Re: Notable from #8079

>>6317634 Barack Obama, a.k.a. “Renegade” (vanityfair, 2008)

So, either an outright lie, lazy language, or lazy journalism:

“Over the two years campaigning, [Obama] painstakingly rented every single movie Sutherland made, from 1983’s Max Dugan Returns to 2008’s Mirrors.”

So, the claim is that Obama rented every movie with Sutherland, up to and including Mirrors, while campaigning .

Mirrors was released on August 15, 2008. In ‘08, the standard timeframe from theatrical release to rental/purchase was sixteen and a half weeks after opening, which puts this rental available starting 11/24 or 11/25 (Movies came out on Tuesdays, if I remember correctly).

However, thats the standard time frame (sauce below), but if a movie was bombing, it might release sooner, and if it was doing great, rental release might get pushed back to extend the theater run. And this movie looks to have done terrible, so it certainly could have come out for rental sooner, but we’re already nearly 2 weeks past the election (the end of campaigning) as is, so I find it highly unlikely that Obama rented Mirrors on the campaign trail.

And if that’s bullshit, the rest of the story sounds like bullshit. Sounds like a thrown together cover story that someone didn’t think through. Like, if O loved Sutherland so much, I’d expect it to be a part of the story that he made sure to visit a theater when his most favorite actor had a new movie come out in August, or that he was looking forward to it being the first Sutherland movie he would watch as President, or something. The inaccuracies indicate the whole thing sucks. Definitely ways I could be wrong about this and it’s just lazy writing. But I doubt it.

Sauce on theater to release times circa 2008 (article from 2010, so, okay):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704337004575059713216224640

Fuck you, Vanity Fair. Give me my free tote bag.