MOVIE'S MESSAGE HITS HOME >>>

Mick Flaaen, busily PA-ing for the last few weeks on a Seattle feature film called The Dead Men, broke away briefly to premiere his own first short, Welcome to Parkland, this past Sunday at The Grand Cinema. (I wrote about this project in an earlier edition of Buzz.) When Flaaen broke the news to his Seattle crew, one member scoffed, "You guys do films in Stinktown?"

Ouch. As a retort, please indulge me in borrowing a witty utterance from Welcome to Parkland: "What a f***in' DOUCHE!"

Good, I feel better.

"That attitude needs to be changed," Flaaen told a theater bursting with supportive friends and family eager to witness his debut. An outsider betrays true ignorance when still comparing Tacoma to a cultural wasteland. Welcome to Parkland's  very completion serves as the latest victory in local artists' seemingly unending battle against such stereotypes.

The film's heroine, 20-something Kin Lennon (played by Kim Whalen), wrestles with a similar problem. As she tells her coffee shop companion, Vince (Jarod Morgan), Kin's relatives have always shaped her conception of Ray (August Kelley), her estranged father. All her life she's swallowed opinion without tasting truth. But when Ray approaches death, she approaches Ray and makes a bold offer.

Admitting one's faults and mistakes, not only to one's self but to others wounded by a cold humanity, takes courage. This is Parkland's greatest lesson, a lesson the closed-minded should welcome with open arms.

For viewers' comments about the film and updates on future screenings find Welcome to Parkland on Facebook.      

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