Chappaquiddick To Become A Movie
[guest post by Dana]
Chappaquiddick is a political thriller that chronicles the true story of what is described as the seven most dramatic days of Kennedy’s life.
On the eve of the moon landing, Senator Kennedy becomes entangled in a tragic car accident that results in the death of former Robert Kennedy campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. The senator struggles to follow his own moral compass and simultaneously protect his family’s legacy, all while simply trying to keep his own political ambitions alive.
From producer Mark Ciardi:
“I’ve done a lot of true life stories, many sports stories, but this one had a deep impact on this country,” said Ciardi. “Everyone has an idea of what happened on Chappaquiddick, and this strings together the events in a compelling and emotional way. You’ll see what [Senator Ted Kennedy] had to go through.”
The film is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who also directed the movie, “Fifty Shades of Grey”, which was based on the extremely popular erotic novel bearing the same title.
It’s hard to believe that a film focusing on the real Chappaquiddick could further lionize the Lion of the Senate, but it’s even harder to believe that Hollywood would actually hold accountable such a popular, powerful, and influential politician, especially given that no one did at the time of the tragedy. Jim Geraghty summed it up, He drives, she dies. How do you glamorize that?
–Dana
Good morning.
Dana (86e864) — 12/15/2015 @ 6:29 amHollywood. Bleech!
nk (dbc370) — 12/15/2015 @ 6:34 amWhen you figure how America has morally degenerated since Chappaquiddick till today and then consider how the media et al went to such great lengths back then to lie, obfuscate and cover up a crime that would have landed any other person in America in jail I cringe to think of what sins and ills they lay cover to today. At least back then some leftists still cared, today nothin’!
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/15/2015 @ 6:55 amMy father used to call Kennedy “The Liar of the Senate”, bless his heart.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/15/2015 @ 6:56 amAs someone at instapundit noted: is Cuban sure he really wants this story to be scrutinized by the public in this time? The anti-Kennedy will have a field day. Bring it On!
seeRpea (1202ef) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:06 am“You’ll see what [Senator Ted Kennedy] had to go through.”
The Onion.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:07 am“…You’ll see what [Senator Ted Kennedy] had to go through.”
Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
Ipso Fatso (10964d) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:10 amThe man was a true patriot. If he would’ve been driving a Volkswagen, Kopechne’d be alive today. But he vowed to only buy and drive “American”. For that and his shared legacy with Chris Dodd of the “Senate Intern Sandwich”, Kennedy basks in the eternal glory of a grateful nation.
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:10 amAnd we are much less for it…
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:13 amThe director of 50 shades, eh? I think I know the angle they’ll be playing up.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:33 amA friend of mine has said that evil always overextends itself.
MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:35 amPerhaps this will be one of those times.
hashtag War on Women
at some point maybe the women will get fed up thinking the Dems have their back.
Look for Mary Jo to be portrayed as a most “naughty” girl who tried to “notch” Kennedy while he valiantly tried to drive her home, thus causing her own demise.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:36 amThe man was a true patriot.
He shares that distinction with the guy now in the White House.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:39 amTake a close look at Mary Jo Kopechne. She was a pretty girl who was one of ‘Gorgeous’ George Smathers’ secretaries, and a roommate of Nancy Carol Tyler, ‘Little Lyndon’ Bobby Baker’s secretary and side squeeze.
When John Kennedy decided to drop VP Lyndon Johnson from the 1964 Democrat ticket – JFK offered the spot to Smathers – Kopechne got wind of it and told Tlyer who relayed the critical information to Baker who told LBJ. It would have been the end of LBJ’s political career. And at the same time AG Bobby Kennedy was preparing the groundwork to indict LBJ in the Billy Sol Estes scandal.
That’s why LBJ murdered JFK – to save himself from a long prison term.
Mary Jo also was LBJ’s spy in Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and she died at Chappaquiddick – a perfect indictment of Ted Kennedy. There’s more here than meets the eye folks. Don’t go out on a limb till you take them time to consider the facts very carefully. This ain’t beanbag.
I’m not defending Ted Kennedy, but I am suggesting a very close examination of Mary Jo Kopechne before any assumptions, let alone firm conclusions, are drawn.
ropelight (b1d3d2) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:48 amWhen you figure how America has morally degenerated since Chappaquiddick till today
One telling example of that is the movie “The American President,” directed, written by and starring a group of typical Hollywood liberals. There’s a scene in that film where the main female character tells the fictional US president that the American public would never tolerate it if he, as a single man, had her as a girlfriend.
[Insert sound of vinyl record being scratched here.]
That movie came out in 1995, before the wondrous nature of Bill Clinton would unfold in front of a grateful nation. The oddball now in the White House has ratcheted down — way down — standards in general even further.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:49 amYep, they’re going to make Ted a tragic hero. It will be twisted around for that result.
A few years ago Dream Works was going to do a movie on the Zebra murders in 1973-74 San Francisco starring Jamie Foxx as a heroic black detective who solved the case while battling racism in the SFPD. The killers would be portrayed as victims driven to do it by White Racism. The hook was a 2006 book by Hollywood screenwriter, Bennett Cohen.
In fact, two white detectives of Greek extraction, Gus Coreris and John Fotinos, solved the case. And risked there lives when NOI assassins came to the hotel where the key witness was. Read Clark Howard’s 1979 book, “Zebra.”
As of now, the project seems to have been dropped.
DN (84d11d) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:51 amWhen I hear the word Chappaquiddick, the first thing I always remember is the VW ad from the late lamented National Lampoon:
http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2013/04/national-lampoon-ted-kennedy-and.html
rcw3000 (dbe57f) — 12/15/2015 @ 7:59 am“what Ted Kennedy had to go through” says enough. It’s a hacktastic fiction movie, with no interest in telling the truth. Not worth waiting the 5 years to see it at the Dollar Theater.
John Hitchcock (9578f0) — 12/15/2015 @ 8:52 amI especially want to see the tense scenes as Teddy’s lawyers negotiate with the judge and the Kopechne family for their payoffs.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/15/2015 @ 9:52 amrcw,
I have that issue, uncensored.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/15/2015 @ 9:53 amI hope they highlight his brave, exhausting, world-class swim to shore, as he made his way through all those air bubbles…
“Look for an air pocket, Mary Jo!”
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/15/2015 @ 9:56 amInteresting that this happened the night before the moon landing. We reach the depths of humanity (an iconic liberal virtually commits murder, becomes idol of most of the country 50 years later) and a day later humanity peaks with the moon landing.
CrustyB (69f730) — 12/15/2015 @ 10:07 amYeah, it must have been real hard for Teddy to drive while drunk off his ass and then leaving an innocent woman to die. Sad thing is, it would be accurate to call Teddy a hero of the far left, but only because the far left is truly depraved.
Remember, folks, Hollywood also recently put out Truth, the movie that purported to tell the “real” story behind Rather and the Bush memos. (“They weren’t forgeries; they were real. Seriously.”) The movie crashed hard at the box-office for insisting everyone else was wrong, as will this movie if it lionizes Teddy.
tops116 (d094f8) — 12/15/2015 @ 10:13 amThe Senator struggles to follow his own moral compass and simultaneously protect his family’s legacy, all while simply trying to keep his own political ambitions alive
Kopechne stuggles to follow the Senator out the car window simultaneously protect her lungs from filling up with water, all while simply trying to keep her own self alive
Average Joe (df82bb) — 12/15/2015 @ 10:43 amthen he moves on to working with Andropov and Chernenko to go after Reagan, about a decade later,
narciso (732bc0) — 12/15/2015 @ 10:49 amFootball on the slopes, anyone?
mg (31009b) — 12/15/2015 @ 11:03 amFamily of dunces.
So Hollywood takes a story where a politician cynically left someone to die, and tried to use that depraved behavior to make that politician look better.
On the plus side. Can anyone still doubt they’re taking sides? The very idea that they’re not is absurd.
scrubone (c3104f) — 12/15/2015 @ 11:51 amDon’t forget Recount.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recount_(film)
scrubone (c3104f) — 12/15/2015 @ 11:56 amIf only abortion had been legal he never would have had to murder that bitch.
Rodney King's Spirit (2b29eb) — 12/15/2015 @ 12:01 pmthat was Danny Strong production, which also gave us ‘Julianne’s Bender’ Game Change, and the execrable the Butler,
narciso (732bc0) — 12/15/2015 @ 12:01 pm#21 I have seen the “river” — you walk thru it at high tide, no problem.
Rodney King's Spirit (2b29eb) — 12/15/2015 @ 12:02 pmHopefully next they make a movie about reagan and casey making a deal with iran to hold the hostages till after the 1980 election so reagan could win. Then they can make a movie about tricky dick nixon committing treason to stop the peace talks from taking place to win the 1968 election.
nate (7dca8d) — 12/15/2015 @ 12:25 pmAnother one of those “If Republicans had said it…” type things.
How about a movie about the tragic story of James Earl Ray? Or one showing all that Lee Harvey Oswald had to go through.
Well, the democRat party has survived for 200 years on lies, racism and stupidity. No reason to chamge that now.
P.S. I still like the Ann COulter quote that described Ted Kennedy as having “the only confirmed kill in the War On Women.”
arik (02de93) — 12/15/2015 @ 1:13 pmTime to dust off that old VW “ad” from the National Lampoon showing a VW floating upside down in a lake with the caption: “If Ted Kennedy drove a VW, he’d be President today.”
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82) — 12/15/2015 @ 2:41 pm“The Life and Times of Admiral Oldsmobile”… “Pramelot”… “A Bridge Too Narrow”…
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 2:54 pm“Chapasquiddick”
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 2:55 pm“Chapped Lips, Squid Dick”
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 2:56 pm“PT-409”
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:02 pm“Blue Water, White Russian”
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:03 pm“Operation Deep-Dive Petticoat”
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:05 pmThe “true story”? Does anyone believe this film will be anything but a whitewash?
(The most plausible version of Chappaquiddick is that Kopechne got drunk at the party, and crawled into the back of the car to sleep it off. Later, Kennedy and another woman drove the car away to go screw on the beach. The car went off the bridge. Kennedy and the woman escaped, and staggered back to the house, where Kennedy’s henchmen immediately began covering up. But it wasn’t till several hours later that anyone noticed Kopechne was missing. This explains why the cover story was so clumsy, and why the other woman’s purse was found in then car.)
Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:23 pmRick Rostrom,
If your version had been true, that’s what the Kennedy machine would have said.
DN (84d11d) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:35 pmIf Ted Kennedy had been driving a VW, the seat would’ve collapsed.
Colonel Haiku (382a53) — 12/15/2015 @ 3:47 pmI love the premise. Take a politican who died and no one cares about anymore, take his worst act (which goes against everything his party supposedly stood for) and try to make him look good.
A) Why?
scrubone (c3104f) — 12/15/2015 @ 5:11 pmB) Who is going to pay to see this? Seriously, whatever market segment this is aimed at, it’s gotta be tiny.
The question is how many automobiles did the bloated one lose in bushes, or over the guard rail, on all the other days he was partying and drunk out of his mind? Which is to say, I doubt this is the first car he managed to dunk in the ocean. This one just happened to have something in it that his Mommy and Daddy couldn’t handle with a few gifts to the right people.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 12/15/2015 @ 5:13 pmHere’s a few things to keep in mind about Ted Kennedy’s Strange Adventure on Chappaquiddick:
Kennedy claimed he was just too traumatized to report the incident the night Kopechne died. Yet he returned to the BBQ to fetch 2 lawyers, close friends, Joey Gargan and Paul Markham, he wasn’t too traumatized to make his way back to his hotel, complain to the manager about a noisy party, or to make 16 long-distance phone calls.
Within hours of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death another Kennedy pal, Don Gifford, flew a chartered airplane to Edgartown with instructions to get the body off Martha’s Vineyard before local officials could determine a cause of death. Kopechne’s body was in Pennsylvania well beyond the reach of local officials before they could meet to decide on an autopsy.
The next day, 19 high-level political operatives and advisers assembled at Hyannis to meet with Kennedy and develop a plan to manage the Senator’s public response to Kopechne’s death.
The local prosecutor never brought charges against Kennedy for either manslaughter, or even for dangerous driving. Ted acknowledged leaving the scene of an accident and was given 2 months, suspended.
A local grand jury tried to investigate the incident, but the judge threatened them with jail if they attempted to look further. There was an inquest but the diver who found Kopechne’s body was barred from telling what he knew.
Kennedy escaped the legal consequences of his behavior at Chappaquiddick, but the stain proved more difficult to evade, he was so personally tarnished he couldn’t run for the presidency in either ’72 or ’76. He would have been a strong candidate in either one, if not the presumptive favorite.
ropelight (dc0972) — 12/16/2015 @ 9:01 am