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The man in the window with a gun: Rob Lowe as JFK in National Geographic’s Killing Kennedy

“Don’t let it be forgot/that once there was a spot/for one brief shining moment/that was known as Camelot”

A month or so ago Parkland came out revealing a bloodier side of the John F. Kennedy assassination, and now Nat Geo’s premiere of Nelson McCormick’s Killing Kennedy has us back on the other side of the hospital doors telling the story based on Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s best-selling novel (O’Reilly also wrote the previously screened version Killing Lincoln) about the crazy Dallas man Lee Harvey Oswalt who pulled the trigger on America’s most-loved 35th president.

Stylistically speaking the movie was flawless, with a fitting Lowe as JFK along with Ginnifer Goodwin as Jackie O. Michelle Trachtenberg plays Oswalt’s wife (which, thank GOD, because we’ve totally missed her since the good old days of Harriet the Spy) and Will Rothaar is the man himself.

I’m glad the producers remained true to Oswalt’s Marx obsession, and there are no questions asked here in this one that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was in fact friendly fire and not just some sort of random coincidence. For every second leading up to that very moment of the 3rd floor of the Dal-Tex building shooting, there was an aligned portrayal of the two men’s very different yet totally similar lives. Killing Kennedy was also not shy about pointing out the super good-looking president’s inevitable flaw of keeping the women in his life pretty, um, plentiful (and how he had an obsession with listening to the Camelot record).

If you missed Nat Geo’s premiere last night don’t worry, because the network will be airing a series of Kennedy specials along with Killing Kennedy throughout the month of November to remind us of that horrible day in 1963.

(photo via Hollywood Reporter)

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kaitlinduffy

Kaitlin Duffy is a writer from Cleveland. When she's not blogging or pondering the great complexities of the world and outer space, she is finding rare vinyl steals, visiting new places, laughing often, Instagramming everything in sight, watching movies, or working on her first feature Port de Cleve.