A victory for banality

These two unfortunate souls went funny in the head and committed suicide. He was a video artist (those credits on Punch Drunk Love, that Beck album cover), she designed video games (no clue here). They were obsessed with Scientology, and had a boatload of problems, and upon their deaths (she was first), the NY cognoscenti were all adither at the postmodernity (or something) of the whole mess. I remember thinking when the news of their circumstances surfaced, "How quickly will this be in Vanity Fair?" and sure enough, VF hopped right up and did my bidding.
I don't think I even got through the whole article, as it was so couched in abstracts and the why's were "tantalizingly" withheld. (Plus, they were friends with Father Frank Morales, the 9/11 conspiracy-lovin' priest! That kid's everywhere!)

So, I can't say I was altogether surprised to learn that there is talk of a movie of these sad people. Imagine the pitch: "It's like Love Story, only they both die! From MODERNNESS!"

THEN, the part that is both crazier and more predictable all at once: who's attached to take a bash at the script, since it's up his alley? BRET EASTON ELLIS!

Good lord!

Who better to obfuscate already murky details, AND sift through the ashes of a pathetic tale with a cold clinical eye?

Actually, I can look at my crystal ball and envision the outcome of all this: the screenplay gets itself "written" and then never gets made, but then floats around eternally in turnaround, growing in legend for a decade...Joan Didion or the like gets trotted out for a quote in the 2018 VF profile ABOUT the non-Event:

“Basically, it’s beautiful, but unfilmable,” says another friend who has
read it.

Then the whole article is topped off with a full-page BEE photo as his most crustily Nixon-like opposite the 72 point title "UNANSWERED PRAYERS", with subhed:

An early 21st century art world couple's suicides seem like ideal fodder for a
screenplay. But, as MAUREEN ORTH learns, Bret Easton Ellis spent a decade lost
in the catacombs of Scientology, grief and madness...and he now asks "What
befalls a legend most?"

Anyway, in typing this, I feel I have safely predicted the future. It's an eerie feeling. Sometimes, late at night, when the palm trees are swaying in the hot winds, I know it's true. Sometimes I swear I thought I could of reached out and touched it.