JFK
The single maddest, most thrillingly demented and effortlessly enthralling work of art to come out of the US... ever? I don't know how to describe the high I felt when Kevin Costner burst into that closing monologue — or really any of the monologues throughout JFK where it's one of like a hundred of the greatest living actors telling Costner that he's either out of his mind, or that he just needs to keep going deeper — but man it's a high I'm gonna be chasing forever.
JFK is a 3 hour and 25 minute plunge into the Mariana Trench of harebrained conspiratorial madness where it just gets more and more outlandish the deeper you go, until it all starts to make a bit too much sense. For 205 minutes I couldn't take my eyes off the screen as Costner just kept going further and further into the rabbit hole, and no matter how tenuous the evidence presented may be, I think I believe him? No matter if it's true or not, it's one of the most entertaining and batshit 3+ hour films that maintains its relentless pace the entire runtime.
The one-two blow of the JFK assassination in '63 and Watergate throughout the '70s ended up being a goldmine for Hollywood, where the paranoid political thriller reigned supreme — All the President's Men, Parallax View, Blow Out, Winter Kills, and my personal favourite The President's Analyst are just a few of the many released in this time period that try to capture (or make fun of) the madness of the US government — but none come even close to the true fear and hysteria rendered by Oliver Stone here.
Some executive at Warner Bros. thought it was a good idea to give Stone $40,000,000 to bring his conspiracy theory to life — this executive has been granted the Mandate of Heaven. I think I'm gonna lose sleep over this film. The Magic Loogie makes so much sense now.