DATE MOVIES
If you only have time to see one movie per day during this year’s Glasgow Film Festival, then Eddie Harrison is the man to guide you through the maze
THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY
WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD 2014’s most meteoric rise to fame came from Shailene Woodley, who capitalised on her memorable turn opposite George Clooney in The Descendants to star in all-conquering teenage hits Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars. Cult director Gregg Araki sculpts a thoughtful adaptation of Laura Kasischke’s novel and coaxes a sensual performance from Woodley as Kat, a teenage girl haunted by the disappearance of her mother (an excellent Eva Green), with further complications due to sexual liaisons with a handsome detective (Thomas Jane). Tense, lyrical and dreamlike, White Bird in a Blizzard is a poetic drama with a well-delivered twist ending. ■ GFT, Thu 19 Feb; Grosvenor, Fri 20 Feb JODOROWSKY’S DUNE A making-of documentary about a i lm that was never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune looks back on an ill-fated struggle to make a sci-i epic. Faced with the task of adapting Frank Herbert’s novel, mystic-minded director Alejandro Jodorowsky assembled an eclectic cast including Salvador Dalí, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and disco diva Amanda Lear, plus his own son Brontis, and added garnish with HR Giger designs and a Pink Floyd score. The production collapsed, but the David Lynch i lm that was eventually made from the book provided Jodorowsky with some glee when it l opped. Alien co-writer Dan O’Bannon’s anecdote about witnessing lightning bolts being i red from Jodorowsky’s eyes is a peach. ■ GFT, Fri 20 Feb; Grosvenor, Sat 21 Feb
ALSO ON: The Mule, Catch Me Daddy (see review, page 61) ALSO ON: Family Goldmine, The Little Death
TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY
WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY
MAD MAX 2 Shave your hair into a mohawk, whip out the eyeliner and look for your leather trousers as the Road Warrior returns on the big IMAX screen. Derided as a ‘millionaire’s amateur dramatic piece’ by one particularly fusty critic on release in 1982, George Miller’s apocalyptic action i lm is a terse, rugged thriller with electrifying stunt work. Skipping over the revenge sub-plot of the i rst i lm, Miller’s sequel sees Max (Mel Gibson) caught between a besieged community and the hoards of motorized barbarians who wait at their gates, with supplies of petrol the prize for the victors. With a big-budget reboot starring Tom Hardy landing soon, this is a welcome reminder that Mad Max 2 is as good as action movies get. ■ IMAX, Tue 24 Feb
MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN One of the modern cinema’s great characters, Danish writer and director Nicolas Winding Refn is an odd i sh: teetotal, softly spoken, frequently sporting natty eyewear and given to deadpan, offbeat pronouncements (he described his Viking epic Valhalla Rising as ‘a sci-i story about going to the moon’). In this l y-on-the-wall documentary, Liv Cori xen documents her husband’s domestic and work activities in Thailand as he makes Only God Forgives with Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas. If you’ve wondered about the mojo of the man who made such masculine fare as Bronson or Drive, Refn’s unassuming charm is both surprising and disarming. ■ GFT, Wed 25 & Thu 26 Feb THE FALLING A tale of teenage infatuation in a late 1960s setting, The Falling is an ethereal British drama about a girl called Lydia (Maisie Williams, of Game of Thrones fame) falling under the inl uence of the more worldly Abbie (Florence Pugh, heavily dubbed by The Guardian as one to watch in 2015). When the latter falls pregnant, the resulting furore sparks hysteria in their all-girl school. Fresh from a critically acclaimed Hamlet, Maxine Peake lends support as Lydia’s agoraphobic mother while Tracey Thorn applies an effective soundtrack. Directed by Carol Morley, The Falling was positively received at the London Film Festival, and follows in the wake of her acclaimed Dreams of a Life. ■ GFT, Thu 26 Feb; Grosvenor, Fri 27 Feb
ALSO ON: Boychoir, Girlhood ALSO ON: X+Y, Radiator
ALSO ON: Man from Reno, Red Amnesia
22 THE LIST 5 Feb–2 Apr 2015