Sunday, July 12, 2009

A further new low for LOS ANGELES TIMES Calendar section: fawning over THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

Glenn Whipp, a former critic for the LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS, writes periodic second-string reviews for THE LOS ANGELES TIMES these days. And yesterday, he gave readers this sickening fluff piece about the 10th anniversary of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-witch11-2009jul11,0,4594569.story

There's not much to add except that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was a triumph of marketing (particularly via the Internet) which obscured the actuality of a limp, unscary amateur video-to-film that received a bit of a backlash once it went into wide release. But Whipp, in his cravenly fawning article, just regurgitates all the original hype as if it were Gospel Truth.

But BLAIR WITCH did start a trend of horror/sci-fi projects using the "videography" gimmick to make the proceedings seem more "real." For their flaws, 2008's DIARY OF THE DEAD (from George Romero) and CLOVERFIELD (from J.J. Abrams) are more worthy of being written about than the Myrick/Sanchez artistic disaster of 1999.

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