To Die For (1995)

 

Comedy/drama based loosely on the Pamela Smart case. Nicole Kidman desperately wants to be a TV newscaster. She's not terribly bright, but is actually pretty good when she starts doing weather reports on a local cable station. When her husband (Matt Dillon) hinders her hypothetical career, she seduces a high school boy who she coaxes into murdering him

Written by Buck Henry. Not a mockumentary but with elements of it, with flash-forwards and characters speaking to the camera about the case.

Buck Henry also plays a high school teacher who roughs up one of the kids. Even a kid who goes on to be a murderer will let himself be smacked around by a teacher.

Directed by Gus Van Sant. Wayne Knight as the guy in charge of the local station. With Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck and George Segal.

Free on Pluto.

Might make a double feature with The Color Wheel about a young woman with a similar goal and little chance of success.

If you want to work in TV news at a very low level, I hear you can get a job as studio camera operator pretty easily. It's reportedly a terrible job, minimum wage, you have to work a split shift---do the evening news then come back at 11:00---and it's still not full time. But that's good because there's a very high turnover. If you need experience, you can get it at the Community Access station. That's where I heard about it.

I've told unemployed film schoolers this. I don't know if it would be a way to get their foot in the door, if it could lead to bigger things, but they were applying for fast food jobs and getting nowhere. I don't know why none of them did it.