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?