Section B · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, October 19, 2000
Blair Witch 2 wastes time, film
Review
By Ryan Dolan
Kansan movie critic
In the Blair Witch Project sequel, *Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows*, five nineteenthens takes a hike into haunted woods. Contributed art
Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows director Joe Berlinger once wrote of filmmaking, "Real success can only be achieved by creating your own path instead of following the path of others."
Berlinger should have heeded his advice.
Artisan Entertainment plans to release the sequel (or BWZ) on Halloween to capitalize on ghoulish moods of ticket buyers.
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown exudes more suspense and tension, than this Firestone-blowout of horror flicks.
The primary blame for this 35 mm catastrophe lies directly on Artisan, BWZ's production company. Artisan was a struggling but respectable movie distributor when it bought the original Blair Witch Project from young filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez for $100,000.
The film eventually grossed more than $100 million.
Myrick, Sanchez and Artisan created a revolutionary Internet campaign — including a Blair Witch mythology that many young Web surfers thought was true.
Artisan has generated a clever online campaign for *BW2*, which includes a three-day "Blair Witch Webfest" that began yesterday. Despite that, the buzz about the film is a fraction of the original. More importantly, Artisan wasted any mystical aura that remained around the Blair Witch phenomenon because of a greedy, rushed production. The fact that Myrick and Sanchez did not write or direct, but merely provided consultation damages BWZ's credibility. Apparently, the pair will write and direct Blair Witch 3 sometime in 2001.
But *BW2* is a blot on the resumes of all concerned. The dorm-wall-thin plot? Five twenyethomings hike into the
Blair Witch 2
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Recommendations:
Paradise Lost: The Children Murders of
Brother's Heir
Brother's Heir
It's the Great Paradise, Chuckle Brown
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
haunted woods near Burkitsville, Md. They make it out alive, but they've brought something back with them.
Vanishing, ghosts, orgies and gore ensue. Poor Eric Leerhem
playing the token Wiccan prances around half-naked for the last 45 minutes. Metaphors dealing with the destructive power of law enforcement and the press in the last 15 minutes fail to halt the debacle.
If you don't know what to do this Halloween, find yourself a nice pumpkin patch and a blanket. Waiting for the Great Pumpkin would definitely elicit more thrills than watching this film.
— Edited by Ckry McCuistion
Brian Bartelt
Kansan movie critic
Review
Pay it Forward warms hearts
*Pay it Forward*, starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joo Osmet and Jon Bon Jovi, is a thoroughly entertaining film that exudes a pungent air of feel-good morality.
Not only will you be entertained — any viewer with an iota of heart will walk out of the theater affected — you'll sport a bit more hope
than you walked in with,
and most likely you'll have an itch to help someone.
Barring pernicious aliens,
planet-rocking explosions
and gratitulous sex, what more can you ask for from a movie?
Indeed, this film could be
son. And best of all, it refrains from breaking down into a lecture. Instead, it tells us a wonderful, involving story about a little boy and his social studies assignment.
Pay it Forward
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Opens at Southwind 12 tomorrow.
seen as a retort to the governmental accusations that Hollywood is about nothing but sex and violence. Pay it Forward attacks the issues head on: substance abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, societal apathy, intimacy versus sex, guns in schools — and this is just the beginning. It portrays people of a variety of races and social classes in a fair and hopeful way. It offers a solution to the world's problems that doesn't require a superhero; it claims a solution can be found in every per-
The success of this film relies on a multitude of factors. First and foremost is the writing. The screenplay, by Leslie Dixon (Mrs. Doubtfire), was based on the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde and is largely why this film works. A great story will go a long way. This film has no shortage of great actors. Haley Joel Osmet (Sixth Sense) stars as Trevor McKinney; Helen Hunt (As Good as it Gets) plays his mother.
Arlene McKinney; and Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) is Eugene Simonet, Trevor's teacher. These three Academy-adored thespians really don't need to be critiqued—their mere presence in a film should say enough.
Top the mix off with director Mimi Leder, who directed Deep Impact, and you've got a recipe for a worthwhile cinematic experience.
So go on, make your plans and get your tickets. How else are you going to be entertained and improve your karma for less than 10 bucks?
And while you're at it, get your friends to go see Pay It Forward, too. If enough people see it, who knows. It just might change the world.
— Edited by Amy Bendolh
The Bull • 1344 Tennessee
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