CineDaily – 19 Feb: Appropriate Behaviour, today's reviews and more
Glasgow Film Festival kicked off in grand style last night with Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young. It was a brilliantly judged opener. Baumbach can often rub audiences up the wrong way with his acid-to-the-face cynicism, but his disposition seems to have sweetened of late. That’s not to say the film didn’t have its fair share of barbed one-liners. It essentially takes the form of a cut-and-shut between Baumbach’s last two movies, dropping a Greenberg-like age-anxious neurotic (Ben Stiller) in with the hipsters from Frances Ha (Amanda Seyfried and a hilarious Adam Driver) and shaking it all together. The result is a Molotov cocktail of gags (there are more laughs-per-minute than you’ll find in your average summer Hollywood comedy) that should have shamed anyone in the audience over 21 wearing skinny jeans or who owns a fedora. If Woody Allen ever left his Upper East Side apartment and took the C-line across the East River, he might make a comedy like this.
From GFT, it was on to the Art School for the opening party. Everyone seemed to be having a grand ol’ time as The Skinny slinked off about midnight, with the smoke-filled upstairs bar standing room only as Glasgow’s film community danced the night away. One note for next year, though: it might be worth turning up the dimmer switch just a touch when the catering team bring round the canapés. It was so dark we’re not exactly sure what we ate, but if we were to take a guess based on taste and texture we’d plump for mashed potato on cocktail sticks.
Film of the Day: Appropriate Behaviour [GFT, 3.45pm]
What we said: “‘That was a present,’ protests Shirin (writer/director/star Desiree Akhavan) when her girlfriend returns a mysterious box to her amidst an acrimonious break-up. The revelation that it contains a strap-on dildo should give audiences a fair idea of what to expect from Appropriate Behaviour.” (Continue reading...)
We also spoke to director Desiree Akhavan. On constantly being compared to a certain star/writer of Girls, she told us: “I understand how people sell papers or get clicks online. Everyone wants to read something that says ‘Lena Dunham’ in the title. So it’s very cheap, and it sucks, especially since it’s inherently sexist and has this weird implication.
"Because it’s not just me, it’s every female filmmaker right now making honest work,” she says, pointing to Gillian Robespierre, the director of 2014’s Obvious Child, Zero Motivation director Talya Lavie and U.S. television series Broad City. “Every young woman doing something outside the norm of the Hollywood system is the next Lena Dunham. That does have the implication that there’s only space for one funny woman whose work can be monetised. So there’s a threat behind it.” (Continue reading...)
Today's highlights
A Night at the Regal
O2 ABC, 6pm
The Sauchiehall Street gig venue turns back the clock to celebrate its former life as the ABC Regal with a night of sonic cinema.
The Grump
GFT, 3.15pm
Hollywood rag Variety-tipped Finnish director Dome Karukoski for big things back in 2013. See if they were right with this comedy about a protagonist who makes Aki Kaurismäki’s characters look cheery.
Cinema-Going in Glasgow Through the Ages
CCA, 6.30pm
Glasgow adored cinema. She idolized it all out of proportion. If you get that cinematic reference, then this event charting Glasgow’s love affair with the movies is for you.
Our Reviews of today's films
Black Coal, Thin Ice: “The film is as dark and cold as its title, unravelling its mysteries amidst frost, fog and murky streetlights.” (Continue reading...) | GFT, 9pm
Catch Me Daddy: "Robbie Ryan's intimate roving camera gets close-up to the point of abstraction, but in doing so firmly places the viewer in the midst of the unfolding events, with the palette not drained, but cold, and the handheld visuals augmenting the dramatic urgency. It is never less than visually arresting." (Continue reading...) | GFT, 5.40pm
Pale Moon: "Not so much a female-led, smaller scale riff on The Wolf of Wall Street, Pale Moon instead digs into issues of conformity in Japan. Rika’s bank is revealed as a business where any breach of protocol is ignored in the hope that the next will cancel it out." (Continue reading...) | GFT, 6.15pm
Monsters: Dark Continent: "Dark Continent marks the feature debut of TV director Tom Green (Misfits, Blackout). He is not to be mistaken with the notorious late 90s/early 2000s shock auteur of the same name. Had that Tom Green been behind this film, there might have been an ounce of interest to these proceedings." (Continue reading...) | GFT, 10.45pm
White Bird in a Blizzard: "Closer in spirit to his Mysterious Skin than The Doom Generation, White Bird in a Blizzard sees director Gregg Araki adapting a Laura Kasischke novel and applying his trademark gifts for depicting both the sweet and the sour of adolescence." (Continue readling...) | GFT, 8.20pm
Readers Reviews (While We're Young: Opening Night Gala)
Cassam Looch (@cassamlooch)
#GFF15 Opening Gala While We're Young is a blinder. Adam Driver and Ben Stiller play the "Bromance" perfectly.
Neil Rolland (@WriteShootCut)
Love love loved WHILE WE'RE YOUNG @glasgowfilmfest. Thanks for a lovely night #GFF15 and Noah Baumbach.
Matthew Turner (@FilmFan1971)
Loved Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, a great opener for the festival and quite possibly Ben Stiller's best ever performance. #GFF15
Pauline McLean (@BBCPolliemac)
Loved While We're Young. Funny, charming, quirky. Lots of knowing laughs from 40 something's.The perfect opening gala @glasgowfilmfest
Plus, Tommy Mitchell (@notmyconcern)'s clearly just showing off:
Just wondering if this'll be enough tickets for #GFF15 @glasgowfilmfest
We want to hear your take on this year's GFF – get in touch on Twitter using the hashtag #cineskinny, and you could win tickets to some of our favourite films in this year's programme.
Links of the Day
The Scotsman's Alistair Harkness talks to director Kornél Mundruczo about canine apocalypse movie White God: “We shot for 45 days and I think we did 40 with the dogs and only 15 with the human cast. And of course, I’m normally a control freak as a director, but not this time. It was like making a nature documentary”
STV's Riverside Show send Colin Stone along to the GFT to find out about Glasgow's love affair with the Cinema.
From last year's Sundance, Indiewire's Peter Knegt speaks to Gregg Araki about White Bird in a Blizzard, and working with Shailene Woodley and Eva Green.