any thoughts? opinions?
Just read the Ebert reviews on his website. Really wanna see now.
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1996/09/092703.html
I've seen both of them, and I wasn't too impressed. It's nothing more than a show on Court TV.
The dad of one of the victim's was a nutcase. He was the comic relief on the whole doc.
Quote from: Pawbloe
The dad of one of the victim's was a nutcase. He was the comic relief on the whole doc.
Dude, wasn't he the one the documentary sorta pointed at as a really, really likely suspect? Weren't his prints, like, ON THE MURDER WEAPON, or something? My memory of this is foggy....but.....
From Ebert's review:
QuoteOne of these men is John Mark Byers, stepfather of one of the victims, who earlier has been seen in a video at the crime scene, re-creating the crimes in grisly detail while vowing vengeance. In the movie's single most astonishing development, Byers gives the filmmakers a knife. They turn it over to the state. Crime lab reports show traces of blood that apparently came from himself and his stepson. On the witness stand, he testifies that he beat his stepson with a belt at 5:30 p.m. on the day of his death. The welts from the belt buckle previously had been linked to the ritual killing.
Also, the confessions were retracted, weren't they? That's why there's that whole movement to "Save Damien" or whatever....
Whoops, no. It seems that experts have testified to the fact that the boy's confession was coerced by local authorities. More, from a site in support of the convicted boys (www.wm3.org):
QuoteAlmost five years after the murders, the first board certified medical examiner, forensic pathologist and forensic odontologist to ever examine the victims did so by looking at the autopsy photographs. They testified during Damien Echols' Rule 37 hearing that the bite marks were in fact of human origin, and after obtaining dental impressions from Jason, Jessie and Damien, concluded that the three young men who are currently serving prison sentences for this murder could not possibly be responsible for the bite marks seen in the victim photographs.
And still more on the stepfather of one of the victims:
QuoteMore evidence that might have been useful came in the form of human blood found on a serrated knife. This knife had been given to documentary film makers as a gift, but when the film maker noticed what appeared to be blood in the mechanism of the folding blade, he gave it to West Memphis police. The blood was given a cursory test which only determined the blood type, and once this test was done, the blood was ruined for further testing. It was shown that the blood matched the blood type of one of the victims as well as the knife's original owner, but this information was ruled inconclusive by the court. The owner of the knife was John Mark Byers, the stepfather of victim Christopher Byers. Christopher is the victim whose blood type also matched the blood type found on the knife, and he was the one victim who was castrated and repeatedly stabbed and seemed to be focus of the attack. Why did they even bother to do that kind of blood test, when they knew that the results of the test would be inconclusive, and that the evidence would be ruined for further testing?
West Memphis Three Head to the Big Screen
After being explored in the TV documentaries Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, the case of the West Memphis Three is once again being committed to celluloid, albeit in a fictional form. According to this morning's Variety, Dimension Films has acquired the rights to Mara Leveritt's Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, and is fast-tracking the movie into production.
"West Memphis Three" is the name that has been giving to the three men who were convicted of murdering three young boys in 1993, an event sometimes called the Robin Hood Hills Murders. The boys were the victims of sexual assault and were tortured in ways that suggested to investigators that they had been the victims of a Satanic ritual; the convicted men were involved in Goth culture and were allegedly "[fascinated] by the occult." Since their convictions, many questions have been asked about the guilt of the trio, and both Paradise Lost films and Leveritt's book offer evidence of their innocence.
Dimension's film is being written by The Exorcism of Emily Rose team Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman, and Derrickson (who, by creepy coincidence, is also scheduled to write and direct the upcoming screen version of John Milton's Paradise Lost) is expected to direct.
'West Memphis 3' to be freed (http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/19/arkansas.child.killings/index.html)QuoteJonesboro, Arkansas (CNN) -- Three men convicted in the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, were ordered released after entering new pleas following a court hearing, prosecutor Scott Ellington said Friday.
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 18 years in prison with credit for time served, a prosecutor said. They were to be released on Friday.
The three entered what is known as an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to maintain innocence while simultaneously acknowledging that the state has evidence to convict, Ellington said.
Critics of the case against the men argued that no direct evidence tied the three to the murders and that a knife recovered from a lake near the home of one of the men could not have caused the boys' wounds. More recent DNA testing also demonstrated no links, according the mens' supporters.
While Ellington said the pleas entered Friday validate the decision of jurors who sent the men to prison, it also spares Arkansas the possibility of a retrial that would have been difficult to prosecute after so many years. The trio was likely to win the right to new trials later this year.
"This is an appropriate resolution to this case at this time," Ellington told reporters. "Only time will tell as to whether this was a right decision on my part."
Echols said in a news conference after his release Friday that he will continue to work to clear his name.
Baldwin said he initially opposed the deal worked out between the men's attorneys and prosecutors. "This was not justice," he said.
The case drew national attention, with actor Johnny Depp and singers Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines trying to rally support for the men's release. Vedder and Maines were at the courthouse on Friday, according to CNN affiliate WMC-TV.
John Mark Byers, whose son Christopher Byers was one of the three victims, said he believes the three men are innocent. He said releasing them without exonerating them of the crime is an outrage.
"They're innocent. They did not kill my son," Byers said before the hearing.
The father of another of the victims, Steven Branch, also blasted the decision, but for another reason.
"I don't know what kind of deal they worked up," Steve Branch told CNN affiliate WMC-TV before the hearing. "Now you can get some movie stars and a little bit of money behind you and you can walk free for killing somebody."
Echols was sentenced to death and Misskelley and Baldwin were given life sentences in the May 1993 slayings of Steven, Christopher and fellow second-grader Michael Moore. The boys' bodies were mutilated and left in a ditch, hogtied with their own shoelaces.
Prosecutors argued that the men convicted, teenagers at the time, were driven by satanic ritual and that Echols had been the ringleader.
DNA later failed to link the men to the crime, and the state Supreme Court ruled in November that all three could present new evidence to the trial court in an effort to clear them. A decision is pending on whether the three should receive a new trial. Friday's action could negate the need for that.
The DNA tests were conducted between December 2005 and September 2007, according to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The material included hair from a ligature used to bind Moore and a hair recovered from a tree stump near where the bodies were found, court documents said.
The hair found in the ligature was consistent with Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs, while the hair found on the tree stump was consistent with the DNA of a friend of Hobbs, according to the documents.
Police have never considered Hobbs a suspect, and he maintains that he had nothing to do with the murders.
Never thought I would see the day.
It's pretty incredible.
I know. How can they let Satanists out scot-free? Unbelievable.
Quote from: RegularKarate on August 19, 2011, 12:50:41 PM
"They're innocent. They did not kill my son, I did." John Mark Byers said before the hearing
If only fellow Arkansan Karl Childers could get ahold of that Byers, I wonder what he would do... :hammer:
ok i might have to rewatch the original doco but since when did john mark byers start supporting these innocent dudes?
i can't believe i agree with reelist about anything, he's actually making be doubt my baseless suspicions that the dude is guilty.. i mean, if reelist thinks it... :yabbse-undecided:
i remember that he was one of the ppl who were most vehement in their hate to the three innocent dudes.
you should see both documentaries, and you might start to agree with me. The latest news I've heard about the case was this:
" In 2007, after Dixie Chicks Natalie Maines posted a blog entry claiming that DNA consistent with Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the three victims, was found at the crime scene. Hobb's sued for defamation, protesting his innocence. During his deposition, he stated that he never saw the children on the day they were murdered. But three eyewitnesses came forward, claiming he was with the victims shortly before they disappeared. "- Rolling Stone
They were already making a third when this stuff happened, so I'm sure the new one will cover the changes in opinion.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fa5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ak-ash4%2Fs320x320%2F384978_270735832981440_207203639334660_714908_1547337074_n.jpg&hash=ce8ad12a23d6f66da1cf216e8f203aafcba76f92)
Trailer here. (http://youtu.be/GqQnnXTTm3w)
Reminder this premiers tonight on HBO.
*crickets*
Book Cover design by Shepard Fairey
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51ve9jBc5tL._SS500_.jpg&hash=2f72719f128da189899b25d21b32a12950a8da03)
Release set for September 18th
Damien's on Twitter! Be kind
https://twitter.com/#!/damienechols (https://twitter.com/#!/damienechols)
it'd be funny if they did it.
well not funny, per se.
more like.. fucknny.
This case will probably go unsolved for 20 more years, with no known suspects besides these 3 poor chaps. By then whoever really did it will be dead. It's looking like Terry Hobbs from the last documentary, but to reopen the case would cost millions, and Arkansas isn't even up to it. Hopefully the impact The West of Memphis doc has will cause more than speculation and actually bring the person to justice who did it. I doubt it, though.
I'm obviously more familiar with the documentaries than most here, judging by the activity in this thread, but did Ron Lax ever appear in any of the Paradise Lost films? I'm thinking he might've shown up in part two. The more I look back on it, I'm quite sure he did, but my memory is hazy. Just looking for a cofirmation, Google and youtube searches don't bring up much on the guy, besides the fact that he will be played by Colin Firth in 'Devil's Knot'!
Ron Lax
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.commercialappeal.com%2Fmca%2Fcontent%2Fimg%2Fphotos%2F2008%2F09%2F19%2F20lax.jpeg&hash=eea7eb3fa143768f3ead48664aa2adc21d314c36)
Colin Firth
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.topnews.in%2Ffiles%2Fcolin-firth.jpg&hash=b165c8143ea539782fd6907d76145c3ccd0b8718)
other confirmed cast members:
Pam and Terry Hobbs
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.commercialappeal.com%2Fmedia%2Fimg%2Fphotos%2F2011%2F08%2F20%2F930604wmmhobbs1web_t607.jpg&hash=f630fda6f4dc8c6cb87e43b878cbc6099c0f4c05)
Reese Witherspoon
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.poptower.com%2Fpic-38988%2Freese-witherspoon.jpg%3Fd%3D600&hash=c2ae3046dbce5f06d6ea676646f540c238aaea84)
and Alessandro Nivola
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.netglimse.com%2Fimages%2Ffeed%2F20087%2FSGY-001601.jpg&hash=c9a95fd15843f11dfae6111ce12087a91807d99f)
Damien Echols
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fteenagefilm.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F09%2Ftimthumb.php_1.jpeg&hash=ec4d5c9d35ba4528a117f227e8c95c7bf146bf93)
James Hamrick
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fweblogs.variety.com%2F.a%2F6a00d8341bfc7553ef01630692d73d970d-450wi&hash=006bab24b29e3202eb3a45e6c24d4c87c1a18272)
Jason Baldwin
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fparadiselost3themovie.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F12%2F019-PLSTILL-JB323_rescan-copy_web.jpg&hash=8b8d52e800763aacd786faa2f1af4082fae42571)
Justin Castor
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teenidols4you.com%2Fblink%2FActors%2Fjustincastor%2Fjustincastor_1297855670.jpg&hash=9e3c0a86eea5bcbc885b430673c449b7f8a0d164)
Jessie Miskelley
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arktimes.com%2Fimager%2Fjessie-misskelley-pic%2Fb%2Foriginal%2F1886066%2Fdce8%2Fcover_story1-7.jpg&hash=47020db9f68fb2210ad44b02ada8badb1c9bf37b)
Kristopher Higgins
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.poptower.com%2Fpic-46900%2Fkristopher-higgins.jpg%3Fd%3D600&hash=816eedfbd92f8c427545e581130f20a6a4d70a7d)
Vicki Hutcheson
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.commercialappeal.com%2Fmedia%2Fimg%2Fphotos%2F2011%2F08%2F27%2F940128rcmissk2_t607.jpg&hash=fd9723e208f026e40c3babc7c61ba3576dd2cf66)
Mereille Enos
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fimg.goldderby.com%2Fimages%2F20110710_578_Mireille-enos.jpg&hash=102352e1af330d84d3a164cbaec1dd7d3f95cd68)
Those are all the key figures in the story. The role of one of the victims, Steve Branch has been cast as well as various other Lawyers and detectives. Amy Ryan's supposed to be in it, too. IMDB doesn't list her character yet, but I got a pretty good idea of who it could be.
Kathy Bakken Amy Ryan
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ejumpcut.org%2Farchive%2Fjc47.2005%2Fgoth%2Fimages%2Fparadise%2520lost%25202%2F43.Kathy-Bakken_wm3-member.jpg&hash=cd64c4da60870f31cc1a444d0d5f1264027686fb)(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ft2.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQDzcvE2mUAYsVpZ6PG3a61-QPDgn6bXfcDKEM1XvvblblOkoO9EA&hash=2facf980bc0b5f737039b75401604a1495011a22)
Good detective work on Amy Ryan there, Lou. She needs to be in more movies I want to see.
But don't mistake thread activity for actual interest, otherwise you'd have to think (as I do) that no one cares about the master anymore, and have all jumped ship to Anna Karenina for some reason.
I just don't want to know too much about The Master until I see the film. Seeing TWBB with only the first teaser as background is probably one of the best things I have ever done as a moviegoer.
I'm interested in both! (2 birds, one stone. now I can rest my fingers)
Interesting choice
Prosecutor John Fogelman
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.allstephenmoyer.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F06%2Fjohn-fogleman.jpg&hash=e496e7cd5fff3d8fad0efed559c4fa131bd4266a)
Stephen Moyer
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F_bSk6yN_RU3Q%2FSoohMNkfsSI%2FAAAAAAAADT4%2FTT4170Vy6QI%2Fs400%2Fstephen%2Bmoyer%2B3.jpg&hash=f7eef3ba8e83a79534cfeb919920d53ab72926a0)
Judge David Burnett
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jivepuppi.com%2Fimages%2Fdavid_burnett.jpg&hash=6d03e530b7fb511e5e74527295719b1e57394d89)
Bruce Greenwood
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpor-img.cimcontent.net%2Fapi%2Fassets%2Fbin-201206%2Fff9988a18490561355644fe55376acb3.jpg&hash=17b1f1e3b9aabbc7e940ae9e32a7f7884943eade)
It's great that they got a guy who also puts his hand to his face to play that judge.
I though that both of these documentaries were great. Still have not gotten around to seeing the third one yet. The directors did a good job of exposing the existing problems with our judicial system caused by small town politics and immoral interrogation practices . It also showed how people who could be seen as socially "different" are still being victimized. The film played out like a modern day Salem Witch Trial. If you like documentaries, especially true crime, you should check out these docs.
West of Memphis: Truth willed out
source:Time Out
The bridges across the Mississippi River from Memphis, the great city of the antebellum South take you from Tennessee to Arkansas. The drive leads through cottonfields into another world where people live dirt-poor lives in trailer-home neighbourhoods.
"That's the reason for the title," says Amy Berg, the director of West of Memphis, the coolly angry and oddly beautiful new film about the so-called West Memphis Three.
"When I was interviewing people in West Memphis, it was plain they considered it part of Memphis. But in Memphis they consider it part of Arkansas.
"They are suffering from an identity crisis. It's very sad. The town is completely lost - and marked by the murders obviously."
The 1993 murders of eight-year-old boys Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers boys in suburban bush in West Memphis gave rise to what is now - thanks in good part to this film conceived and funded by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh - established as a monstrous miscarriage of justice.
Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley jr and Damien Echols were 16, 17 and 18 respectively when they were charged with the killings.
They served more than 17 years in prison - Echols on death row. But on August 19 last year, the three were released on the basis of DNA evidence. Crucially - and grotesquely - they were not exonerated; under an obscure legal provision known as an Alford plea, they pleaded no contest while maintaining their innocence. In doing so, they surrender the right to bring suit for wrongful conviction; the state saves face; and the case remains closed.
It's this last bit that must hurt the most. For if the new film does something that the three-part HBO series Paradise Lost did not do, it mounts a powerful case against Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Stevie Branch. As Variety's reviewer remarks, "where [the third Paradise Lost film] pointed a finger at Hobbs, West of Memphis shakes a fist".
Hobbs' tactical error was to sue Dixie Chicks' singer Natalie Maines (one of many celebrities, including Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder, who took up the trio's cause) for defamation for her public utterances linking him to the case. The suit opened him to searching cross-examination and coverage of that case - which Berg goes into in electrifying detail - and to say it goes badly for him is to put it mildly.
Berg came on board the project at Jackson and Walsh's invitation - they were impressed with her clear-eyed and gripping 2006 debut Deliver Us From Evil about sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. And it does not escape her notice that the films' subjects have much in common: sexual abuse is a subject that generates much of the hysteria and moral panic that we see at work in this story.
"The thing that interested me was systemic abuse," she says, speaking by phone from Los Angeles. "The justice system and the Catholic Church have a lot in common and for me it was about exposing things that needed to get out."
The allegation that the boys were sexually abused and mutilated as part of a satanic ritual was a fiction that, once established, was self-sustaining.
"Had they figured out that that was not true in the beginning, they would never have convicted these guys. If you took that out of the mix and realised that it was actually post-mortem injury [caused by animal predation] they would have had a better chance of investigating it properly.
"But they were looking for someone who looked like Damien [Echols] because they thought it was a ritual torture case and they thought he was satanic. So everything fit together."
Watching the film, it is hard to believe how willfully blinkered the state remains as the evidence mounts that the trio are innocent. After the Alford - technically a guilty plea - the prosecutor expresses pleasure that "we have a result".
"Everything in the case file shows they railroaded these guys," says Berg. "They didn't report all the information they were privy to and one can only imagine what evidence was actually destroyed.
"But that prosecutor is running for Congress; the judge is a state senator. The stakes are too high for them. It's such a shame. These men are out of prison and obviously that's a good thing. But the parents of the kids are feeling so wronged by the state and Pam Hobbs is in fear for her life that her ex-husband is going to come after her."
Berg pays tribute to Jackson and Walsh who funded not just the film but the painstaking investigations that provided its factual basis.
"They were very busy on The Hobbit but they were always accessible to me. Their response time was unbelievable - minutes, seconds sometimes. But they let me make the film that I wanted to make."
Just giving the thread a little bump to let you guys know that Damien's book hit shelves yesterday:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ft3.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQYqRuGLzaZmXdFJ2TnXcKkdxpTlnLIUadp-zcn96kGc-LZOQli4hOaJUt0&hash=8c15cbf0b5c4391245d0572d799515f470c0e8d2)
definitely get your paws on that if you can. been hearing very good things
also, he gave an amazing interview on Opie and Anthony today. the best non funny thing I've heard come out of that show. I was surprised I'd never heard the dude talk for that long of a stretch before!
So if you're interested in that type of thing, you can find the interview here at 1:27:00
Damien Echols reddit AMA (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echols_death_row_survivor_ama/)
"If you've ever been punched in the head, you know it doesn't register as pain immediately. A lot of times it's like a bright flash of light, or the sound of thunder, and you're incredibly disoriented. Listening to someone sentence you to death for something you know you didn't do is like being punched in the head repeatedly."
GREAT interview with Damien Echols on Jay Mohr's latest episode of Mohr Stories (http://www.fakemustache.com/#!mohr-stories/cii6)
Whatever your opinion of Jay Mohr is... just listen. No impressions to be found here.
Damien Echols, wife Lorri Davis and Amy Berg ( director of 'West Of Memphis') on The Treatment (http://www.kcrw.com/media-player/mediaPlayer2.html?type=audio&id=tt130205amy_berg_lorri_davis)
West Of Memphis was great!!! The best of all the WM3 docs, although they all have a special place in documentary history. The first one is a very painful time capsule of the entire trial, the second was very speculative in accusing Mark Byers and demonizing him the same way that Damien was. Paradise Lost 3 and West Of Memphis deal with hard facts and evidence to really analyze what happened on that fateful day in 1993, and seem to bring to light who the real culprit is! It's just really sad that it took 20 years to accomplish this.
Highly recommended, good luck in your search for it.
Damien and his wife being a couple of creeps.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BC8YdIbCEAAsgft.jpg:large)