I love that song.

AMDG

Added this one to my short list. Thanks, Janet!

My father's middle name was Torquil (an Anglicized version of Thorkil). I always thought it was rather an exotic choice.

I've never heard of this movie before, but it sounds great. I've actually been to Mull, briefly, and it will be fun to see it again.

It looks like Kiloran is a village on the island of Colonsay: here.

When we were in Scotland, we went to Mull en route to Iona, where we stayed for a few days. From Iona we also took a little boat ride to Staffa, an uninhabited island with some amazing rock formations. That was a great day. By the end of it I was encrusted with salt water.

We didn't get to Skye, or the Orkneys, but I'd love to go back someday and see them. Scotland is a beautiful country -- and very welcoming to one named Craig. I always felt right at home!

Craig, yes I mentioned it is Colonsay in the post. And the Lakers of Colonsay are named MacNeil under a variety of spellings. Like Torquil.

AMDG

I was thinking about that. :-)

AMDG

Yes!

AMDG

I watched it yesterday evening and I did enjoy it. I also enjoyed the video about Michael Powell, which I watched this morning. I looked him up on Wiki and realize I've got a checkered history with his films. I own the one where David Niven dies and goes to heaven - I believe I bought it when Mac wrote about it on here, and it's still in its cellophane box. I own Canterbury Tales, which I bought when someone raved about it in an article - I watched about half and found it dull. Likewise I somehow could not get into The Red Shoes - I think with that one I simply was not in the mood and didn't try. I'm going to retry that one. I have enjoyed One of our Aircraft is Missing (which I think Paul wrote about on here), and I also enjoyed Ill Met by Moonlight. Im going to have a shot at the David Niven one.

'I Know what I want' is a beautiful fairytale about choosing the olde ways over money. It was inspired to make Scottish lairds represent the olde ways, and have all those chaps standing around in their kilts.

Perhaps I bought the wrong one. The one I have bought is called A Matter of Life and Death- in America it was called 'Stairway to Heaven'. It is directed by Powell and stars Niven. Its about an airforce man who dies and goes to the next world, I believe. That's what it says on the box.

Hmm, I don't know that Niven one at all. Sounds interesting.

You must have a lot of dvds. I don't have enough that I need to organize them, although I did recently separate the Bergmans from the ones we have here for the grandchildren. They (the local ones) have watched the Tom and Jerry collection a dozen times.

I watched A Matter of Life and Death last night and really enjoyed it. Roger Livesay (Torquil from IKWIG) has a big role in the movie, and Raymond Massey puts in a short, but important performance at the end. It's worth watching even if just for the trial at the end of the film. It makes that dreadful mistake, though, that we have seen elsewhere, i.e. it pictures the afterlife as being black-and-white, while earth is technicolor.

AMDG

Im going to watch in a couple of hours.

Somewhere-or-other, I saw a review of Arrival that mentioned that it had echoes of Walker Percy, so I've been wanting to see it. We just got back from the movie, and it's going to be one of those movies that grow as I think about it. I really wish I could go back right now and watch it again. I'm going to write about it somewhere, but I doubt that there will be room for it in this series, and I wanted to recommend it while it's still in theaters.

AMDG

Hoping to see Arrival this week. Villeneuve is a good director. I've liked everything I've seen of his so far, and he's pegged to do the Blade Runner sequel, I think.

I saw it about a week ago. It is definitely one of those movies you want to watch again immediately knowing what you know at the end. I did enjoy it.

Yes, I did see it at the Crescent!

I've got 'I Know...' on its way to me from the library. Looking forward to it!

"I'm going to keep looking for films from this decade."

If you can find it do watch the 1948 film of 'The Winslow Boy.' It's excellent. Same with 'The Browning Version' from 1951. Both were based on Terence Ratigan plays and were directed by Anthony Asquith, who, I just discovered, did the 1939 'Pygmalion.'

We can probably think of many more from the period that we think are worth watching. But then, Lee Ann, you said this seemed different from other films of the period. Different how?

I think I'd prefer the 1948 version of The Winslow Boy because then I wouldn't have to watch Rebecca Pidgeon in one of the leading roles.

Me too. I don't know The Winslow Boy, though.

What's so bad about Rebecca Pidgeon? I have a music cd by someone of that name. Same person? It's pretty good, not great. I think I got it for a dollar somewhere.

She's David Mamet's wife and has been in most of his plays and films, I think. She's got this unbelievably wooden way of acting that I find both distracting and annoying. I'm one of those people greatly affected by the actors in something, and if they're "off" it ruins it for me. Very limiting, really. I believe she is also a singer, but I've never heard her.

In The Winslow Boy she played the boy's sister. The movie poster showing her is here.

And I just got back from seeing Arrival. It is very good, and very interesting. I won't say more as I know Rob at least is planning to see it.

There are a few factual things about Arrival that I'm puzzled about. I.e. questions about what actually happened. I can see why Janet wanted to watch it again immediately. Can't discuss it without committing spoilers.

We might need a spoilers post on this one after Rob sees it.

AMDG

Saw Arrival last night as planned -- very good indeed. It struck me afterwards that three of the better s/f films of the last couple years have had both parenthood and the nature of space/time as major plot elements: Arrival, Midnight Special, and Interstellar. I've seen MS a couple times already, but watching Arrival makes me want to see Interstellar again to "compare notes." And I think I'll probably want to see Arrival again too.

Oh, and one of the trailers was the first full one for Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall. It looks like House of Flying Daggers meets Tolkien. Which in Zhang's hands could be a very good thing!

I liked Midnight Special a lot.

AMDG

I think we did. It came out early this year, stars Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst as parents of a specially "gifted" child -- they're on the run from both the government and a religious cult. It's directed by Jeff Nichols, who did Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, and Mud.

We went to see Arrival again yesterday. It's only the second time I've gone to see a movie twice in the theater--except the first Beatles movie, but that was a different thing.;-)

I definitely saw some things I hadn't noticed before. And then, I had left to go to the restroom the first time around, and when I saw what I had missed--well, it was an important few minutes.

AMDG

Yes. SPOILER
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It reminded me too much of Tommowland.

AMDG

I watched Interstellar again over the weekend and liked it more the second time. This is no doubt partly because when I saw it in the cinema back in 2014 the sound system in the theater was so loud that the music and effects often overwhelmed the dialogue, which was very annoying. This time around I caught what I missed, and it made a difference.

I think the film is fantastic up till the end, when it loses its way a bit in what I think is too much of an effort to explain things. But it gains its power back at the very end, imo, and thus isn't spoiled. I think the acting is largely excellent, and the human element of the film quite moving in places.

I don't know 'Tomorrowland.' I read somewhere that Nichols had a bit of a dilemma on his hands in how to end 'Midnight Special.' He was doing what was in fact a sort of homage to 80's s/f films, but if he did a full-blown big Spielberg ending, like the one in 'Super 8,' critics probably would have complained, given the "small" nature of the rest of the film. On the other hand, in choosing a proportionally small ending, he risked the chance of people being "underwhelmed" and thus disappointed.

Personally, I think he made the right choice. For the film to be completely successful the ending would have to strike the perfect balance between the splashy and the quotidian, which would be a difficult feat. In my view he was right to err towards the "small" rather than the big and splashy (although no doubt the latter would have gained him bigger box office numbers.)

Well, I think what I didn't like was that it was just ugly. But that's probably a matter of taste.

I've never seen Matthew McConaughey in anything in which I liked him so well as I did in Interstellar.

I think another element that is in the three movies you mentioned, Rob, is the nature of communication--how it succeeds and how it fails.

AMDG

I've put up a post for the spoilers-allowed discussion of Arrival. I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to watch Interstellar, because it's almost 3 hours long. I would watch it in 1-hour chunks by myself but my wife wants to see it, too, and she's not so keen on that.

Finally watched 'I Know Where I'm Going!' last night. It was different than what I thought it was going to be (I had expected something a little more Ealing-ish) but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless!

Watched this earlier this evening. Very enjoyable film, and the camerawork in the storm is some of the best I've seen for giving an impression of movement in a heavy sea.