The African Queen tells the unlikely quest of a riverboat captain (Humphrey Bogart) and an English missionary (Katherine Hepburn), who join together to blow up a German warship during World War I. The film's got a little bit of everything, some comedy, tragedy, romance, and action. The acting is great--Bogart and Hepburn carry the film just by themselves for over an hour (though I'm not much of a Katherine Hepburn fan). I loved the cinematography, even though it's very apparent that it was filmed in a studio. They use clips of a variety of animals--lions, crocodiles, elephants, antelope--which must have been pretty thrilling to audiences at the time. I'm getting a little bored of 50s movies with their predictable happy endings, but it's a nice story and I still enjoyed it. 7.5/10
Nashville (a musical comedy?) follows the lives of a number of people leading up to a political convention in Tennessee. The huge cast of main characters is hard to keep track of, and most of them aren't very interesting anyways. It's got a lot of country music (of which I'm also not a fan). Based on this film and MASH, I don't much like Robert Altman's directing. Several times I considered stopping it and not finishing it. Some people might find this film funny, but I wasn't one of them. 4/10
The French Connection is a crime drama following two New York City narcotics detectives trying to uncover a drug deal involving the French. Gene Hackman plays Detective Popeye Doyle, whose interesting methods and investigative hunches make him a successful but controversial officer. He puts on a great performance. And there's an epic car/train chase, arguably one of the best ever filmed. Other than that, I found the film a little slow and I didn't like the ending. Still, a classic and revolutionary film. 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment