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“Chappaquiddick” : Mary Jo Kopechne as First Victim of Kennedy Family Money, Power and Corruption
http://www.showbiz411.com/ ^ | 2/27/18 | Roger Friedman

Posted on 02/28/2018 4:27:45 AM PST by BBell

Searing Big Screen “Chappaquiddick” Thriller: Mary Jo Kopechne as First #MeToo Victim of Kennedy Family Money, Power and Corruption

I think John Curran’s masterful “Chappaquiddick” was shown once in Toronto for a handful of critics and distributors. Byron Allen was very smart to pick it up for his new Entertainment Company studio–it’s going to be a big hit. What he could never have predicted back in September that by now the movie would have a whole new layer of meaning: Mary Jo Kopechne, left to drown in the waters of Martha’s Vineyard in July 1969, was the first #MeToo victim. Her death, suggested here as caused by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, is the paradigm for everything being discussed today.

Curran has made a couple of movies I really liked– “Tracks” with Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, and “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” with Mark Ruffalo and Marisa Tomei. He’s Australian and almost 60, so his sensibility is outsider and his interests would be the Kennedys and how power corrupts. The Australian part is lucky because he’s brought Jason Clarke along as Ted Kennedy, and it’s a powerful performance that should put him on early awards lists. Clarke was borbn to play Teddy as it turns out.

“Chappaquiddick” refers to a scandal that in hindsight is stunning that it didn’t end Kennedy’s political career– or put him in jail. Let’s say you’re a fan of Kennedy for everything but this episode. Still, on a boozy summer night — the same weekend that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon–a married but philandering Teddy drove his car off the Chappaquiddick bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne (astute performance by Kate Mara, she’s excellent), a young secretary who’d worked for his late brother Bobby, at his side.

Were they screwing, or just driving around, drinking, having a grand time? No one knows. But the car went into the water and turned upside down. Teddy escaped and did not try to save Mary Jo. He return to the party house where he and friends had been whooping it up, found two of his sycophants (Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan), brought them back to the scene of the accident. By then, Mary Jo had certainly died.

They never reported the accident. Instead, they created massive cover up that presaged Watergate. The car and Mary Jo were discovered the next morning by passersby. Curran peels the cover up like an orange, and it’s beautiful to watch. Clarke portrays Teddy so ambiguously you almost can’t tell if he’s calculating, stupid, just a lost man child. The result is you can’t take your eyes off of him. Teddy’s scenes with his father– Joe Kennedy after a stroke, wheelchair bound, wordless perfection from Bruce Dern–are riveting.

The Kennedys will not be happy. They may try to kill this film. (In 40 years no one has even tried to tell this story accurately.) Allen will have to present quite a PR front and solid distribution. This isn’t a tabloid story. Curran is damn serious. If Mary Jo as #MeToo victim takes off, the movie will click. This really happened. Ted Kennedy–using his brothers’ assassinations for sympathy–convinced the world that he just didn’t know what happened to this beautiful, smart young woman. “Chappaquiddick” is quite stunning.

Release date is April 6th. More to come, oh yes, when we get closer…


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: chappaquiddick; kennedyfamily; lyinginthesenate; maryjokopechne; massachusetts; tedkennedy
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Will the Kennedy's squash this or use their lackeys in the media to discredit this movie?
1 posted on 02/28/2018 4:27:45 AM PST by BBell
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To: BBell
God bless Mary Jo
2 posted on 02/28/2018 4:30:48 AM PST by Chode (You have all of the resources you are going to have. Abandon your illusions and plan accordingly.)
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To: BBell

Kinda glossing over Maralyn Monroe aren’t we?


3 posted on 02/28/2018 4:33:46 AM PST by blackdog
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To: BBell

I always found the now-defunct site ytedk.com useful. Fortunately the Wayback Machine has it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060101095212/http://www.ytedk.com:80/


4 posted on 02/28/2018 4:34:37 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: blackdog

I was thinking that too.

Goodbye Norma Jean . . .


5 posted on 02/28/2018 4:35:17 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: BBell

I doubt if she is the first, and we know she wasn’t the last.


6 posted on 02/28/2018 4:42:15 AM PST by euram
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To: blackdog; FreedomPoster

“Kinda glossing over Maralyn Monroe aren’t we?”

Not to speak of what Ted’s dad had done to Ted’s sister, Rosemary.


7 posted on 02/28/2018 4:44:16 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: FreedomPoster
Looks like ytedk.com has been recreated here: https://www.cwporter.com/ytedk1.htm
8 posted on 02/28/2018 4:44:32 AM PST by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: T-Bird45

My aunt was her nurse while they were staying in Palm Beach estate. Round the clock.


9 posted on 02/28/2018 4:47:47 AM PST by blackdog
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To: BBell

This movie should have come out 30 years ago.


10 posted on 02/28/2018 4:49:48 AM PST by rbg81 (Truth is stranger than fiction)
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To: BBell

What about Rosemarie Kennedy? Old Joe Kennedy had her lobotomized and shut up in a mental institution in Jefferson, Wisconsin, with minimal contact from her family.

Not many people remember her. I think that was the idea.

11 posted on 02/28/2018 4:54:30 AM PST by Kenton
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To: BBell

Diamond Joe Kennedy was a notorious bootlegger. Don’t assume Mary Jo was the first victim


12 posted on 02/28/2018 5:03:38 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you)
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To: BBell
“Chappaquiddick” : Mary Jo Kopechne as First Victim of Kennedy Family Money, Power and Corruption

Actually, I think Rosemary Kennedy was, when her parents put her through a frontal lobotomy. I've often wondered if she needed "shutting up," as it were..

13 posted on 02/28/2018 5:04:06 AM PST by ScottinVA ( Liberals, go find another country.)
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To: BBell

First? What about Marilyn Monroe?


14 posted on 02/28/2018 5:04:28 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine ("Married with children.")
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To: BBell
“Chappaquiddick” : Mary Jo Kopechne as First Victim of Kennedy Family Money, Power and Corruption

I have a sneaking suspicion she was not the first Kennedy family victim.

15 posted on 02/28/2018 5:06:46 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: BBell
But the car went into the water and turned upside down. Teddy escaped and did not try to save Mary Jo.

I very much doubt that Kennedy was in that car when it went into the water.

ML/NJ

16 posted on 02/28/2018 5:07:32 AM PST by ml/nj
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To: BBell
He return to the party house where he and friends had been whooping it up, found two of his sycophants (Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan), brought them back to the scene of the accident. By then, Mary Jo had certainly died.

I had never heard about him even getting this little bit of help. Since Mary Jo suffocated in the air gap rather than drowning she might have still been alive even then depending on how much time this took.

17 posted on 02/28/2018 5:07:55 AM PST by KarlInOhio (I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.)
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To: FreedomPoster
Interesting. Thanks for posting.

ML/NJ

18 posted on 02/28/2018 5:10:58 AM PST by ml/nj
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To: T-Bird45
#7: "Not to speak of what Ted’s dad had done to Ted’s sister, Rosemary."

Good point. Rosemary was truly a sad case.

The women left dead or abused by the Kennedys make up a pretty long list. Of course we have Marilyn Monroe. And there was Robert Kennedy Jr's wife Mary Richardson. And Ted Kennedy's poor wife Virginia Joan Bennett who was left a broken alcoholic.

Really, the list is long, long, long of girlfriends and wives who have been dumped or abused after being used up by the Kennedys.
 

19 posted on 02/28/2018 5:11:56 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie (CNN is fake news.)
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To: BBell

Jason Clarke is the most riveting actor in the realm today. Very creepy when the script requires it, yet totally watchable. Looking forward to this movie coming out. The Kennedys have skated on so many crimes,and now Ted is dead anyway. I always felt sorry for Joan Kennedy. Humiliated so many times, I figured that is what compelled her toward alcoholism. She was a Carnegie Hall grade pianist and a beautiful debutante. He destroyed her. I wonder if this movie will get many awards....or is the Kennedy name still powerful enough to shuffle the movie off to Buffalo, never to see much of the light of day.


20 posted on 02/28/2018 5:19:11 AM PST by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell.)
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