{The Innkeepers opens at the Grand Illusion Cinema on Friday, February 3rd. It is also available through video on demand}

The Innkeepers is likely to be seen as a breath of fresh air by fans of scary ghost stories. Benefiting from a throwback vibe and deeper character construction than one has been trained to expect from a horror flick, it's a hard to turn away from package. I cared about what happened to the characters as the cranking suspense gave me a serious case of the creeps. It's a fun ride, even if the final wrap up was a bit under whelming. Though that probably says a lot more about how strong the first half was than anything else.

If the ending had fully delivered on my early-stage tension, I might not be in a condition to commit my thoughts to page. Director Ti West pulls strong performances out of his three main characters, Sara Paxton and Pat Healy as the innkeepers in question - and the hotel it takes place in. The Yankee Pedlar Inn plays itself, albeit I expect more evil, variation (sort of like NPH in the Harold and Kumar movies), with more brides who took their life on their wedding night and now haunt the space for eternity.

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{A Lonely Place to Die screens at the Grand Illusion Cinema at 11pm on Jan 20 & 21, 26 & 27}

If you were starting to think that mountain climbing might be for safe enough for you, along comes A Lonely Place to Die to convince you otherwise. What starts out feeling like a tense (if familiar) man against the mountain flick becomes so much more more. This film, which I was exposed to at Fantastic Fest back in September makes its way to the Grand Illusion Cinema as their Fri/Sat late night screening this week and next. It's a heck of a thrill ride that had me hooked from the first moments. Even in a weekend of lots of appealing action choices, this is not a film you want to let slip by.

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{Tomboy opens in Seattle on Friday, January 6 and screens at SIFF Cinema at the Uptown through January 12}

Coming-of-age stories are hard to pull off without resorting to oft-used cliches, which is why I think Tomboy kind of blows most of them out of the water. Focusing on adolescent identity and exploration, this film pulls you close with astonishing performances and intimate camerawork. 

Director Celine Sciamma searched for unknowns for the kids' roles because she wanted the movie to feel as genuine as possible -- and it does. Each one delivers such naturalness to the screen that it almost feels like you're spying on something private. 

10-year-old Laure (Zoe Heran) sports a short haircut and prefers to wear boy's shirts and tees, rather than girly dresses and lacy skirts. New to the neighborhood, when Laure meets the local group of kids and they think she's boy -- she just kinda rolls with it.

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{Pariah opens in Seattle at the Landmark Harvard Exit theater on Friday Jan 6th}

When I'd heard a description of Pariah I wasn't expecting much. A coming of story about a teenager dealing with her identity as a lesbian and her family's refusal to believe it was true. Let's be honest, it sounds like a story we've heard before. Probably more than once in different forms. Given all that I couldn't be more pleased to say how wrong I was. As it turns Pariah out made my list of favorite things I watched in 2011. Just squeaking in under my personal wire, as I saw the film in the last days of the year. It's a worthy addition to the coming of age genre and deserves to be seen.
 
Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a 17 year old high school senior in Brooklyn. That she's a lesbian is an an open (non)secret except within her household. It's clear from the get-go that she's confident that her parents will not be OK with learning the truth. And the clear denial her folks are in certainly seem supportive of the believe. As most coming of age stories Pariah is a chronicle of how the family deals with perceived adversity and how the main character grows. It's a familiar sounding story, even if it's less often told within a mainly African-American community. But the filmmakers and extremely talented actors involve make every moment feel fresh, and undeniably real.

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It's a good thing she's asleep, because this guy tells the most boring stories, EVER.

Sleeping Beauty opens in Seattle on Friday, 12/9, and is screening at SIFF Cinema at the Film Center.

I was SO excited for the release of Sleeping Beauty, not because I was confused and thought it was a live-action version of my favorite Disney adaptation, but because I am utterly, truly in love with Emily Browning. And I'm not gonna lie, any time you label a movie with Emily Browning in it as "erotic", I'm gonna be first in line to see it. Plus, I'm always excited about female writers and directors, so I was looking forward to seeing what Julia Leigh had in store. 

Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. The film starts by showing its main character, Lucy (Browning) in a clinical setting, forcing a long tube down her throat until she gags -- this is NOT foreshadowing, as you might expect. Lucy appears to be a struggling University student who lives with a couple, one of which is verbally abusive to her and constantly demanding money (brother? other roommate's boyfriend? who may or may not be her sister? - it's not really explained). 

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{El Bulli: Cooking in Progress opens in Seattle on Friday, December 2nd, and is screening at the Landmark Varsity Theater}

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress is a documentary that follows the modern day equivalent of Willy Wonka through a year long cycle of their world famous restaurant. It's shot in a way that some people some people may dislike, possibly intensely. Absent are the talking heads viewers have been accustomed to, narrating what they're doing (or did) and why. Instead, El Bulli provides a fly on the wall perspective -- where no one speaks to or even acknowledges the camera. But for those patient enough to immerse themselves in it, what emerges is a beautiful meditation on food, art, and the creative process. The last in a way that I believe will be familiar to those schooled in any research like endeavor, scientific or artistic. Meaning - it's not just a film for foodies. 

Actually for many of them, the process of El Bulli may seem like a foreign discipline. When I started realizing it was about more than preparing unusual food is when I got seriously hooked. It's definitely not one of those simple "listen to folks talk about how great a chef/musician/actor/whatever is" creations. As such not everyone will love it, but for the right amount of patience it can be a very rewarding experience.

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{Paul Goodman Changed My Life shows December 2-8 at Siff Cinema at the Film Center. Get tix online here.}

Poet-protester-psychologist Paul Goodman's sociological memoir-manifesto Growing Up Absurd was one of those items you'd find in an early American punk's apartment, as you would a black leather motorcycle jacket, maybe a stack of vintage Marvel comics, perhaps on top of orange crates filled with imported punk and remaindered 60s garage rock LPs, a hash pipe laying next to a butterfly knife bought at a pawn store, silly-dangerous stuff like that. It was a whip-smart book for rebellious boys, a seeding of early 60s counter-cultural impulses that was still being passed down the pike, as Catcher In The Rye or Pink Floyd's The Wall or looking like James Dean never quite fell out of fashion with the perennial non-comfortists. And yet, recently, it kind of disappeared in such digs as they come and go in micro-generations.

Paul Goodman Changed My Life is an excellent introduction into the robust and rousing writing of a supreme cultural critic who was publicly taking on the 50s mind control of Pentagon America as confidently as possible. His public speeches from this time period still sting with descriptions and accusations of shadow forces trying to entrap the U.S. in bloody, absolutely useless global conflict. His anti-authoritarianism came first, then a friend told him he was an anarchist and it just seemed to fit. That a staunch pacifist and anti-capitalist crusader could be so popular and persuasive in the pre-Vietnam war era, translating the images of restless energy of juvenile delinquents on movie screens into forceful calls for national protest, is astonishing and liberating today. And every few minutes in Jonathan Lee's film you'll get to hear him recite his hypnotic poetry about the love for his family, his eros-driven visions, and his life on the brink of chaos contemplated both fiercely and delicately as well.

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{Kill All Redneck Pricks: A documentary about a band called Karp opens in Seattle on Friday, 11/25 at the Grand Illusion Cinema}

Once upon a time there was a band named KARP. Three boys with a gleam in their eyes and a shared love of the Olympia WA music scene. Forming a band and chasing the dream. Playing louder and darker than their peers as they toured the country in the back of a beat up old van. With fungible jobs at theaters and bars to scratch by. Kill All Redneck Pricks: A documentary about a band called Karp is a story of comitted friendships crossed with a classic story of demons, adulthood drugs and incredibly bad luck tearing a promising thing apart. It's also a snapshot of a local music scene and it's ups and downs. KARP is a film that probably rewards how much intensity for the subject matter the viewer arrives with. And their personal tolerance for footage that sometimes would make the Blair Witch Project feel like it was shot on rails.

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{Running 11/25 through 11/29, at the SIFF Film Center. Tickets $10, $5 for SIFF members. SIFF passes and vouchers are available at the Box Office.}

Clarence Reid was a hell of an R&B/pop rock music writer and performer, starting in 1959 and finding an apex crafting a calvalcade of passionate soul sides for Paul Kelly, KC & the Sunshine Band, Betty Wright, Ann Sexton, and Gwen McCrae in the pre-disco boom years of 1971 to 1975. Reid's own naturally powerful, from-the-gut bark-croon can be heard on many universally appealing love songs on his own records too, even after the point that he invented the "dirty rapper" supervillain persona Blowfly.

The tightly structured new biographical documentary The Weird World of Blowfly doesn't actually tell us how Reid became this nasty-ass, darkly humorous, always obscene, dressed-as-a-ghetto-wrestler, emerging (or hiding) from a promising and succesful soul-pop singer/songwriter. The expert pacing, editing, and shooting isn't about revealing much overt internal history or intentions, if any is to be gleaned. It doesn't even give us backstory on what this sort of character usually means in music either black or white (think controversial C&W iconoclast David Allan Coe wearing his mask too and singing dirty around the same time as Reid's morphing).

But it does catch us up with the 72 year-old mutant of punk and hip-hop and satirical smut, and touches many emotional bases on what may have been the psychological triggers that blew up into The Weird World of Blowfly. That's the 1971 depraved-sounding debut which viciously mocked politeness-driven soft rock and R&B with fart jokes and a whole lot of scat references, and is almost as recurrent in underground semi-pop music circles as Gil Scott-Heron, and surely as much as Tiny Tim.

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{London Boulevard opens in Seatte on Wednesday, 11/23 and is screening at SIFF Cinema at the Uptown through 12/1. Showtimes & tickets here.}

I'm not sure I ever would of thought of pairing Keira Knightly and Colin Farrell in a gritty British crime drama, but for whatever reason it totally works in London Boulevard.

Fresh out of prison, Mitchel (Farrell) gets recruited by friend Billy (an oily Ben Chaplin) to do some "jobs" with him around town - the only problem is that after doing time, Mitchel has lost the stomach for mob work. Offered a legitimate handyman/bodyguard job taking care of semi-crazy actress Charlotte (Knightley), Mitchel finds himself changing even more as he falls for her fragile gentleness.

But this isn't exactly a love story…kingpin Gant (a grizzled Ray Winstone) tries to recruit Mitchel as one of his soldiers, and becomes increasingly frustrated at his refusal to join in. Eventually the tension ramps up to a full-on war - one where it's hard to tell which of these badasses will win.

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