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Parkland - 2013

* - No, the last thing we need is another JFK assassination movie

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***** - A Direct Hit

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Frayed Knot Nov 07 2013 10:36 AM

Parkland, as in Parkland Memorial Hospital, the facility in Dallas where first John Kennedy and then, two days later, Lee Oswald were taken in vain attempts to saves their respective lives. Although this certainly is a topic on the already well-plowed events in Dallas, Texas of a half-century ago (exactly a half-century as of two weeks from tomorrow), this one is a variation where, rather than focusing on the major players or the overall impact and meaning of the whole thing, it's a much more low key look which focuses on the surrounding characters such as the staff at Parkland, Robert & Margueritte Oswald (brother & mother), Abraham Zapruder, the local FBI crew, the traveling Secret Service contingent, etc. So even if one of your goals in the next two weeks is to avoid the sure-to-be saturating media onslaught of 'Camelot' retrospectives, the blow-by-blow recreations, conspiracy theory updates, conspiracy theory shout-downs, Kennedy hagiographies, Walter Cronkite hagiographies, and so on, this isn’t a flick you should automatically go running and screaming from as it certainly avoids all of that.. And if you are into all that stuff well maybe this is just one more thing to add to your list. Marcia Gay Harden, Billy Bob Thorton, Jackie Earle Haley, and Jimmie Dale Gilmour are featured, as are a bunch of people with only two names like Paul Giamatti, Zac Efron, and Colin Hanks

themetfairy Nov 07 2013 11:21 AM Re: Parkland - 2013

I generally figure that if Paul Giamatti is in a film then it has to have something worthwhile about it.

Edgy MD Nov 07 2013 11:38 AM Re: Parkland - 2013

I might've agreed once. And then Duets happened. (Duets was actually watchably bad. I mean, there was music and stuff.)

Frayed Knot Nov 07 2013 01:06 PM Re: Parkland - 2013

Giamatti, playing considerably older than himself as the 60-ish y/o Abraham Zapruder, is probably the biggest star of the movie, at least as judged by lines of dialogue. In fact there isn't a ton of dialogue in the whole movie (so anyone worrying that the presence of Zac Efron ruining things can rest easy). Kind of quiet little film for the most part, especially considering the event that inspired it. BB Thorton and JE Haley also are made up to be older men, Haley virtually unrecognizably so as the priest giving JFK last rites.