The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I have one less amazing fun fact with which to fascinate and enthrall potential employers on my job interviews (yeah, right). The one that Ken Burns, beloved household-name documentary filmmaker, long eschewed having his own website. For much of his career the famous man's online presence was only featured as a sub-section of the website of Florentine Films, the production company he formed at the outset with his college colleagues. Now that's humility - something in tragic short supply in the movie racket.

But no more. KenBurns.com has gone live and will take you now to a Ken Burns app and Ken Burns presences on YouTube. At least it doesn't smack of the vanity job that a lot of other celeb/showbiz sites are, but it nonetheless leaves me short one surfire conversation-starter.

Okay, how about this as a substitute: the definitive Ken Burns parody feature is now available on video.

Yes, a feature-length spoof of the Florentine Films/Ken Burns-school of historical documentary that now seems to be the PBS standard, with its reliance on old historical photos, recitation of vintage letters, and talking-head interviews. What an utterly brilliant notion, and why didn't somebody think of doing it while Leslie Nielsen was still alive? 

Dope Island: The Fiend climbs aboard the Seymour Avenue bandwagon

You probably didn't hear it in the news during the Seymour Avenue sensation, AKA the "Miracle in Cleveland" in early May that brought world media attention to this area - but there was another story in the news: during the Cannes International Film Festival, top-selling prostitutes can bring in an incredible $40,000 per night.

So, back to tawdry northern-Ohio events that folks can't stop talking about: there is the very real prospect of at least one, maybe more films (weren't there THREE separate "Long Island Lolita" true-crime TV movies?) based on the decades-long sexual captivity of Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight. Already, Clevelanders are banking on the income brought in by out-of-town, big-time, big-money Hollywood union filmmakers landing here from NY/LA and wringing High Drama and craft services from the grueling ordeals these women endured. And the features that result...will almost certainly be exploited on the international arena, peddled at Cannes, a place where the flesh of prime-cut sex workers fetches $40,000 per night at the height of the annual silver-screen market-expo. A little irony there, n'est-ce pas?

The Central Park Five (March 24th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE screens Sunday March 24th at 1:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art Morley Lecture Hall.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

The Steubenville rape case has dominated headlines and airwaves not just here in flyover-land, but internationally. It's got all the elements that set both the mainstream and the trash media (same thing, oftentimes) salivating: sex, race, youth, female victimization, drugs/alcohol, outrageous violation of public morality - and football. But imagine - just imagine for a moment - that all the accused teenagers were completely innocent. Railroaded in an official frame job.

I'm not saying that's what happened in poor Steubenville. I'm just telling you that something of that magnitude - actually, much bigger - did indeed happen, in front of a revenge-thirsty worldwide audience. Most of whom probably still don't know that a travesty of justice occurred.