A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Book cover photo by NASA.  © 2019 HarperCollins “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”  - John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961 It's hard to believe that fifty years have passed since three manned missions (Apollo 10, 11, and 12) made the still-amazing voyage from the Earth to the Moon and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's 1961 pledge that American astronauts would go to our closest celestial neighbor and return safely to the big, blue marble we call home before 1970. Of the three Apollos that flew between May and November of 1969, only two (11 and 12) landed on the Moon; Apollo 10 was a dress rehearsal that involved everything in a lunar mission except the landing itself. To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (July 20, 1969), many publishers have published new books about various aspects of Project Apollo, including the t...

On March 1, 2019, Neon (the production company that distributed 2017's I, Tonya ) and Universal Pictures released Apollo 11, Todd Douglas Miller's documentary about the first manned lunar landing. Produced by CNN Films and Statement Pictures, the documentary focuses on the eight-day period between July 16 and 24, 1969, with a few "flashback" sequences tracking the careers of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins via montages of black-and-white and color still photos provided by the astronauts and their families. Miller, who also edited and produced Apollo 11, eschews the conventions of most documentary films by not using a mix of "present day" interviews, voiceover narration, or dramatic recreation of events. Instead, Miller and his team use a technique called "direct cinema," relying exclusively on archival material from the National Air and Space Administration (NASA), which consists of a mix of 16mm, 35mm, and newly r...

Map Credit: Wikipedia In 1979, Simon and Schuster published Peter Wyden’s Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story, a hard-hitting and critical examination of one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s biggest blunders – the failed attempt to topple Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s regime with an invasion force of 1,500 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles that landed at Playa Giron, a beach on the Bay of Pigs, located on the southern coast of Cuba.  (C) 1980 Touchstone Books/Simon and Schuster. Planned during the last year of the Eisenhower Administration but never officially approved by the lame-duck President Eisenhower, Operation Zapata was not intended to defeat Castro’s forces at Playa Giron with such a small force. Instead, the Brigada de Asalto 2506 (Assault Brigade 2506) was originally assigned to land at Trinidad, 170 miles to the southeast of Havana. There, the five small battalions would seize the port and airfield, carve out a beachhead, and once a perimeter was secured, a gov...

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, the youngest Chief Executive ever elected, was mortally wounded by a series of rifle shots fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas' Dealey Plaza. Within an hour, the President was declared dead at Parkland Hospital, and Lyndon Johnson, having been sworn into office aboard Air Force One, flew back to Washington, D.C. believing the assassination was part of a larger Soviet-led conspiracy to wipe out America's top leaders as a prelude to World War III. Later that afternoon, Dallas police officers arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old ex-Marine and avowed Communist sympathizer who had once defected to the Soviet Union, for the murder of Officer J.D. Tippett. Later it was determined that he was the only employee at the School Book Depository unaccounted for after JFK's shooting, and he became the prime suspect for the murder of the President. Sadly, before Oswald cou...

In June of 1963, five months before the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Warner Bros. released director Leslie Martinson’s  PT-109 , an adaptation of Robert J. Donovan’s non-fiction book  PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II.   Starring Cliff Robertson ( Charly, Spider-Man ) as Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy and co-starring Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp, Robert Blake, Norman Fell and even an uncredited George Takei (Hikaru Sulu of  Star Trek: The Original Series ), the film is a fairly accurate depiction of JFK’s naval service in the South Pacific as the commander of a motor torpedo boat given the Navy pennant number PT-109 (the PT standing for the Navy ship designator “Patrol Torpedo”).  Although Hollywood had made movies in which former Presidents (either living or dead) were depicted, producer Bryan Foy, under the direct guidance of Warner Bros.' head of production Jack Warner (who, in turn, was influenced ...

(C) 2000 New Line Cinema On Christmas Day 2000, New Line Cinema released “Thirteen Days,” a taut and thought-provoking docudrama about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as told from the Kennedy Administration’s point of view. Starring Kevin Costner (who also serves as co-producer) as Kenneth P. O’Donnell, Bruce Greenwood (“Star Trek Into Darkness”) as President John F. Kennedy, and Steven Culp as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the movie focuses on a Cold War crisis that could have escalated into World War III. It’s also a fascinating look at how people under extreme stress can overcome anxiety and fear to solve the thorniest problems – in this case, the threat of nuclear annihilation. Directed by Roger Donaldson (“Smash Palace,” “No Way Out”) from a screenplay by David Self (“Road to Perdition”), “Thirteen Days” begins on a suspenseful note as a U.S. U-2 spy plane flies over Communist-ruled Cuba in October of 1962. Photos taken during this overflight reveal to American intell...

On August 9, Warner Home Video will release the Blu-ray (BD) and DVD edition of “11.22.63,” Hulu’s eight-part miniseries based on Stephen King’s 2011 best-selling time travel novel “ 11/22/63. ” Warner Home Video Co-executive produced by King and J.J. Abrams (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Lost”), the highly-anticipated adaptation of the award-winning book follows the odyssey of Jake Epping (James Franco) as he travels back to the early 1960s to prevent President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. The limited-run series originally aired on Hulu’s subscription service between February 15 and April 4, and consists of eight episodes: ·         The Rabbit Hole ·         The Kill Floor ·         Other Voices, Other Rooms ·         The Eyes of Texas ·         Th...

(This review was originally written for Amazon.com in November 2003 by Alex Diaz-Granados...me.  I've altered it slightly to mark the fact that 2013 will be the 50th Anniversary of JFK's assassination.)  Over the past 50 years, no event in American history has been so scrutinized or conjectured about than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Millions of words have been written about that tragic day in Dallas: Some point the finger of blame solely at Lee Harvey Oswald, while others weave a confusing web of conspiracy theories that accuse the Mafia, French criminals, Fidel Castro, anti-Castro Cuban exiles and/or militarists in the government who wanted to expand America's role in Vietnam.  One of the best books on the Kennedy assassination is the late Jim Bishop's gripping The Day Kennedy Was Shot, a detailed hour-by-hour account of the events of November 22, 1963, starting with the President's 7:00 AM wake-up at Fort Worth's Hotel Texas and ends 20...