"You're no Richie Rich, but you have a good heart."

Yesterday I watched Pyromaniac: A Love Story, a movie I haven't seen in years. It had a small theatrical release and I remember having to hunt through video stores to find a copy before I finally got to see it. I highly recommend it if you're in the mood for a small, sweet story (as opposed to a sweeping epic).

The main character is Sergio, played by John Leguizamo, whose always cool but very young here. I had forgotten how old this movie is; he looks like such a pup! But a digress. Sergio is the sort of character I have a fondness for, but is very rare in movies (or any other media for that matter): the sweet guy. I suppose there are two reasons for this: 1) most chics like edgy guys and 2) they are really hard to do in a believable way. It's too easy to make them come across as pushovers or way too sappy. Sergio is an example of this type of character done well. I also love the guy characters in Hayao Miyazaki movies, like Potsu in Castle in the Sky or Tombo in Kiki's Delivery Service. They are good, decent guys with big hearts and lots of affection for the girls they're playing second fiddle to. Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything is another good example, but I understand that John Cusack wanted to play him angrier, which goes with what I was saying about these characters being hard to do.

Just in case you've stayed with me so far, let me piss off a bunch of people and say I always thought Buffy's best relationship was with Riley. She and Angel were always too dramatic for me (and I never liked his character until he moved over to his own show, where he got to grow in non-Buffy ways and became quite interesting). Spike was always one of my favorite characters (isn't he everyone's?) but that relationship was doomed from the start. Listen to Tara discuss the Hunchback of Notre Dame; that's every reason they weren't going to be a couple.

Riley, on the other hand, had open and obvious affection for Buffy. He wasn't afraid to disagree with her but always backed her up in the end. He just had the misfortune of turning up after Angel. I appreciated that he went to a dark place, but when he came back to Sunnydale he seemed to be an older and wiser version of his own self. Still an optimistic do-gooder, still with affection for Buffy for who she was. Spike got to make the big speech at the end of season seven, but you can't make me believe that Riley didn't feel the same way.