“A compelling and extremely unusual approach to a possible history.”
– Atom Egoyan, Academy Award Nominated Director of THE
SWEET HEREAFTER.
“An extended glimpse into a bygone era of statesmanship. In Masutani’s selection of clips, watching Kennedy field astute questions and scathing critiques with thoughtfulness and wit proves extremely illuminating; his weighing of complex factors in an international situation and consciousness of how much rides on his decisions strikes a now unfamiliar note.”
– Ronnie Scheib, VARIETY
“A compelling history lesson that offers an insightful primer on the Kennedy
presidency even while proving sadly germane to our current times.”
– Frank Scheck, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
“With its fascinating central question and well-chosen, nostalgic footage of John F. Kennedy in his prime, this well-played documentary manages to escape the fate of other dry historical overviews. Filmmaker Koji Masutani wisely avoids any comparisons to the current administration; they’ll rise unbidden from your psyche nonetheless.”
– Sara Cardace, NEW YORK MAGAZINE
“VIRTUAL JFK succeeds on the two most important levels: its argument is persuasive, and it works as documentary art. It is an extraordinary portrait of someone thinking, and a president at that.”
– Norman MacAfee, THE HUFFINGTON POST
“Elegantly constructed. The question: can an individual leader take a nation to, or keep it from, war? The conclusion: individual temperament matters, and John F. Kennedy’s example proves it… VIRTUAL JFK ponders the mystery of the Kennedy personality mainly as manifested during his televised press conferences – radiating star power, the coolest man in the room disarms adoring tweedy reporters with his dry martini wit… Masutani’s no-frills, largely black-and-white production is as evocative of early-’60s masculine styles as any episode of Mad Men.”
– J. Hoberman, THE VILLAGE VOICE
“VIRTUAL JFK is surprisingly dramatic without being overly manipulative… augmented with gripping audio clips and unexpurgated minutes from Situation Room meetings, there emerges the complex image of a clever, sophisticated, disciplined man whose mind remains keen under enormous stress. Given the parallels in persona linking JFK and Barack Obama, there’s a teasing implication that crises awaiting the next president will be ripe for similar counterfactual review. The case is persuasive.”
– Ted Fry, THE SEATTLE TIMES
“The word ‘Iraq’ is never uttered, but there’s no avoiding it as Kennedy asserts during the Bay of Pigs crisis that to attack Cuba, a country that hadn’t attacked the United States, would be contrary to our national tradition. History and current events collide, and the answer to the filmmakers’ question is perfectly clear.”
– Maureen M. Hart, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“We should welcome anything that reacquaints us with the facts, and Virtual JFK is an admirably concrete survey of how Kennedy dealt with a series of international crises.”
– J.R. Jones, CHICAGO READER
“Koji Masutani’s film is an important study in the pressure upon a world leader to wage peace or war. The Cold War and a hot war – Vietnam – occurred at the same time and provide good and bad lessons that are relevant to today. The film is a cinematic paean to Benjamin Franklin’s words, ‘there never was a good war or a bad peace.'”
– Lincoln Chafee, U.S. GOVERNOR (RI)
“Virtual JFK is a virtuoso performance. Using old footage, in-depth interviews, and a close reading of the documentary record, Koji Masutani has come up with a very new way to write history. Getting right with JFK — as this film does — is important not only for the sake of the past, but for the sake of the present as well.”
– Ted Widmer, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN / FOREIGN POLICY
SPEECHWRITER / SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT CLINTON
(1997-2001).
“It is important that in times of crisis leaders of great countries think before they shoot. As my father repeated many times, any fool can start a war, but it takes truly wise leaders to avoid war. Virtual JFK is not merely a film, but a critical handbook for current and aspiring world leaders.”
– Sergei Khrushchev, SON OF FORMER SOVIET PRIME MINISTER
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV.
“Virtual JFK is both exciting visually and bold intellectually. It provides a compelling argument about the competing demands on a president facing foreign policy crises, and the essential wisdom of restraint. While it’s about President Kennedy’s decisions about the use of force, it is striking how timely it is for our current predicaments. fast-paced and always inventive, Virtual JFK is a must see.”
– John Tirman, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, M.I.T. CENTER FOR
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES.
“Koji Masutani’s film is solidly grounded in scholarly research with a clear-eyed view of the way the world works. By demonstrating JFK’s handling of crises, keeping his own counsel and going against the advice of his senior political and military advisors, the film demonstrates how an effective president operates. The unspoken but clear point that I take away from Virtual JFK is that a president of JFK’s caliber would not have taken the country into Iraq.”
– Mark Garrison, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO
MOSCOW.
“This is a compelling documentary. If it does anything, it brings home the fact that we live in a fairly ordinary political universe now where it’s so heavily manipulated that for all intents and purposes largely a useless process… You get a really interesting sense of why he (JFK) was such an extraordinarily successful politician and perhaps, to some extent, why he was a perceived threat to certain quarters within that world.”
– Michael Idato, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
