Reviews

"School" is a thoroughly enjoyable and captivating work. In the same manner as Ken Burns' documentaries, you feel that you have traveled through periods of history with key or typical personalities of those times. Very well made.

This musical adaptation of the tragic life of 19th-century Québec poet Émile Nelligan inspired me to go out and learn more about his life and touching poetry -- surely one of North America's brightest, but brief lights as a writer.

The production's writer interweaves well the story of the tender, yet independent young artist and a nationalist message; Émile and his mother persevere in the face of an oppressive, personality-squashing father.

The theme music is still memorable for me, even nine years after seeing it. Well-acted stage performances particularly for the characters Nelligan and his mother, Émilie.

Vive le Québec _ _ _ _ _!

Would the film have lost any profits had it included some Gaelic dialog for the sake of accuracy and reality? There might have been couple of mumbled words in Gaelic at some point, but they were easily overlooked.

The fact that the majority of Scots involved in this history would have been Gaelic speakers is strangely absent from the film. Even the writers of the Indiana Jones fictional stories made sure that realistic dialog with subtitles peppered the script to give an air of realism.

This story is one of freedom from oppression. The people's right to use their own language was one the things that was eventually taken from them. It might have been important therefore to show the audience that they actually had their own language.

An interesting film and well worth seeing for those interested in Scottish theme films. The comparison with Man of Aran is valid, in that it depicts an isolated island community struggling to eke out an existence.

What was missing for me was even a hint at the language these island people of "Hirta" would have spoken, Scottish Gaelic. The church scene with its psalm singing was executed better than in "The Little Minister", but still without making an effort to portray the real thing. The singing was in English, using a Lowland style and the precentor did not chant the line, but read it! They had clearly not visited any Highland churches before preparing the scene.

The documentary film, appended to this, "Return to the Edge of the World" was wonderful and I found it equally enjoyable.

An amazing document and well worth seeing.

It is strange to watch a classic documentary film on this brave community and not get a single chance to hear them speak one word in their own language (Irish Gaelic). The voice-overs were all in English, for the audience of course. But we would not have been harmed by even a smattering of dialog in Irish.

I also missed seeing a little more of domestic life. What did they eat, how did they cook, what was their religious life like? We see only the sea, the source of their existence, but not much of what they did beyond it.

Even those with criticism for the Cadfael series' inaccuracies and inconsistencies can't help but be avid admirers. The writing and performances are superb and Jacobi must surely be one of the most gifted actors alive on stage or screen.

It seems unnecessary that they had to go abroad to film the series. There must surely be a patch of forest left in Wales or the west of England that would have suited a film crew. It is also a shame that more actual Welsh actors had not been engaged for the series, even as extras or cameos. The location is in a traditionally Welsh region of Shropshire, so one should expect to hear Welsh being spoken by the abbey locals, if not the occasional cast member.

It is true some of the episodes did not work well, especially the incredible "Virgin in the Ice". "The Sanctuary Sparrow" is certainly one of the best due to the classical tragedy of the story. The series is accompanied well on American television by forewords and epilogues by Diana Rigg, usually with interesting trivia about the books, filming or historical background.

This played on Canada's CTS recently and I was glad to have the opportunity to see this rare piece of historical drama. I wonder how many other networks would play a movie about the trials and tribulations of the translator of the English Bible. This is a captivating story for those with an interest in the Bible, history and period films. If they made collectable superhero cards for translators, William Tyndale would be on one of them.

The dialog is well written and the performances are solid, fine English stage-type acting. Not Oscar award material but as watchable as any period stage drama I have seen.

This is one of those films that stays with you for many years. I saw it about 20 years ago and remember the powerful effect of this story of a minister who is sent to a west coast native Canadian village. He learns that he has much to learn from his hosts. Quiet, touching and inspirational tale.

Certainly one of the most memorable films I have seen and by far one of the best science fictions. Lowell may be unstable, but there is something in his character which many can relate to - the total sense of dismay and loss at the vast destruction our society and culture has brought on itself.

The soundtrack and Baez' theme songs stayed with me for well over a decade until I was able to find the soundtrack album and later a LaserDisc of Silent Running. The music was very appropriate to the dreamy quality of the film and the supreme idealism of the main character.

I credit this production with turning me on to Shakespeare, unfortunately at the end of my highschool career and not at the beginning. The performances are superb. Particularly memorable are Olivier and Diana Rigg. This production made the characters come to life for me in ways that previous Shakespeare productions on screen or stage had not.

It is difficult to imagine the producer choosing to run with such a poor script. The story of Bonnie Prince Charlie is well loved by so many and it deserved a good treatment. The script is uninteresting, the costumes are cheesy and the acting is bland, especially by David Niven as the Prince himself.

The story is not well put together. I barely knew I had witnessed the end of Culloden, one of Scotland's most famous battles and that the Prince has moved on to his flight into exile. The characters do not seem to be embodying their parts well. If you like battle re-enactments, it may be worth the checking out, but historical drama this is not (neither well-done history nor dramatic).

This film kept me thinking for days afterwards. A highly emotionally charged film, The Apostle is essentially a one-man tour de force for Duvall with an ensemble supporting cast. Duvall's performance was so convincing that had he performed this role live I'm sure he would have moved the whole audience to tears.

I resisted seeing this film at first expecting that it would be the usual tired, antireligious stereotype that late twentieth century script writers revel in. But The Apostle does not blindly follow any stereotypes. The premise is plausible and the realistic character portrayals give the viewer the feeling that they are right there in the story. This is a riveting tragic tale of a very flawed man who has the gift of inspiring others to better and greater things. Had Shakespeare been around today, he would have borrowed this storyline, but I doubt he could have done a better job.

It is a cautionary tale for anyone in a position of leadership. Somehow, despite the tragedy framing this story, I found it very uplifting. If you like a film with a message that prompts you to think, then see this movie.

Hmm, I wonder what happened at the end? I must have watched 6/8 of this film before washing the dishes seemed a more appealing chore. Many actors can perform convincingly in period films, but this cast did not convince me at all that they were anything but 1990s actors with 1990s dialog trying to look like people from the 1910s. The script was inane, leaving the viewer with only special effects for interest. In the very-near future, when high-tech special effects no longer dazzle audiences, this moneymaking venture will be re-evaluated. I'll give it a 2/10 in order to be fair to the special effects staff, who clearly labored the hardest on this film and deserve some credit.

Oscar-nominated for best short film the year it was released, this touching film in English and Irish Gaelic tells the story of young girl and her brother's survival in the Canadian wilderness. It is the nineteenth-century era of pioneer immigration. Father is some distance away and Mother and two children try to survive the first winter in the wilds.

The film shows the loneliness of that first year and the tragedy that often accompanied dispossessed peoples on arrival in the New World. The three characters in this ensemble piece rely on memories of their culture, stories and songs to cope with their new and strange environment. Some aspects of the film stretch one's belief, particularly the children's lone survival, but the acting is fine and the children play their roles endearingly and convincingly.

It is a rare but pleasant event to see Irish Gaelic in a Canadian film. The native language of Irish and Scottish Gaels is so often ignored in films concerning these cultures.

This film has had so much impact on our perception of things Scottish that it has even spawned its own new noun describing all things foolish, kitchy and stereotypical about Scotland and Scottish people - Brigadoonery. There are so many tourists who exit their protective buses in the Highlands expecting to see something like Brigadoon appear before them. The reality of the Scottish Highlanders' experience then and now was inordinately less idyllic than the frivolous portrayals of Hollywood admit.

Scottish Gaelic culture has so many wonderful stories that remain untold except to the few. If you're looking for some whimsy which respects Gaelic culture at the same time, have a look instead at "The Secret of Roan Inish" (Irish, but originally set in Scotland).

Despite my casting aspersions, I have to say that I loved the film growing up. It is a good family story and great fun for kids, as long as they can compare it to something more respectful.

The plot of Let It Be is as engrossing as any screenwriter could have created. Of course, some of the 'plot' of the film is superimposed by the viewer in hindsight, this being the swan song of the Beatles. The film opens with the heavy, ominous sounds of a classical piano piece played by Paul McCartney, highlighting the bleak landscape of the Abbey Road studio and foreshadowing the band's immanent demise. The rest of the cast join later, including Yoko Ono, who comes in an out of the picture from time to time. There is little positive interaction between the 'characters'. The most telling scene of this is the complete look of disinterest on John Lennon's face as he puffs on a cigarette while Paul (the optimist of the film) rehearses the raison d'etre of the Let It Be documentary project to him. Some of the players' tension is released when Billy Preston appears with heartfelt keyboard work and later when the rooftop concert begins, but another tension builds as the film comes to its climax. We listen to the concert's sounds bellow out over top busy city streets making police officers nervous. Negotiations take place to avoid trouble, but eventually the show must come to an end. It is true that the Beatles appear fatigued and certainly not in top form in this incredible documentary, but we are seeing four artists approach burn out at the end of a gruelling journey which they created but could no longer manage. In retrospect, it is indeed a very sad film to watch, because we know that the greatest rock 'n roll band is giving up its last breath. A film not to be missed (when it eventually becomes available), both for its music and its crafting.

The first scene, sometimes referred to as cavemen, Goths or Vikings in reviews seems more accurately to be ancient Celts. The language they speak is made of broken Scottish or Irish Gaelic. On the other hand, maybe it was Robin Williams who was the Celt and the marauders spoke broken Gaelic because it was foreign to them. Hmmm. Without more information (they are a fairly laconic lot) I would assume they are probably a rival tribe of fellow Gaelic-speaking Celts of Scotland or Ireland. This was a welcome tidbit at the beginning of the film and probably added to my enjoyment.

I appreciated the attempt to portray the ordinariness of life throughout the ages and I view the slowness of the film in this light. Life is often slow. These were interesting vignette-like character studies of one man who is never able to be completely in control of situations around him, but who perseveres.

What an inspirational show. Kwai Chang Kaine was certainly one of few role models I remember from TV in my younger years, and although I haven't seen it since it first played, like others I remember the stories and message (as well as the haunting theme music) from so many of the episodes. Kaine was rejected by many and accepted by only few or even one in each town he visited on his journey, but he always made a difference in the lives of those he met. It's true TV was just as much a wasteland in the '70s as it is in the '90s, but I wish we could see something as good as this again. Either that or a re-release of this one.

A brooding film in which one feels the angst of the retiring Irish hit-man (Patrick McGoohan) who foolishly agrees to do one last assassination. This quiet film is poignantly "narrated" by the gunman's estranged wife whose memories enter the story to provide a framework and background for the tragic figure and his family. Any "Prisoner" fan will see parallels between aspects of this plot and McGoohan's previous series: an agent who wants to give up his covert work but is not let off the hook so easily by his masters. The agent decides to leave anyway and is pursued relentlessly by his former bosses. In "The Hard Way" this pursuit takes us through rural Ireland to a dramatic showdown with Lee Van Cleef. An understated, interesting study, worth a look.

It is so often a fruitless pursuit to find a science fiction move that is truly "science" fiction. A very well-crafted film and the most satisfying for me since 2001: a Space Odyssey. Simple, well-designed special effects and a compelling story. Contact deals with so many issues and does it well: long-distance space travel, near-future science, religion, creation and how modern politics interplay with each of these. The astronaut selection committee's deliberations were relevant to any time period, especially when it came to the question of "Who should represent Earth to the aliens?" Faith in a Creator is part of most humans' daily existence. Unfortunately, the selection committee was duped the first time by a phony. We are left to make up our own minds at the end, which is part of the genius of the story. A fabulous film.

An eerie tale of love and deception set in the Scottish Highlands. Emma Thompson and Adrian Dunbar compellingly portray the roles of a troubled couple about to have their first child. The past, not only their own but that of a parallel couple from the past, become enmeshed through dream, reality and gossip.

The use of water imagery pervades this film from the blue mist at night to its tragic watery conclusion.

As this engaging short film is set in the Gaelic speaking Highlands of Scotland some attention to the indigenous language of this region would have assisted in credibility and continuity.

Who would have thought that the lives of a Welsh lifeboat crew could be so enthralling. Although the themes tended to be a bit on the soap opera side, with almost everyone involved in sordid affairs, the characters and plots were well developed and captivating to see every week. Some Welsh speaking characters would have enhanced this production.

As an Eilean is a creative blend of two stories, one a novel about an island loner and the other a short story about a young man's coming of age. It is a quiet, thoughtful Scottish film worthy of a look. For the first-ever feature-length film in Scottish Gaelic one must not be too harsh. My greatest problem with it was the quality of the sound production; the actors' voices were occasionally muffled and difficult to hear. Someone said that we all have a story to tell and that it is essential for us all to tell these our own stories and not cling to another culture's. As an Eilean was written by a Gael and is set in the Highlands among Gaelic-speaking people. So many of our stories are told for us through the medium of "American" or world pop culture, which really belongs to no one. This is an exception.

This film starts out as a fairly pedestrian look at youth culture. Interestingly, the film builds on the tension between the two main characters who meet by chance at a bar. As the night wears on, the male protagonist becomes more domineering in some subtle yet manipulative means. The films ending takes the viewer by complete surprise and leaves you wondering how an innocent chance meeting can turn so dark.

If you ever feel like giving up the rat-race of the city life and a hectic job, see this film. Ring of Bright water is a getting-away-from-it-all kind of movie set in the Gaelic-speaking Western Isles of Scotland. The busy London professional decides to take a broken-down croft house, fix it up, write and be creative. He accomplishes all these things but finds the friendship and love of a woman and as well as a dear otter. There are some scenes with Gaelic dialog to add reality to the film. The bittersweet end will bring a tear to even the most hardened big-business type. Great movie for a rainy day or a cozy evening - positive, uplifting.