Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

Year of Release:  2000
Director:  Joe Berlinger
Screenplay:  Dick Beebe and Joe Berlinger
Starring:  Kim Director, Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler, Stephen Barker Turner
Running Time:  90 minutes
Genre:  horror, supernatural

Recently released from a psychiatric hospital, Burkittsville resident Jeffrey (Donovan) decides to cash in on the phenomenal success of the recently released movie The Blair Witch Project, set in and around his small home town.  Selling merchandise from his website, he also starts up a Blair Witch tour to take tourists on a camping trip around the woods to see the sites featured in the movie and associated with the Blair Witch legend.  Equipped with an arsenal of video and recording equipment, his first tour group consists of Stephen (Turner) and his pregnant wife Tristen (Skyler) who are writing a book about the Blair Witch phenomenon, Erica a Wiccan who wants to commune with the spirit of the Blair Witch, and Kim a Goth who claims to be psychic.  The first night they are interrupted by a rival tour group, but Jeffrey and friends trick them into going elsewhere.  The following morning they wake up with no memory of the previous night, to find up that Stephen and Tristen's notes have been completely destroyed, and Jeffrey's tapes have been buried.  However far more horrific discoveries await them, and their situation becomes more nightmarish as they try to find out what happened during the night.

This was rushed out exactly a year after the release of The Blair Witch Project.  It opens up with a disclaimer claiming that the film is based on a true story, and the director Joe Berlinger had previously, and subsequently, worked only as a documentary film-maker, but this abandons the found footage format of the original film for a more conventional style.  The film opens with a series of news reports about the success of The Blair Witch Project, and the negative impact that it had on the town of Burkittsville.  Initially, at least, it is almost a commentary on the first film, the groups represented by the tour group were all the most drawn to and affected by the original.

This was slated by critics and audiences on it's original release, and is widely seen as a failure.  When I first saw it in the cinema back in 2000, I loved it.  I thought it was cool, gory fun.  Watching it this evening, there is still a lot to like, but I think it could certainly have been better, and there are scenes in this movie where a much better film seems to be trying to get out.   Director Berlinger claimed that the film was originally intended to be much more ambiguous and really a psychological horror film, but it was re-edited by the studios, with additional scenes of gore added.  To be fair, it's not really a bad film.  It's entertaining and it moves along fast enough.  Some of the performances leave a lot to be desired, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and the second half in particular is pretty confused, but it is nowhere near as irritating as a lot of these "fractured reality/dream" horror films.  It does feel like very much a product of it's time, with the loud goth-rock soundtrack, and flashily edited gore.

  Stephen Barker Turner, Kim Director, Jeffrey Donovan and Tristine Skyler in Book of Shadows:  Blair Witch 2

J. Edgar

Year:  2011
Director:  Clint Eastwood
Screenplay:  Dustin Lance Black
Starring:  Leonadro DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Damon Herriman, Ed Westwick, Jeffrey Donovan
Running Time:  137 minutes
Genre:  Drama, biography

This film tells the true life story of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  In the 1960s, Hoover (DiCaprio) dictates the story of his rise to power to a succession of young agents.  In 1919, a 24 year old Hoover makes a mark by targeting alleged Communists after a series of letter bombs are delivered to prominent politicians and public figures in Washingotn D.C.  After being appointed Director of the Bureau of Investigation, Hoover's scientific methods of criminal investigation are brought to bear in the high-profile Lindbergh baby kidnapping case.  However, in the 1930s, when the FBI declares war on the "public enemies" (famous gangsters and bank robbers such as Al Capone and John Dillinger), Hoover becomes a household name.  However as time passes Hoover becomes increasingly paranoid and obsessed with surveillance, building up bulky covert files on countless American citizens (both guilty and innocent).  At the same time he is troubled by his repressed homosexuality, and desire for his best friend, Clyde Tolson (Hammer).

This is a film which is easier to admire than like.  It boasts a strong central performance from DiCaprio who has the difficult task of portraying a complex man from his mid-twenties to late seventies, it is well shot with immaculate production design and period detail.  Visually the film employs a palette which seems to bleed all the colour from a scene making it look virtually black-and-white.  For a film that mostly takes place in gloomy, cavernous offices, it gives it an appropriately somber look.  However, the film suffers trying to pack in seven decades of American history into about two and a quarter hours, which means that many important and interesting elements are either skipped over or ignored entirely (most notably Hoover's relationship with Melvin Purvis, who was at one time the FBI's number one agent  and became famous for shooting John Dillinger.  However, allegedly jealous at Purvis' fame, Hoover turned on him).  Another problem that the film has is the prosthetic make-up for when the actors play their older characters, DiCaprio's is fine, but Hammer's just looks comical, like a rubber mask.  Also the film is very slow at times.  Hoover promoted an image of the sharp-suited, square-jawed, clean-cut, gun-toting FBI "G-Man", but he himself was a man who spent his career behind a desk, and much of the film is basically people talking in offices.  Action is kept to a minimum, and that which there is strongly hinted to be a product of Hoover's own self-mythologising.

For a man who was preoccupied with the private lives of others, and was always hungry for fame and publicity,  Hoover kept his own private life a closely guarded secret.  The film makes it pretty clear that Hoover was gay but very deep in the closet.  In one chilling scene, Hoover tries to explain to his mother (Judi Dench) that he is not interested in women and his mother harshly responds that "I would rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son."  One of the most famous rumours about J. Edgar Hoover was that he was a transvestite, although this has since been discredited.  It's not even mentioned in the film. 

A film that is so focussed on it's central character means that the other characters rarely have much of a chance to make an impression.  Armie Hammer is impressive as Hoover's close friend, Clyde Tolson, which the film depicts as having  along term almost-romance with Hoover, Naomi Watts is underused as Helen Gandy, Hoover's long-serving secretary and Judi Dench gives a good perfomance as Hoover's sour, deeply religious mother.  DiCaprio plays Hoover with sympathy and sensitivity, no matter how unpleasant the things he does.  Hoover comes across as a bully and a power-hungry manipulator, who would do everything and anything to get what he wanted.  However, it is a testament to DiCaprio's skill and the film's script that Hoover emerges as a sympathetic, if not likeable, character.

This is an interesting enough movie, and makes a good attempt to explain an extremely complex man.  In fact, it is good enough that it is really frustrating that it is not better.

Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar