JFK the Director's cut......Spoilers? Maybe.....

Rating: Null/10 (29 August 2002)

I just bought it, eager to see, esp. the 'Garrison on Carson' bit. It did Not disappoint. You have John Larroquette(!)playing 'Jerry Johnson'(thinly disguised Carson send up), w/ the NBC brass essentially doing the same old Media rant-One Guy Did it! Shaddap-because We Say So! More or less. Very funny. Ya gotta like that really AWFUL Tonight Show set from '68 and the Ed McMahon stand in too. Fun stuff.
Other deleted scenes he puts in, a 50-50 mix of good, bad:
The whole 'Mob guys surrounding Costner in the John w/ the police's silent help' scene, w/ a panicked Bill Broussard in tow-doesn't quite fit. How much did Broussard know about this? You really don't quite see why if someone wanted to shoot at Garrison(a big 6-4 type guy) why they didn't just up and do so. This was odd. I didn't quite buy Broussard coming back and being remorseful about leaving the investigation either. Rooker is quite a good actor-here, it was his worst scene.
They show Sissy Spacek still living with Costner right before RFK is shot, in the orig. you don't see this at all-instead you see him coming home and making a sandwich in the kitchen, implying that she has moved out already. Interesting.
I liked the added dialogue in the 6th floor, discussing the parade route change, Cabell, Bissell, Dulles, etc. But Stone was right to yank it, as it's just one more layer of names, faces, events, connections piled ontop of an already tangled miasma of names already.
There was also the short Lou Grant/Jack Lemmon discussing the leaflets scene. That was funny but not terribly relevant.
I liked seeing the appearence of Tommy Lee and Oswald at the voter registration rally. It does add to the litany of mutual appearences the two men made.
And did you like seeing Frank Whaley as the fake Oswald, running around w/ the car and talking about shooting JFK at the rife range? Interesting to see young Moonlight Graham from 'Field of Dreams' turning up in another Costner film, albeit in a much different role.
Kudos for adding 'George Moehrenschmildt' too. He was in the plaza at the time of the shooting, bad guy.
***1/2 for the added footage, the film **** overall. I prefer the shorter version.