Archive for September, 2009

We’ll always have Cleveland

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

Wow, the “Buffy” finale sure is stirring and romantic and emotional. That last showdown at the Sunnydale hellmouth is downright Lord-of-the-Rings-arific!  Why, in fact…


The Return of the King (”Buffy” Style)

Yeah, here at the end of nine months of seven seasons of “Buffy,” I feel myself slipping into an Andrew Wellsian state of obsessive geekdom.

Witness: above video (also available in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers flavors! Wheeeee!)*

Witness: Once More, With Hobbits (ain’t the Internet grand?!)**

Witness: my leapity Slayer-fu in the backyard, er, under the cover of night (”‘Slayers, every one of us’…hi-YA!”)

I pause between roundhouse kicks to ponder how it would’ve been to follow the show in its day, especially toward the end of the run, those early years of the millennium when The Lord of the Rings flooded the cinema and I gave myself over to the frenzy of a full-on geek-out. No, my head would have exploded under pressure of that much more pop cultural wonder.

As with most entertainments stirring and romantic and emotional, I am loath to part with “Buffy” and left wanting more. But, hey, there’s another hellmouth in Cleveland! (Witness: “How can the public library not have the canonical Season Eight comics published by Dark Horse? I shall request they be purchased forthwith!”)

*Geekiness aside, my inner subtitles editor nerd really wants to fix the timing of the credits in these videos.

**Hilarious musical parody of a musical parody aside, I draw the line at crossover fan fiction. What insane twaddle!

“Lillian fait promenar ses papillons!”

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

While I eagerly anticipate his next film, the Mysterious Adrian Betamax distracts me with La Promenade des Papillons, a delightful silent short about the adventures of a girl and her butterflies. Director Josie Basford deftly harnesses the Maggie Gyllenhaal-esque charms of her leading lady and pieces together stunning images in a witty narrative. A bonus layer of giddy at recognizing the historic Echo Park setting, home of cinema before Hollywood was “Hollywood,” and near my former home too. (The hilltop encounter at the end reminds me of scaling the Effie Street slope on many a whimsical walk with Gordon.)

Rumor has it the director has come to this neck of the woods, and indeed, folks in Eugene have the opportunity to watch La Promenade des Papillons today at the Eugene Celebration film festival during the 5 p.m. DIVA Center show (same theater that was ground zero for the Earth Day premiere!)

Lillian Lavender’s stroll is strange I can believe in. I encourage you all to check it out!