The movie “Chappaquiddick”, which is about the accidental drowning in July 1969 of Mary Jo Kopechne. For me this story created many more questions than the it answered.

While sitting through this historic two hours I wondered why Ted Kennedy, played by Jason Clarke would ever even consider running for President in 1972 when his last remaining brother Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and his older brother John Kennedy was assassinated when he was president v5 years earlier? Why would Ted Kennedy think that he would not also be assassinated either while running or if he got elected President – even if there was no such thing as the Kennedy curse?
The reason why this is so significant is because Ted Kennedy’s desire to please his father, played in this movie by Bruce Dern, and run for President is entirely the reason for the long list of irresponsible and stupid decisions he made after driving over a bridge with a young woman in the passenger seat. As was shown in this film, some of the things Kennedy did after the accident were understandable, but by his own admission most of the things he did, including waiting 10 hours to report the accident to the police made no sense at all and are downright criminal acts. What followed was lying to the press and the police about almost everything including stating that Kennedy received a concussion during the accident when he was not injured.

What this movie also clearly shows is the rights of the rich and very privileged like the Kennedy family is entirely different than any other normal person in this country. Within hours of this tragedy, Kennedy had an army of lawyers and helpers with hundreds of contacts who were helping Kennedy clean up all the mistakes he made after Kopechne drowned and then ran from the scene of the accident. Many of the mistakes Kennedy made were out of sheer shock and panic, like any other person, but ultimately many of his terrible mistakes were because on his worries about his family name, his desire to run for president and because of his father.

One wonders about how accurate the depiction of Ted Kennedy’s emotional reaction in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy that to me seemed uncaring and wooden. Kennedy seemed to only care about himself and almost never about this poor young woman, played very well by Kate Mara, who drowned. What the world does know is that Ted Kennedy was an alcoholic most of his life and this is very understandable considering the guilt he must have felt about this horrible incident in the prime of his life. Kennedy also had a very tortured personal life, including his wife Joan who was also an alcoholic and they divorced in 1983.

I thought the acting was very good throughout this movie and a standout was Bruce Dern who at age 82 looks more like 100 in his role as Joseph Kennedy. I thought it was quite ironic that this incident in July 1969 happened around the time of the first moon landing, given that the main catalyst for the landing was John F. Kennedy some 9 years earlier. The actor who played Ted Kennedy was born one day before this incident occurred and I thought that was another significant irony.

There is no doubt that this movie does not paint a good picture of Ted Kennedy concerning this tragedy and I wondered if the Kennedy family have stopped previous attempts to produce a film about Chappaquiddick in the past.

I thought Chappaquiddick was well done and is a good movie about an important moment in American history.

A new idea. This is the problem with screenwriting because very often it seems that every idea or story has already been done. The new movie “A Quiet Place” is an exception because something like this has never been done before. The idea behind this science fiction horror movie is a genius idea. “Aliens have taken over the earth and they will not know you are there so they can kill you, unless you make a sound”. Because of this new and very smart idea, this movie is the first ever “mostly” silent horror film. More impressive is that the screenplay was co-written and directed by the star, John Krasinski. Also unusual here is that the two main stars of this movie are married, John Krasinski and his wife Emily Blunt. I cannot remember the last time that has happened in any movie I have ever seen.

From the start this story takes us into the dark and depressing world of a family with 3 kids who can only communicate with sign language because if they make any sound at all they may be killed instantly by an alien creature that looks like a large brown flower that opens up showing a huge number of teeth with a skeletal lizard-like body. The killing is instantaneous because these alien creatures are so fast and vicious.

There are understandable rituals that we see with this family and routines they have created for emergencies, but what did not make sense to me is why any of them would ever risk going outdoors. What even makes less sense to me is that in some scenes the children are walking outside by themselves. Clearly this is done for dramatic effect, foregoing any reality about what any parent would allow under such extreme life and death conditions.

The rotten tomatoes ratings on this movie are very high, currently 96%, but my rating would be around 80% mainly because of the logistical problems. I was happy to see absolutely no smoking in this movie, unfortunately a rare occurrence today. I thought the acting was outstanding and this movie proves that acting in a film is more about showing than telling and a look in an eye, sweat and panic is not something that ever needs to be spoken.

I thought this movie was very good and I do recommend it.

I have often wondered about Hollywood board rooms and conference rooms and discussions executives have about money and what works and what does not work with new movies, movie franchises and decisions to remake a movie. Why are some movies considered possibilities for remakes and others not? Why Death Wish? Perhaps one reason could be the setting of this movie in Chicago that in the last few years has been one of the most violent cities in US history.

Death Wish has also been remade in other forms over the years, with Kevin Bacon in “Death Sentence”, 2007 and Jodie Foster In “The Brave One” that also came out in 2007. The premise for these movies are all the same. A horrible crime has been committed, the police and the courts can do nothing to find the criminals and the person suffering incredible grief goes on a shooting rampage to achieve justice and revenge. I found it very disturbing that in the trailer for this film, it is said that 1 in 4 people will become a victim of a violent crime. Of course the averages go way up around cities like Chicago.

Bruce Willis used to be a huge star in Hollywood for many years but unfortunately his last Die Hard movie “A Good Day to Die Hard” just about ruined his career and destroyed a very strong movie franchise. Since then he has made a string of movies that have gone right to DVD and have never been released to movie theaters, proving once again just how fleeting movie success can be and with only one big bomb the whole miracle of you’re acting career can be over very quickly.

As far as this new Death Wish movie remake, directed by Eli Roth, I thought it was well done and believable, and about as good as the original Death Wish that was released in 1974 starring Charles Bronson. The actor Dean Norris is perfectly cast as the police officer in charge of the case, and since his performance in Breaking Bad, Norris could just about be one of the believable actors to play a police officer. Unfortunately for Bruce Willis the Rotten Tomatoes reviews are very low, only 14%, so the odds are that this film will be in and out of the theaters relatively quickly.

Overall, I thought this movie was just OK and I do recommend it.