Parkland is a 2013 historical drama written and directed by Peter Landesman and starring Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, and Billy Bob Thornton. It's based on the book Reclaiming History Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi.
[00:00:28] Hello, welcome back to Casabloga. In this episode, I am talking about Parkland, which is a 2013 historical drama written and directed by Peter Lenzman and starring Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, and Billy Bob Thornton, as well as like a whole lot of other celebrities, but I won't talk about everybody.
[00:00:53] This is a full cast movie. That's a phrase I don't think I've ever heard. There's a lot of people in this movie for a movie that takes place across three days, and the reason I chose to do this movie in this particular moment is because it's about the Kennedy assassination, which took place on the 22nd of November 19th.
[00:01:23] 1963, and this will be going live on the 24th of November 2024, two days after the 61st anniversary. Yes, the 1st.
[00:01:40] I do realize, looking back, that I should have done this movie last year for the 60th anniversary, but to be honest, it didn't even occur to me to cover this movie.
[00:01:53] I, I, I, it, it got brought up. No, I, I think I saw a clip of it a few months ago, and I was like, oh, I should cover that. Oh, wait, the anniversary's coming up. I'm gonna do that.
[00:02:06] And then I was like, oh, wait, yeah, it was the 61st anniversary. I should have done it last year, but anyway, I'm getting off topic. No, it's, it's literally still on topic. I'm talking about the movie I'm talking about.
[00:02:17] For once, I, I, I stayed on topic. Wow. I, I rambled, but stayed on topic. That never happens. Uh, it's like, but I digress, but I didn't. Uh, okay. So, this is a different take.
[00:02:34] Usually, you see it from the perspective of the Kennedys or something like that. This one, I, I love this because it's, well, it was from multiple angles, but the very, from the very beginning of the movie, it does not waste any time.
[00:02:52] Because before you meet the characters, before you meet anybody, it does like a really quick montage of Kennedy.
[00:03:01] It's from like arch, arch, arch, archival footage of him in Fort Worth, giving that final speech, the fly end of Dallas at Love Field.
[00:03:10] And then someone like, um, you know, cutting that in with Paul G. Motti as Abraham's recruiter, uh, in the office, like telling this.
[00:03:20] It's, it's not like putting like a huge focus, like, oh, we're going to tell the story of him telling his people in the office that he's doing.
[00:03:27] It's just like the music's playing with the opening credits and it's just kind of, you kind of hear him go,
[00:03:32] Hey, we're going to film the president. And yeah. And then whenever the, the incorrect, the credits stop and it shows him standing on like his pillar thing and daily Plaza.
[00:03:47] And when, instead of showing the, instead of showing the, the limousine and the motorcade and all that, and the actual assassination, the camera stays on Zapruder filming.
[00:04:01] And it's like in one shot, like he's panning across and you hear pop, pop, pop. And the look on his face is shocked. Oh, that is so bright. That's like the prop, probably the best way you could film the Kennedy assassination.
[00:04:16] And I love that. I've seen the Kennedy, the Kennedy, I keep saying the Kenny, the Kennedy assassination.
[00:04:25] Uh, I was going to say adapted recreated like a million different movies. And this one's my favorite way I've seen it represented.
[00:04:34] And again, that is Paul Giamatti as Abraham Zapruder. He's the one who filmed the famous Zapruder film, which now that I think about it, uh, cause I've been doing research for this episode.
[00:04:47] I've been watching a lot of, uh, documentaries and videos on the Kennedy assassination, which honestly I would have been doing anyway, because I, I was going to say, I love the topic, but that sounds wrong.
[00:04:59] You know, it's like my favorite serial killers, the Zodiac killer, but that comes off wrong. You know what I mean? I don't like what he did. It's a fascinating story. It's the same with this. It's a fascinating topic.
[00:05:13] I like looking into it. And so like, I was watching a bunch of videos on it and on the topic, but like, it was kind of an excuse to just watch videos on the Kennedy assassination.
[00:05:27] But it made me think of something that I never really thought about until now. You see, there's all this famous footage of him going through downtown Dallas and so much footage of him going through downtown Dallas, people waving.
[00:05:43] And then like, even like film and from like the cars behind him, I'm guessing from like the secret service people, but from daily Plaza, the only video we have is from Zapruder himself.
[00:05:58] The Zapruder film. The reason it's so famous, cause it's the only video of the assassination.
[00:06:05] Where did those other cameras go? He was followed by a bunch of news crews. Suddenly they, they split.
[00:06:12] Did this one stretch of road. That doesn't make any sense.
[00:06:18] Anyway, uh, they put a heavy emphasis in the film that, you know, we need to see what's on this, on this film.
[00:06:26] And, uh, that's mostly Billy Bob Thornton as secret service agent for, uh, Soroles.
[00:06:34] Soroles? I've seen this name a hundred times. I've never heard it said.
[00:06:39] Uh, of course that's a lie now that I think about it.
[00:06:42] It's said in the movie.
[00:06:44] And I know I've heard it said.
[00:06:46] If I've been watching as much Kennedy assassination stuff as I say,
[00:06:50] I've heard the name. I know I've heard the name.
[00:06:52] Um, I've seen the name. I've seen the guy.
[00:06:56] I can't think how to pronounce it, but anyway.
[00:07:01] If there was a main character in this movie, I would say that it is, uh, Billy Bob Thornton.
[00:07:08] I was gonna say Robert Downey Jr.
[00:07:10] I would say the main character would be Billy Bob Thornton's character, the secret service agent.
[00:07:15] Because there are, I'm gonna say three storylines going on.
[00:07:22] There's Zapruder.
[00:07:25] There's Zac Efron playing Jim Carrico, who's the doctor in, uh, at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
[00:07:34] Who operated on Kennedy and then a couple days later on Oswald.
[00:07:41] And so, the film does a really good job of portraying him.
[00:07:45] Cause, like, he was, I think he was, like, an intern.
[00:07:47] And he wasn't supposed to be, like, the one in charge.
[00:07:50] The one who was supposed to be in charge was, like, in a meeting or something.
[00:07:54] And they couldn't get there on time.
[00:07:56] And, and there's, like, this, there's this, um, part whenever Kennedy's body was on the table.
[00:08:01] And, like, the president is in front of you and he's dying.
[00:08:05] And, like, and the nurse turned to him and was, like, it's all you.
[00:08:10] And, like, the look on his face, like, oh, no.
[00:08:13] It's, like, no pressure or anything.
[00:08:15] Just, you know, the president's life is in your hands.
[00:08:18] Good luck.
[00:08:20] And then the, the third story that goes on is Robert Oswald Jr., which is the, uh, the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald.
[00:08:30] Played by James Badge Dale.
[00:08:34] And the reason I say Billy Bob Thornton would be the main character is because those are three separate stories.
[00:08:42] Robert Oswald, Jim Carrico, and Abraham Zapruder.
[00:08:46] Those are three separate stories.
[00:08:49] And they, like, rarely, if ever, I don't think ever interconnect.
[00:08:54] I don't think they ever met each other.
[00:08:56] However, Billy Bob Thornton's character is central to all three storylines.
[00:09:04] He's the one who, who leads Zapruder to get the film developed.
[00:09:08] He talks to Oswald.
[00:09:11] He, I, I think he talks to Carrico, now that I think about it.
[00:09:18] But, he's, he's basically in, like, every scene of this movie, I'm pretty sure, has Billy Bob Thornton in it.
[00:09:26] And, technically there's no, like, main, main character.
[00:09:29] In fact, uh, let me go back to Wikipedia.
[00:09:32] The top build actor on here, the, I don't know if it's, no, it's not by appearance.
[00:09:38] Because Oswald was not the first person it shows.
[00:09:40] It shows Robert Oswald, played by James Badgedale, as the top build, as the first listed actor.
[00:09:48] That's usually the main character.
[00:09:50] So, maybe they wanted to show him as the main character.
[00:09:52] He's not in it a whole lot, now that I think about it.
[00:09:55] Below him is Zac Efron as Dr. Charles James Jim Carrico.
[00:10:02] Followed by Father Oscar Huber, played by Jackie Earl Haley.
[00:10:09] I don't remember, is he the one that does the Lacerites on Kennedy's body?
[00:10:14] He's the third build person here.
[00:10:17] So, maybe we shouldn't go by this list.
[00:10:19] I mean, the whole reason, oh, David Harper's in this?
[00:10:22] I don't remember that.
[00:10:23] Playing James Gordon Shacklin.
[00:10:26] Hmm.
[00:10:28] Like I said, there's a lot of people in this movie.
[00:10:31] Uh, I was gonna say, oh, Paul G. Monty's in this?
[00:10:34] Like, I've been saying his name.
[00:10:35] Um, Ron Livingston, James P. Hostie.
[00:10:40] Eh?
[00:10:41] Jeremy Strong as Lee Harvey Oswald.
[00:10:43] I mentioned that in a previous episode.
[00:10:46] When I, you know, um, I mentioned in the Apprentice episode.
[00:10:52] I mentioned that Jeremy Strong played Cone.
[00:10:57] Um, and I mentioned the whole reason that I mentioned, oh, there's a, this habit he seems
[00:11:05] to do where he plays real people.
[00:11:07] I, I did that little side tangent thing to mention this movie.
[00:11:11] It's kind of a teaser.
[00:11:13] Literally, the only reason I mentioned that is, is be like, oh, and he played Lee Harvey
[00:11:17] Oswald and Parkland.
[00:11:19] I just, not, address it.
[00:11:21] And then, yep, here it is.
[00:11:23] I'm covering Parkland.
[00:11:24] I already, I knew months ago I was covering this movie.
[00:11:27] Anyway.
[00:11:29] Uh, I'm scrolling through.
[00:11:30] There's a lot of people.
[00:11:31] I don't know half these people.
[00:11:33] But there are a lot of names.
[00:11:36] Colin Hanks.
[00:11:38] Dr. Malcolm Perry.
[00:11:42] I'm just going down the list now.
[00:11:44] Uh, oh, the whole reason I was looking at the cast list.
[00:11:48] Bailey Bob Thornton, I feel, is the main character.
[00:11:51] But he is the, hang on the count.
[00:11:52] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, tenth person down.
[00:11:59] Paul Giamatti, Paul Giamatti as Abraham Chapruder is two below that.
[00:12:06] And, oh, actually, I want to talk about Kat Steffens.
[00:12:14] Uh, that's her, wow.
[00:12:16] That's, I bet she, I wonder if she ever gets confused with her name with Kat Steffens.
[00:12:21] Because it's Kat, K-A-T, Steffens?
[00:12:26] S-T-E-F-F-E-N-S.
[00:12:29] It's like, Kat Steffens!
[00:12:31] Oh, yeah, Kat Steffens!
[00:12:32] Nope!
[00:12:33] Nope!
[00:12:34] She plays Jackie Kennedy.
[00:12:37] And I will say that she is a great actor because she, this is going to sound weird,
[00:12:46] she plays trauma and traumatized very well.
[00:12:52] She legit looks like she's been through things.
[00:12:56] Like, the look of just, she was physically there, but not actually there, you know?
[00:13:04] The look, she has this shell-shocked look.
[00:13:07] And she just, she plays it really well.
[00:13:09] And then when she has to get emotional, she, she sells it.
[00:13:14] And, yeah.
[00:13:16] If there's an emotional heart to this, it's her.
[00:13:19] Okay.
[00:13:19] Linda B. Johnson was played by Sean McGraw.
[00:13:22] I don't know who that is.
[00:13:24] But, uh, I wanted to mention that.
[00:13:25] There was a moment in here, this movie.
[00:13:29] There's a lot in this movie.
[00:13:30] I don't know how, like, factually accurate all the small moments are.
[00:13:34] I think all the big moments are accurately portrayed.
[00:13:38] And that includes a moment where, you know, a lot, a lot of people know this.
[00:13:44] Um, I've known it because, like I said, I watch a lot of videos on it.
[00:13:50] Because, you know, John F. Kennedy was dead now.
[00:13:55] Jackie Kennedy was no longer considered part of the, like, the presidential whatever.
[00:14:03] Like, the, I was going to say delegates, but that's not, that's not even close to being right.
[00:14:08] She wasn't, oh, they said it in the movie.
[00:14:12] She, they didn't have to take her with them back to D.C.
[00:14:17] Because she wasn't, she wasn't a, uh, politician.
[00:14:22] She wasn't one of them, or related to one anymore.
[00:14:26] And so, like, they, they didn't have to take her.
[00:14:29] And they actually, they even were like, okay, uh, what do we do about Jackie?
[00:14:34] And then Linda B. Johnson said, I'm not leaving without her.
[00:14:39] So, yeah, I thought that that was good that they included that.
[00:14:42] Because there's so many portrayals of him as being, rightfully so, being, like, this horrible person.
[00:14:51] And angry and, I might do it, I'm not even going to get it.
[00:14:55] I go there because I might cover that movie.
[00:14:59] There's a movie about him.
[00:15:01] I've been wanting to, to re, I've been wanting to re-watch it.
[00:15:04] It's a good movie.
[00:15:05] I liked it.
[00:15:07] Um, every portrayal I've ever seen of him has just shown him being, like, an awful, terrible person.
[00:15:14] And I'm not defending him.
[00:15:16] He was.
[00:15:18] But, kind of like I said with the, the Apprentice movie where they, they basically, they humanized Donald Trump.
[00:15:24] Um, they didn't just show him as, like, this horrible, evil monster person caricature.
[00:15:29] They could have done that with Johnson.
[00:15:31] But, no, they, granted it was one scene.
[00:15:35] He was, he only had, like, one speaking scene.
[00:15:39] And that was it.
[00:15:39] I think the other times you see him is when they, like, they, like, rushed him behind some bookshelves.
[00:15:47] And you just see him, like, ducking.
[00:15:49] Because, you know, they thought he was going to get shot at, too.
[00:15:52] So, yeah.
[00:15:56] Like, granted, he's not in the movie for long.
[00:15:58] So, he didn't really have a chance to be awful.
[00:16:02] But, they could have, like, oh, well, since he's known for being a horrible person, let's just slip that in there a little bit.
[00:16:09] Nope, they didn't do that.
[00:16:09] And I'm, I like that they did that.
[00:16:11] Or, didn't do that.
[00:16:13] I'm just wanting to say I like that that line was in there.
[00:16:17] It was really nice.
[00:16:18] And I think the last time you see them is that famous, there's that famous picture where he's being sworn in and Jackie's standing next to him looking so shocked.
[00:16:30] And that, that is portrayed in this movie.
[00:16:35] But, from behind.
[00:16:37] Like, the, I think the Secret Service people, it's like, it's showing them and then, like, they look into the room.
[00:16:45] And you see that, that moment from behind.
[00:16:50] And I was like, oh, cool.
[00:16:51] It's like a historical moment.
[00:16:52] Nice.
[00:16:53] And I think they, uh, I was gonna say, I think they played the original audio.
[00:16:58] It sounds like it.
[00:16:59] But now that I think about it, I've only, I think I've only seen a photo of that moment.
[00:17:04] I don't know if it's a video and if there's audio of it.
[00:17:08] It could have just done, like, they could have just recorded the actors saying the lines and then, like, made it sound old.
[00:17:14] I don't know.
[00:17:14] I don't know if they did.
[00:17:16] But, yeah.
[00:17:17] I highly recommend this movie.
[00:17:20] It, unfortunately, is not streaming anywhere except for Hoopla, which I've mentioned in past episodes.
[00:17:27] But it's been a while since I've mentioned it.
[00:17:28] It's basically a library app.
[00:17:30] You connect your local library to it.
[00:17:33] And, yeah.
[00:17:36] If your local library has a copy of it, then, yeah.
[00:17:42] I've watched movies, listened to audiobooks.
[00:17:44] There's e-books.
[00:17:45] It's basically anything you would find on a local library app would be on Hoopla.
[00:17:52] It's way more convenient than, uh, I think.
[00:17:55] I don't know if San Francisco Public Library has a local app.
[00:17:58] I'm actually going to look now because, uh, San Francisco Public Library.
[00:18:06] Oh, there is.
[00:18:08] Uh, San Francisco Public Library does have its own independent app.
[00:18:12] Uh, why?
[00:18:18] There's Hoopla and there's Libby.
[00:18:20] Why would you...
[00:18:21] Wait.
[00:18:23] Log in.
[00:18:24] Uh, I will...
[00:18:26] Wait.
[00:18:27] Is my library...
[00:18:28] Is my library card already on my phone?
[00:18:32] Huh.
[00:18:33] Cannot log you in.
[00:18:34] Okay.
[00:18:35] Uh, well, I...
[00:18:37] I just found out live on the podcast that the San Francisco Public Library has an app.
[00:18:45] And I am not able to log in with my library card.
[00:18:51] Do library cards expire?
[00:18:53] I don't know.
[00:18:54] Maybe I entered the thing wrong.
[00:18:56] I don't know.
[00:18:56] I will deal with it later.
[00:18:57] I am busy right now.
[00:19:01] So, how did I watch this if it's not streaming, you may ask.
[00:19:05] Or, I don't know.
[00:19:07] I don't know if you're asking that.
[00:19:09] Obviously, I bought it on Blu-ray.
[00:19:13] Because...
[00:19:13] I would have bought it on Blu-ray anyway.
[00:19:16] Because I...
[00:19:17] Again, it's a movie I really like.
[00:19:19] I saw it long ago.
[00:19:21] Like a decade ago.
[00:19:22] It was a really good movie.
[00:19:24] And I highly recommend it.
[00:19:28] Download Hoopla.
[00:19:29] Watch it.
[00:19:31] There.
[00:19:33] Uh...
[00:19:33] There is not a PlayStation...
[00:19:35] There's not a PSN app.
[00:19:36] Or any console app.
[00:19:38] I know it's...
[00:19:39] I have the Hoopla app on my TV.
[00:19:44] It's...
[00:19:45] And...
[00:19:45] Uh...
[00:19:45] Well, it's...
[00:19:46] Every TV is a smart TV now.
[00:19:48] I was gonna be like,
[00:19:49] I have a smart TV!
[00:19:50] Big whoop, everyone has a smart TV.
[00:19:52] It'd be like saying,
[00:19:53] I have a smartphone.
[00:19:54] Yeah.
[00:19:55] Yeah, of course you do.
[00:19:56] Everyone has a smartphone.
[00:19:58] Uh...
[00:19:58] Yeah.
[00:19:59] I think they have it on like...
[00:20:00] I think Hoopla is also like on Fire TV.
[00:20:03] And like...
[00:20:04] The Chromecast.
[00:20:06] And like all those.
[00:20:07] Apple...
[00:20:08] Stick.
[00:20:09] But I don't...
[00:20:09] Wait, I'm thinking Fire Stick.
[00:20:11] Apple TV.
[00:20:13] Oh, I'm getting streaming things mixed up.
[00:20:16] But yeah.
[00:20:17] Uh...
[00:20:17] It is also on mobile.
[00:20:19] But I don't like watching movies on mobile.
[00:20:21] So...
[00:20:21] That's why I'm talking about TV apps.
[00:20:25] Or...
[00:20:25] You can go the same route I did and buy it on Blu-ray.
[00:20:30] Which I...
[00:20:31] I recommend doing that instead.
[00:20:33] Physical media.
[00:20:36] And...
[00:20:37] See you noon...
[00:20:37] Everybody...
[00:20:37] Is it sad?
[00:20:37] It's sad.
[00:20:37] No.