The Freedom Bulletin

I just finished watching the Philip Markoff movie, “The Craigslist Killer,” on Lifetime. I thought it was a pretty good overview of the case, presenting all the facts in an entertaining and mostly classy way, with decent acting. The only major flaw in the movie is that it exaggerated how sleazy and unfaithful to his fiancee Markoff was by taking some liberties with the facts. More on that later.

Warning, spoilers ahead:

The movie starts out with Philip (played by Jake McDorman), a medical student, talking to his classmates and supervisors, impressing everyone with his intelligence. He meets Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner), a college student, and he immediately falls in love with her and asks her out. Their first date is at (of course) a casino. Six months later, they move in together, and shortly after that, he proposes to her during a carriage ride.

Throughout most of the movie, shots of Megan planning and gushing about the wedding are juxtaposed with shots of Philip looking up erotic services ads on Craigslist, visiting the providers of such services, taking suggestive pictures of himself to post on his sex site profile, and buying plastic handcuffs, duct tape, and a gun. One of the best parts is when he browses Craigslist during class but answers the professor’s question perfectly.

Megan gets upset when she finds out that their bank account is overdrawn, and Philip assures her that the money is coming as he walks down the corridor to a prostitute’s hotel room. He ties her up and takes her money, credit cards, and underwear. Back at his apartment, he stuffs the underwear in a sock, puts it under his mattress, and carves out a hole in a Gray’s Anatomy textbook to store his gun.

Then we meet ill-fated Julissa Brisman, who lets Markoff into her hotel room after getting off of the phone with her mother. “You’re beautiful,” he says, and she replies, “You’re not too bad yourself.” As soon as he enters the room, he tries to tie her up, but she fights back, pushing him and grabbing his neck, and he shoots her.

Back at the apartment, Megan notices the cut on his neck, and he makes an excuse for it. The police discuss the profile of the killer as Philip is shown in bed with Megan and charming everyone he meets. Then he visits another prostitute, whom he tries to tie up and rob until her husband arrives. After a violent struggle, he escapes, upset and out of breath, and returns to his apartment.

Meanwhile the superintendent told Megan that Philip hadn’t paid rent for three months, and she confronts him. On the verge of tears, he apologizes, saying, “I am trying my best.” Meanwhile, the police are closing in on Markoff. He keeps seeing himself on the news, grows increasingly panicked, and convinces Megan to go to Foxwoods. On the way, cops pull them over and roughly handcuff Philip, while Megan is (understandably) confused and freaked out. Cops search the apartment, where they find flex-cuffs, a gun, 16 pairs of underwear, a fake ID, and other evidence.

In jail, Philip is taunted by other inmates and tries to strangle himself with his shoelaces but is stopped by a guard. A public defender named Robert Grossman, who according to the cops is pretty darn good, is appointed to defend him. Megan visits him in jail, and he almost confesses to her: “The person who did this, they didn’t feel like they deserved someone as amazing as you…they felt like all they deserved was to be punished.” When she angrily leaves, he panics, crying, and says that he’s scared. Finally, he commits suicide with a makeshift knife and writes “Megan” and “Pocket” on the wall in blood.

Megan is played as superficial and ignorant, and Billy Baldwin, who plays Detective Bennett, is kind of annoying and has a Boston accent that at times sounds almost British. But Jake McDorman makes a pretty good Markoff. He convincingly portrays his dark side and his panic as the noose closes around him. He constantly says cheesy but ironic cliches (With me, what you see is pretty much what you get…I told you, Pocket, it’s going to be happily ever after…I don’t want us to have any secrets…It’s just you and me, Pocket, nothing else matters).

Here are a few of the inaccuracies I noticed in the movie:

• Megan and Philip meet when she is in college and he is in his second year of med school. In real life, they met when they were both in college (she was a couple years older than him).
• Before he started dating Megan, Markoff once tried to kiss one of his female friends and held her against a wall, but she pushed him away. In the movie, this takes place while he and Megan are engaged.
• In the movie, Megan applies to BU med school but doesn’t get in. I don’t think this happened in real life, as far as I know.
• In the movie, after Markoff ties up Tricia Leffler, he actually cuts off her underwear that she is wearing. In real life, he just took them from her suitcase.
• The 16 pairs of underwear found in Markoff’s apartment were reported by some news outlets, but the actual number, according to police and prosecutors, seems to be less.
• It is implied that Markoff may have had sex with some of the prostitutes, which there is absolutely no evidence of.

It seems like at least part of the general public is as enraged about this next story as I am! For those who haven’t yet heard, 12-year old formerly cute and awesome actress Dakota Fanning will appear topless and will do a rape scene in the movie Hounddog. This totally disgusts me! Why the heck would anyone want to see pedophilia in a movie? I mean, it’s gross and happens all the time in real life, and the whole point of movies is to create an imaginary world that is cooler and more fun than the real world! Emphasizing the dark aspects of life totally defeats the purpose of movies.

Some people claim that it’s important to educate the public about child abuse. Well, I think most people already know that rape is bad! It’s not as if they need to be taught that. And it’s not as if pedophilia doesn’t get enough media coverage! The media gives a lot of attention to child abuse; just take the case of Jessica Lunsford, or Shasta Groene, or Carlie Brucia, or the hullabaloo over the Catholic priests for example! The last thing the media needs to do is focus on child abuse some more!!

Others defend Dakota’s role by saying that she must have consented to it, and that her parents would not have had her do it if she weren’t comfortable. Well, the fact that she was willing to do something so gross is certainly not something I hold in her favor!

Finally, to those who claim that rape and nudity are art, you are utterly wrong! Art is beautiful and uplifting. Nakedness and sex are aesthetically hideous. Take, for example, The Polar Expresss, The Chronicles of Narnia, Because of Winn-Dixie, or Disney’s High School Musical. Now those movies are art! Fun, imagination, and fantasy make a good movie, not dark, depressing subjects like pedophilia!

This despicable story is becoming high-profile — my favorite news source, CNN, has a video about it on its home page. I cannot find a text article there, but until I do here’s this.

For more go to Google News. Or, to see some interesting debate, check out the IMDB message board. You might even see a post or two by yours truly. Just beware that you need to sign up for a free account, and there are some extremely obnoxious people on those forums!

J.K. Rowling recently gave some interesting, but still mysterious, clues about Book 7. On a British talk show, she disclosed that the final chapter in the series, which she wrote in 1990, has undergone some minor changes. One character whom Rowling planned to kill off has gotten a reprieve, at least partly because Rowling’s husband objected to having the character die. To make up for this, two characters will die who were not originally planned to. Rowling hinted that the characters who die are major characters; she also made some controversial comments that some have interpreted as pointing to the fact that Harry will die.

Also, the first promotional picture from the 5th Harry Potter movie is out, and Harry seems to have much shorter hair than he did in the 4th movie! I am pleased with this. Although I don’t like Harry’s new hair as much as his hair in the first two movies, I hated his hair (and Ron’s too) in the 4th movie and am glad it doesn’t look like that again! Also in the hair department, Mugglenet has a clip of a skit that Potter actors Dan Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson filmed for Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday. In the skit, Ron, as well as Harry, seems to have shorter hair. Although Hermione’s hair looks the same in the skit, I saw a few pictures of her at the Queen’s birthday (after the skit was filmed), and she has bangs! I’m not going to get my hopes up, because this seems too good to believe, but there might be a possibility she has bangs in the 5th movie. This would be awesome, as I liked her hairdo with bangs in the first two movies much better than the hairdo in the later films.

In case you aren’t following what I’m saying, which is quite possible since I seem to be rambling on, or if you want to see the information and pictures for yourself, which is also highly likely, go to http://mugglenet.com

Last night’s Academy Awards were actually more just than I anticipated! Of course, the nominations were way off base, since, among numerous other atrocities, neither “The Chronicles of Narnia” nor “Because of Winn-Dixie” was nominated for best picture. However, “Narnia” won an award in the Best Makeup category, one of three categories in which it was nominated! Congratulations to the makers of this outstanding movie. What’s more, “Brokeback Mountain” lost in the Best Picture category! For the full list of Oscar winners, go to Oscar.com.

In other news, Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota signed that state’s anti-abortion bill into law today. Although Rounds is a Republican, I strongly disagree with him on this issue! The bill bans all abortions, except for those that are necessary to save the woman’s life. This law is a violation of what is believe to be the inalienable right not to have a baby. It is an oppressive bill and should be abolished! I look forward to a Supreme Court showdown sometime in the future.

I just discovered that “The Chronicles of Narnia” won an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for Best Makeup and Hair. Congratulations to all who were involved in making this great movie. Unfortunately, it lost in the other two cateories in which it was nominated. “Memoirs of a Geisha” beat “Narnia” in Best Costume Design, and “King Kong” beat it for Best Visual Effects.

See the full list of results at IMDB.