PODCAST: IN THE DARK: SEASON TWO

PODCAST: IN THE DARK: SEASON TWO

Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same crime. For 21 years, Flowers has maintained his innocence. He's won appeal after appeal, but every time, the prosecutor just tries the case again. What does the evidence reveal? And how can the justice system ignore the prosecutor's record and keep Flowers on death row?

MY VERDICT: I loved listening to this podcast but it made me angry. It made me angry because it just didn’t seem fair. This seemed to be your usual case of someone convicted on not enough evidence but it goes much deeper than this. It doesn’t seem like it should be allowed that when someone wins an appeal against their conviction they should have to stay in prison if the DA says he’ll just try again. Why does the DA not face some kind of punishment when he was found to be in the wrong – why do only the defendants suffer? 

This podcast team does some deep, deep investigating. Finding documents long thought lost and collating information on cases going back decades to crate stats that don’t get recorded or checked, but should. 

I would recommend this podcast but prepare to feel dismayed in large doses.

Their website is also very well put together: https://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-two

And if you haven’t listened to the first season, I would highly recommend that too, it’s not the same story so you don’t need to listen in a particular order. 

FILM 1778: 88 MINUTES

FILM 1778: 88 MINUTES

TRIVIA: The film runs in "real time" meaning that at the moment Jack Gramm is first told he has only 88 minutes to live, the remaining running time of the motion picture until the identity of the person who set Gramm up is exactly 88 minutes.

Was scheduled for release in 2005 but the release date was pushed back numerous times.

This movie reunites Al Pacino and Damien Leake from Sea of Love 1989.

This movie reunites Al Pacino and Amy Brenneman from Heat 1995.

PODCAST: CONVICTED SEASON 1

PODCAST: CONVICTED SEASON 1 

Convicted Season 1 told the story of Richard Nicolas and his conviction for the murder of his two year old daughter, Aja. It explored the question "What if he didn't do it?".

MY VERDICT: I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast, despite the horrific nature of the crime itself. The podcast is well narrated, well structured and you felt that you were given all the necessary information on the case. It’s not a case to be solved but rather the podcast asks the question – was this person, Richard Nicolas, given a fair trial? I believe he wasn’t. There’s instances of information given as scientific fact that is misinterpreted and this itself seemed to be what the whole prosecution depended the guilty verdict upon.

This podcast does share a lot of similarities with the case in Serial. In fact Richard Nicolas and Adnan Syed shared a defence attorney and were housed in the same prison. However there are also lots of differences. The shows creator Brooke Gittings is not a journalist, she’s a social worker, her style is more informal, and despite this she does a brilliant job. She keeps an open mind and gives you information, like what it’s like to visit someone in prison, that you wouldn’t necessarily get from other true crime podcasts. There’s also a lot of information missed from the likes of serial, like what comes next, the exhausting amount of legal proceedings that one has to go thorough to appeal a conviction and attempt to get a new trial. 

This podcast had me hooked from the start and was deeply engaging. I would recommend to anyone who was a Serial fan.

PODCAST: ATLANTA MONSTER

PODCAST: ATLANTA MONSTER

From the producers of Up and Vanished, Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks present, ‘Atlanta Monster.’ This true crime podcast tells the story of one of the city’s darkest secrets, The Atlanta Child Murders. Nearly 40 years after these horrific crimes, many questions still remain. Host Payne Lindsey aims to find truth and provide closure, reexamining the disappearance and murder of over 25 African American children and young adults.

MY VERDICT: I started by listening to Payne Lindsey’s first podcast, ‘Up and Vanished’ but haven’t quite got to the end of that yet – the reason? Because Payne Lindsey was recording it as he went. As exciting as the investigation can be, and the joy of revelation as it is – it doesn’t make for the best story-telling. All the best podcasts are investigated and then recorded and split into episodes with information being revealed as it goes – but the storyteller always knows where it’s going – therefore the narrative is controlled and always interesting. As compelling as the story was (‘Up and Vanished’ is about a missing school teacher and remained a cold case for many years – until this podcast caused people to open up and secrets to come out) it could be a little exhausting to listen to. Nothing was emitted to make the story more captivating, nothing was held back as a reveal later on, it was all laid out in every episode.

I think Payne Lindsey learnt from the mistakes of his first podcast (and it was commendable because it got amazing results) and this podcast ‘Atlanta Monster’ is a much more polished and well narrated, well curated story in comparison.

There was a lot of information to absorb, it’s a sad tale of so many young men going missing and many bodies being found. At its core is what seems like a really lucky find of the main suspect Wayne Williams, Many things point to his guilt and his innocence, and whether Williams is guilty is the main point of investigation for this podcast.

I think what we’re left with is the idea that yes, some evidence does point to the fact that he did do something. Possibly he killed some of the children, or young men – ultimately he was only convicted of killing two men and not all the children but the press or society, or both seemed to believe he might as well have been convicted of all the crimes. I’m on the side of the argument that says, yes he did commit some crimes but not all the murders and disappearances of the children were the work of one man. So there are some people who walked free, possibly they’ve passed by now, who benefitted from Wayne’s conviction.

I won’t give any more away, give this a listen.

FILM 1716: THE WRONG MAN

TRIVIA: The scene where Henry ("Manny") Fonda is taken to prison was filmed in a real prison. As he is led to his cell , you can hear one of the inmates yell out "What'd they get ya for, Henry??", and a bunch of other prisoners laughing.

Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of his usual cameos, standing in a restaurant as Manny sits, but decided on using a narrated prologue instead.

Although based on a true story, Alfred Hitchcock deliberately left out some of the information that pointed to Manny's innocence to heighten the tension.

This marked the only time Henry Fonda worked with director Alfred Hitchcock. Fonda's close friend James Stewart worked with Hitchcock 4 times.

In the opening scene, it shows Manny (Henry Fonda) playing his bass viol. Seated at the piano, next to him is the pianist/conductor who tags the final note played. This is in reality Betnard Herrmann, the composer and conductor for many Hitchcock movies and many other Hollywood films of that era.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

FILM 1664: AUDRIE & DAISY 

TRIVIA: The twenty-fourth Netflix original documentary.

FILM 1481: THE CHESHIRE MURDERS

In the quiet suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, Jennifer Petit and her two young daughters were killed in a horrific home invasion; husband and father William Petit was the only one who escaped alive. This gripping film explores the events of that shocking triple homicide that rocked the town and set off a politically charged death-penalty trial. The result is a disturbing revelation of police failures and untold personal dramas that point out the biggest tragedy of all: the crime could have been prevented at many turns.

(IMDB)