This first episode of the TLC true crime series "Caught" covers the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey by prominent Delaware lawyer Tom Capano.
Fahey was an attractive but sometimes troubled young woman who worked in then-Governor Tom Carper's office. She had a boyfriend and an apartment, but vanished one night and was never seen again. A trio of investigators obsessed over the case, before finally cracking it- Fahey had been murdered by Capano after she tried to end their affair. He dumped her body in the ocean, and it was never recovered. The film follows the investigation, and the problems of trying a case without a body or murder weapon.
The reenactment footage is pretty terrible, but the case is fascinating, resulting in many books, films, and television episodes. Many of the subjects have moved on or passed away since this debut, a producer should provide an update about what has happened since. Also known as a stand alone title: "Caught: The Ice Chest Murder."
Stats:
(2002) 48 min. (6/10)
-Directed by Craig Coffman
-Written by Jodi Delaney, Cheryl Miller Houser, Gretchen Morning
-Featuring: David Scott, Robert Donovan, Eric Alpert, Colm F. Connolly, Cris Barrish, R.K. Montgomery Jr., Rachel Nord, Matthew Lavin, Lynda Ryan, Anne Marie Fahey, Tom Capano, Kathleen Fahey Hosey, Gerry Capano
-(Amazon Prime Video: 13+)- Some physical violence, some gun violence, some gore, adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Another Body (2023)
This startling documentary suffers from narrow execution.
Taylor is going for her graduate degree in engineering at a technical college in Connecticut. She's a rare female in a male dominated field when someone sends her a porn link to videos that she made. The problem is, she has never appeared in a porn video, and discovers the horrific world of deepfake revenge porn. The act is illegal in very few states (when this was shot), so she begins collecting evidence and tries to find out who has been posting these online.
In an effective scene, we find out Taylor is an example of the deep faking that she is fighting against. Taylor isn't her real name, and the face we've become familiar with isn't hers, as well. Her college is fictitious, and so are the faces of the other victims of the guy who they figure out is cyberbullying them to this extreme degree. I admire this ploy by the filmmakers because it shows how easy it is to create this type of video, and hopefully stops the real Taylor from being exploited all over again if she had used her real face in the film.
Thanks to another documentary, "Pornocracy," I know the evils of free porn sites online. You think looking at some free scenes is harmless, until you get the stories behind the scenes. Add this documentary to the cautionary genre of the internet. Taylor and other victims' faces were borrowed from such normal websites as Facebook and Instagram, and the video makers use VPN technology to remain hidden, and more often than not, authorities find themselves helpless to enforce laws that don't exist.
I wish the filmmakers had opened up the scope of the film. Having Taylor and her newfound friends (including the ASMR YouTuber Gibi) deduce who was doing this is misleading. It could be anyone out there, and narrowing it down to a weird former friend gives some viewers the wrong idea about who might be ruining their lives. Anyone can do this to anybody! Otherwise, this is a topic that needs further coverage and serves as another reason to dump social media altogether (I literally did just that two days before I watched this).
Stats:
(2023) 80 min. (7/10)
-Directed by Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn
-Written by Sophie Compton, Isabel Freeman, Reuben Hamlyn
-Featuring Ava Breuer, Faith Quinn, Julia Weinberg, Gibi
-(Not Rated)- Mild sexual violence, strong profanity, strong sexual content, strong sexual references, strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Blu-ray
Taylor is going for her graduate degree in engineering at a technical college in Connecticut. She's a rare female in a male dominated field when someone sends her a porn link to videos that she made. The problem is, she has never appeared in a porn video, and discovers the horrific world of deepfake revenge porn. The act is illegal in very few states (when this was shot), so she begins collecting evidence and tries to find out who has been posting these online.
In an effective scene, we find out Taylor is an example of the deep faking that she is fighting against. Taylor isn't her real name, and the face we've become familiar with isn't hers, as well. Her college is fictitious, and so are the faces of the other victims of the guy who they figure out is cyberbullying them to this extreme degree. I admire this ploy by the filmmakers because it shows how easy it is to create this type of video, and hopefully stops the real Taylor from being exploited all over again if she had used her real face in the film.
Thanks to another documentary, "Pornocracy," I know the evils of free porn sites online. You think looking at some free scenes is harmless, until you get the stories behind the scenes. Add this documentary to the cautionary genre of the internet. Taylor and other victims' faces were borrowed from such normal websites as Facebook and Instagram, and the video makers use VPN technology to remain hidden, and more often than not, authorities find themselves helpless to enforce laws that don't exist.
I wish the filmmakers had opened up the scope of the film. Having Taylor and her newfound friends (including the ASMR YouTuber Gibi) deduce who was doing this is misleading. It could be anyone out there, and narrowing it down to a weird former friend gives some viewers the wrong idea about who might be ruining their lives. Anyone can do this to anybody! Otherwise, this is a topic that needs further coverage and serves as another reason to dump social media altogether (I literally did just that two days before I watched this).
Stats:
(2023) 80 min. (7/10)
-Directed by Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn
-Written by Sophie Compton, Isabel Freeman, Reuben Hamlyn
-Featuring Ava Breuer, Faith Quinn, Julia Weinberg, Gibi
-(Not Rated)- Mild sexual violence, strong profanity, strong sexual content, strong sexual references, strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Blu-ray
Chappaquiddick (2017)
A truly moving story that was released and quickly forgotten in 2017, John Curran directs an expert cast in a screenplay that isn't out to "get" anyone, although if you're a Democrat, you might feel different.
Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke), months after the assassination of his brother Bobby and during the first Moon landing, is having a party on Martha's Vineyard for half a dozen female campaign workers and half a dozen married men (without their wives) in attendance. Among the women is Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), who seems lost on what to do next after RFK's death. Kennedy and Kopechne leave together, and Kennedy drives off a bridge, submerging the car in shallow water. He manages to swim out, but Kopechne drowns. He walks back to the party cabin, gets two of his yes men to help- Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan) and cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms)- but no one can get the car doors open. Kennedy leaves for his hotel and doesn't report the accident for hours. The family and Kennedy supporters circle the wagons around the "cursed" politician, coming up with lies about the death while playing on the heartstrings of a gullible public.
Curran's direction is fantastic. Clarke doesn't play up Kennedy's caricaturish Massachusetts roots like other Kennedy portrayals of the past. The script refuses to speculate on what happened, not adding any dramatic flights of fancy or rumormongering. They show a sympathetic press still trying to do their job, lobbing tough questions about the accident and getting no response (unlike today where the Liberal press lobs softball questions at like-minded politicians, and gaslight the public).
The casting of comedians Gaffigan and Helms in dramatic roles beats the viewer's expectations. The film never becomes darkly comic because what happened to Mary Jo Kopechne was not funny. Kennedy's wearing of a neck brace to her funeral is cringe and stupid, not sympathetic. At one point, Joe tells Kennedy that he is NOT the victim here, something a lot of people (especially Kennedy's voters) seemed to have forgot after sending him back to the senate again and again. We never learn too much about Kopechne, played by a good Kate Mara, which also seems calculated since we still don't know her today. The same one photograph of her is dragged out again and again, including in the film, but she's always been a blank since the focus and sympathy fell on Kennedy. Dern also scores as a stroke-ridden and equally unsympathetic Joseph Kennedy, and Clancy Brown is great as the abhorrent Robert McNamara.
If you don't believe this story could happen today, I challenge you to review the way the Liberal press has treated Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Anything said against Biden was shouted down, and when a couple of legacy media reporters challenged the narrative after Biden left office, they were also insulted and ostracized. RFK Jr. dared to speak out against his Democratic Party, who all circled the wagons again, protecting the party over family- which is ironic since a theme throughout the film is that family is everything no matter what specific members do.
This was never going to get any gold in Hollywood award circles, and didn't. Many Liberal critics dismissed it outright, if they bothered seeing it altogether, so as not to rock the boat and continue to get those free screening passes, internet clout, and access to celebrities. They fell for the ego stroke as much as Kennedy fell for it over half a century ago.
Stats:
(2017) 106 min. (9/10)
-Directed by John Curran
-Written by Taylor Allen & Andrew Logan
-Cast: Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Thirlby, Clancy Brown, Taylor Nichols, John Fiore, Gillian Mariner Gordon, Katie Henoch, Lexie Roth, Angela Hope Smith
-(PG-13)- Physical violence, profanity, adult situations, strong alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke), months after the assassination of his brother Bobby and during the first Moon landing, is having a party on Martha's Vineyard for half a dozen female campaign workers and half a dozen married men (without their wives) in attendance. Among the women is Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), who seems lost on what to do next after RFK's death. Kennedy and Kopechne leave together, and Kennedy drives off a bridge, submerging the car in shallow water. He manages to swim out, but Kopechne drowns. He walks back to the party cabin, gets two of his yes men to help- Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan) and cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms)- but no one can get the car doors open. Kennedy leaves for his hotel and doesn't report the accident for hours. The family and Kennedy supporters circle the wagons around the "cursed" politician, coming up with lies about the death while playing on the heartstrings of a gullible public.
Curran's direction is fantastic. Clarke doesn't play up Kennedy's caricaturish Massachusetts roots like other Kennedy portrayals of the past. The script refuses to speculate on what happened, not adding any dramatic flights of fancy or rumormongering. They show a sympathetic press still trying to do their job, lobbing tough questions about the accident and getting no response (unlike today where the Liberal press lobs softball questions at like-minded politicians, and gaslight the public).
The casting of comedians Gaffigan and Helms in dramatic roles beats the viewer's expectations. The film never becomes darkly comic because what happened to Mary Jo Kopechne was not funny. Kennedy's wearing of a neck brace to her funeral is cringe and stupid, not sympathetic. At one point, Joe tells Kennedy that he is NOT the victim here, something a lot of people (especially Kennedy's voters) seemed to have forgot after sending him back to the senate again and again. We never learn too much about Kopechne, played by a good Kate Mara, which also seems calculated since we still don't know her today. The same one photograph of her is dragged out again and again, including in the film, but she's always been a blank since the focus and sympathy fell on Kennedy. Dern also scores as a stroke-ridden and equally unsympathetic Joseph Kennedy, and Clancy Brown is great as the abhorrent Robert McNamara.
If you don't believe this story could happen today, I challenge you to review the way the Liberal press has treated Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Anything said against Biden was shouted down, and when a couple of legacy media reporters challenged the narrative after Biden left office, they were also insulted and ostracized. RFK Jr. dared to speak out against his Democratic Party, who all circled the wagons again, protecting the party over family- which is ironic since a theme throughout the film is that family is everything no matter what specific members do.
This was never going to get any gold in Hollywood award circles, and didn't. Many Liberal critics dismissed it outright, if they bothered seeing it altogether, so as not to rock the boat and continue to get those free screening passes, internet clout, and access to celebrities. They fell for the ego stroke as much as Kennedy fell for it over half a century ago.
Stats:
(2017) 106 min. (9/10)
-Directed by John Curran
-Written by Taylor Allen & Andrew Logan
-Cast: Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Thirlby, Clancy Brown, Taylor Nichols, John Fiore, Gillian Mariner Gordon, Katie Henoch, Lexie Roth, Angela Hope Smith
-(PG-13)- Physical violence, profanity, adult situations, strong alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)