My parents came through Boston on their way back from Quebec and left a few copies of the Globe and Mail, the Canadian newspaper. There was an article that I just adored. Apparently there is this dude up there who murdered a little girl and dismemebered her body. Horrible, yes. But this article is one of those follow-up articles, one of those "you could see it coming" articles. They paper got a hold of this murderer's video rental records, and they made a whole article out of it, when in reality it is as normal as can be. But the way they try to make every movie into a foreshadowing is amazing.
Okay the one movie they raised the most stink about was a movie about Gacy. But, I mean, how many of us watched "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" (I saw it twice) and refrained from murdering someone?
"Records from Mr. Briere's video store show that on May 14, the 35-year-old software developer rented Gacy, the 2003 docudrama about a man who appeared within the community to be a model citizen and loving father but who had 29 of his young victims entombed in the crawl space under his house."
Okay. Fair enough. But then it gets really good right here...
"The next night, after Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino told a packed news conference his officers were "one phone call away from apprehending this monster," Mr. Briere selected suspense thriller "The Truth About Charlie" from the shelves of Video 99. Directed by Jonathan Demme of Silence of the Lambs fame, "Charlie" was lauded by critics as a well-crafted remake of the 1963 mystery/romance "Charade"."
WTF?? Are they trying to make a connection between this murder and this movie that was directed by a guy who made a movie about a murderer years ago? Or are they saying that the night that police were closing in on him, he watched a suspense/thriller?
Then it gets even better...
"On June 5, the day police released a computer-generated image showing Holly in the clothing she was wearing when she disappeared, Mr. Briere spent the night with Jack Nicholson who depicted the depressed and lonely Warren Schmidt in "About Schmidt"."
Now that is a fucking stretch. Dude is lonely and depressed, so he watches a movie about a guy who is lonely and depressed. LOOK OUT! HE MIGHT MURDER SOMEONE!!!
"The last movie he rented before being arrested on Friday was "The Pianist", a story about Wladyslaw Szpilman, the talented Polish musician who survived the Holocaust, but lost his family in the process."
Holy shit! The last movie he rented was a movie in which a guy lost his family! Oh gosh, and this muderer will also lose his family because he is going to be put in jail! It's like this guy was one step ahead of the law with his movie viewing habits.
To be fair, the article also mentions that he rented "Erin Brockovich", "Kate & Leopold", and two, count 'em, two Hugh Grant movies: "About a Boy" and "Two Weeks Notice". They failed however, to state that Hugh Grant also was arrested once. Or that Erin Brockovich featured a court case. Or that maybe a "Kate & Leopold"/"Two Week's Notice" double feature would make anyone want to kill someone.
This ridiculous grasping-at-straws kind of journalism is exactly the kind of writing that makes The Onion obsolete. I mean, The Onion could easily have written an article like this. It wouldn't be as funny as the real thing, though.
