For those lucky enough to catch Who Put The Bomp?, the sizzling Le Tigre tour documentary shown at SIFF a couple years back, the new Kathleen Hanna biography The Punk Singer will be an answer to Pussy Riot-like prayers. (The two music movies would make a delicious double feature.) The fanzine artist, riot grrrl comrade-avatar, Bikini Kill co-founder, fourth-wave feminism fearless bellwether, Le Tigre musician and more just blazes away in this Kickstarter-funded fiesta of fiery rock and fiercely loving social commitment.

Directed by Sini Anderson, a sparkplug-member of the awesome radical-poetic Sister Spit collective and Chief Curator for the The National Queer Arts Festival, The Punk Singer puts you right in the middle of everything as it happens through the early days of punk girl revolution early 90s style. You're there in the pit at a house show, making the decision to commit to revolution with Bikini Kill. You're there in Kathleen's bedroom with she and her friends, using scissors and paste to manipulate clip art and appropriated text to juxtapose images of female passivity with phrases evoking the tortures of being watched and judged daily by patriarchy. You watch as she puts on provocative, prick-kicking fashion shows even though peers remind her that "we're only in high school, Kathleen!"

And then get blown away again as she takes to the mic like a natural, snarling and screaming and shouting passion for her ideal "rebel girl" and telling the boys to "move to the back (be cool for once)" and "girls to the front!" Her bandmates (Tobi Vail, Katji Wilcox, Billy Karren) have as much verve as X-Ray Spex or The Ramones, and though all the musicians are different from each other in many ways, as a mystical shred-unit of focused protest, the footage of them makes The Punk Singer an essential rock documentary. 

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{In the House opened in Seattle on Friday, 5/17, and is screening at the Landmark Seven Gables Theatre}

In the House is the latest thriller from atmospheric maestro François Ozon, and while it’s a bit more subtle than Swimming Pool or Hideaway, manohman does it deliver on the chills.

Bored literature teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) finds interest and inspiration in a new Freshman’s fictional story, but when he confronts the boy, Claude, about it, he admits it’s based in reality, and is about his friend Rapha’s family. The startled professor initially gives Claude a hard time about it, but then encourages him to continue for the sake of the story, offering to help the boy develop his literary gift.

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{The Great Gatsby opens in Seattle on Friday, 5/10, and is playing at the Landmark Guild 45^th, The Big Picture, and Thornton Place IMAX®. In both 2D and 3D! Check listings for 3D screenings.}

Ah, Baz Luhrmann. The Director people love to hate. I’m actually in the “love to love” category (with the exception of Australia. That fucking movie. Unnnnnngggghh.), but this guy’s work certainly divides film fans. So what happens when Baz gets ahold of beloved F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby? Pretty much what you’d expect: A novel about excess adapted by a guy who specializes in excess. Including the application of another excessive thing—3D.

Set in the roaring ‘20s, the story starts with aspiring Wall Street mogul Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire. Ugh.) recalling how he moved into a quaint Long Island cottage that happened to be right next door to the mysterious GIGANTOR mansion of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). In which the reclusive zillionaire stares out the windows broodingly while throwing lavish parties full of beautiful people, confetti, fireworks, and of course, enough illegal hooch to fill six Olympic swimming pools with.

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{The Source Family opens Friday, May 3 at 9 PM at the SIFF Cinema at the Film Center in Seattle Center, 305 Harrison Street, and runs through May 9, 2013. Source Family members Makushla, Omne, and Rain Aquarian will be at the premier in person.}

For underground music fans of the god-jam variety (namely, psyche heads) the names Father Yod and Ya Ho Wa 13 can evoke mystical states of I want I want I want. Most fans of even just some of the hundreds of releases these often free-form musicians put out since the late 60s are aware there is a wild cultural backstory to their creation; and some of those LPs feature pivotal artists such as Sky Saxon of The Seeds, who converted to the unabashed cult which formed the bands which made their sounds. 

That's right, FY and YHW 13 are actual cult artists, the former once known as Jim Baker, a Judo master and Marine and miracle-magus who underwent a Yogic conversion in the 60s and charismatically collected together something called The Source Family at the height of the West Coast New Age wampum.

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Weekend movie time! There are a few Indies screening at The Grand Illusion and SIFF this weekend that I wanted to share with our imaginaries.

First up, Antiviral: screening at Grand Illusion Cinema , 4/19-4/25.

Antiviral is about an evolution in the way people view celebrity. Placed in a future bathed in clean white, the film centers on Syd, a salesman at a popular clinic where the commodity is live infections taken from celebs. A celeb gets infected or sick with something—herpes, the flu, etc.—and sells their virus to the clinic for a price, who in turn sells it back to super fans who want to be as close to that famous person as possible.

Gross, right? Imagine someone paying to get injected with Kim Kardashian's ... whatever.

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{My Amityville Horror is screening at Grand Illusion Cinema on Friday 4/12 & Saturday 4/13 at 11pm, and again on Monday 4/14 at 9pm}

When I was a preteen, I saw the 1979 version of The Amityville Horror, which kicked off an obsession with spirits and demon possession, and learning everything about the family that had lived in the real house and what they had experienced. So I was pretty psyched when I saw that Daniel Lutz, one of the kids who lived through the actual thing, was the subject of this new documentary, My Amityville Horror.

But whoa. WHOA. This guy, who is now in his mid-40s, is clearly messed up about whatever went down in that house. Whether is was actually poltergeists causing the scares, or the active imaginations of the children (via patriarch George Lutz), is left up to you to decide. Regardless, it’s clear that the scars Danny bears from it will never heal completely. 

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{Evil Dead opens in Seattle on Friday, 4/5 and is screening at the Regal Meridian 16, the Landmark Varsity, and Thornton Place}

Holy shit you guys. Holy. Shit. I was really hoping the Evil Dead reboot would be awesome, but I had no expectations that it would be as fantastically amazing as it turned out to be. As a horror fan, I gotta tell you that this is one of the finest examples of the genre that I’ve ever seen. Ever.

Fans of the original don’t need to be worried—it’s not a straight-up remake. It’s more of a reboot that uses the basics of The Evil Dead story as a starting point to create a new legend, combined with some really clever nods to Raimi’s work. Which include a new take on his signature camera moves and some great twists on everything you loved about the 1981 flick.

The opening sequence sets you up for the glorious splatter that follows in a surprisingly original way. And you probably know the rest, more or less: five friends head to a cabin in order to help their heroin-addicted friend Mia (Jane Levy, I will never be able to look at you on Suburgatory the same way again) dry out. The group includes Mia’s somewhat estranged brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez); his blonde girlfriend, Natalie; dark-haired nurse Olivia, and bespectacled hipster-nerd Eric.

Unfortunately, the group soon stumbles onto a creepy basement filled with ominous ritualistic items, like strung-up rotting cats (so many rotting cats), and The Book of the Dead (not yet named as such), and Eric, the genius (!!!)  brings it upstairs and starts reading the words contained within. AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

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{Room 237 opens in Seattle on Friday, 4/5 and is screening at SIFF Uptown Cinemas through 4/11. Director Rodney Ascher will be on Skype for a Q&A after the 6:45pm showings on both Friday and Saturday night—and you can catch a screening of The Shining directly after the documentary on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday}

“This is not “The Making of The Shining.” This is not a biography of Stanley Kubrick. This is: After the film has left the filmmaker’s hands, how does the audience grapple with it and make sense of it?” ~ Director Rodney Ascher from an interview with Vulture

After viewing a film (in particular, viewing a film over and over and … over) some fans latch onto the tiniest details, stringing them into clues that they then weave into a larger meaning that is personally important to them—and then convince themselves that the Director obviously meant that ONE THING.

In Room 237, the film in question in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and those “one” things include The Holocaust, the massacre and betrayal of the Native Americans, something-something about a Minotaur and the maze, an analysis of impossibly constructed rooms and hallways, a look at the interesting imagery created when it’s played backwards and forwards at the same time, and awestruck respect at how the whole thing is inlaid with hidden meanings.

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Since the Magnificent Liz has been making her way through her Best of 2013, I thought, what better time to polish up the Best of 2012 list I started over a month ago (though still a good month after 2012 was actually over)? I figure the target audience for this list is probably, like me, months behind anyway, so what the hell.

So without further ado, here are my top 6 children’s movies of 2012.

6. Brave 
I’ll admit up front, I had some quibbles with the plot. And it’s hard to avoid a whiff of affirmative action when talking about it: it is, after all, one of the only animated megahits in memory with a strong, independent female badass at its center. (Tiana? Rapunzel? Mulan? Discuss.) But dammit, she is a badass! And the characters are nuanced and interesting, and the animation is breathtakingly beautiful, and the mischievous little brother triplets are hilarious. Don’t be dissuaded by the tepid reviews (mine possibly included). Let Merida elbow out some of the more vapid princesses in the pantheon.

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{A Good Day to Die Hard opens in Seattle on 2/14, and is screening at the Regal Meridian, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Thornton Place, and Pacific Science Center IMAX. Note: A few of these theaters are showing 10pm screenings on 2/13}

I don’t want to be a hater. I promise you, I went into A Good Day to Die Hard with an open mind (yes, even *I* appreciate big, dumb action movies).

I love the original, revel in the cheesiness of the second, think the third works brilliantly, and even though the fourth was poorly constructed, I thought it at least had some charm. This, though? THIS. This is just. Terrible.

After his son Jack (Jai Courtney) gets thrown into a Russian prison for shooting a guy in a night club, John McClane (a lean-looking Willis) heads to Moscow to uh, I guess provide moral support? Even though he mentions that he and his son haven’t spoken for at least a few years. I was hoping it would be to actually break his son out of prison, but that didn’t happen.

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