (Belgium-born actress Cécile de France) who after escaping an amazing  trauma finds herself having strange visions, a young boy (Frankie McLaren) in London who’s desperately looking for answers after his own tragedy and a reluctant American psychic (Matt Damon) who is himself a lost soul of another kind. This is the bare-bones synopsis of the story, so not to give too much away.  

Bryce Dallas Howard and Matt Damon

Cécile de France; My compliments to the chef!

The public’s curiosity of what happens to us after we take our last breath seems to me at a heightened state as of late (I know that as I get older, it is for me) and perhaps it has for the old gunfighter Clint; who I can’t believe is now 80? As he told The Los Angles Times in a recent interview, "The question about what happens after we die is something that we all ask and when I read the script by Peter Morgan it was so intelligent and I knew right away that I wanted to do it.” And perhaps just as strongly the film also tackles the something that many of us have felt and have put way back in our minds; the feeling of grief and loss.

THE MAN

As a filmmaker Clint’s fearless, never being afraid to take his time with his stories; his pictures always have a cool jazz rhythm to them, he directs the way the greats like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane blew their horns (and in fact , Clint once again composes yet another haunting score for the film.)  With a splendid cast of actors (Damon good & sturdy as usual) many whom are unfamiliar faces to American audiences (the gorgeous, De France reminded me how much I love a women with French…well Belgian accents.) That’s all I’m going to say about the picture; except I really enjoyed this one, and I hope Clint "the filmmaker” has many, many more surprises for us.