Jackie (opens December 16th at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[JACKIE opens in Cleveland on Friday December 16th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

I was two years old when President Kennedy was shot. Even though I have no memory of it, the assassination occupies a large part of my consciousness. I first encountered the images — the smiling president's motorcade, the defiant Lee Harvey Oswald, the grieving Jackie, little Caroline and and brave toddler John Jr. saluting his father's casket, Jack Ruby leaning in to shoot Oswald — in Four Days, a white-covered commemorative book sold in our city by the Cleveland Press. As a curly-haired tot, I scribbled with a crayon on its pages. As an adult, I amassed an impressive collection of books on the assassination. Of course, I am not alone in having that permanent mental photo album, and thinking still, more than fifty years later, about the assassination and its mysteries.

Parkland (opens in Cleveland October 4th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[PARKLAND opens in Cleveland on Friday October 4th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Countless books have been written and TV programs and movies made that delve into the many possible conspiracy theories about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22 nd, 1963. What tends to get lost amidst all the speculation, dubious and otherwise, is the real human impact of this tragic killing on those who were closest to it. It is this aspect of the assassination that Peter Landesman explores in his film PARKLAND.


Landesman starts with a montage of archival footage showing events leading up to the assassination, then begins his movie proper as several storylines interweave. Shot with a handheld camera to continue the documentary feel, we see Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti) as he gives his staff the day off to see the President, heading out himself with his 8mm movie camera. We see the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital in Dallas going through an ordinary work day. We see Dallas FBI agents talking politics, and it's clear not all the G-Men like the president. And then it happens, and we rush to the hospital operating room where chief surgeon Jim Carrico (Zac Effron) and his team struggle in vain to save the President's life as Jackie Kennedy (Kat Steffens) looks on, and at one point hands the surgeons a piece of her husband she has been holding since the shooting. The scene is intense, bloody, and emotional, and even though we all know how it's going to end, the movie keeps us on the edge of our seat anyway.