And speaking of long-simmering interests, I've been following the saga of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley, Jr., who eventually became known as the West Memphis Three, since the initial release of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. It was almost surreal to sit in a screening room nearly 20 years later with the WM3, only recently freed from prison, and the filmmakers who'd played an instrumental role in getting them out. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, which is now airing on HBO, is more a capstone to a collective masterwork than a great film in its own right, but that it exists is a tribute to Berlinger and Sinofsky's extraordinary dedication, which I was more than happy to talk up for the Los Angeles Times.
Bonus! My 2004 interview with Berlinger and Sinofsky on their excellent documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, and with Berlinger on the subject of his less-excellent foray into feature filmmaking: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
