Two Good Movies
Yesterday Henry and I watched two very good movies. First was Murder on the Orient Express, the one with the all-star cast including Albert Finney, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York (Basil Exposition!), and many other faces you’d certainly recognize. I’d seen it years ago and of course read the book so I knew whodunnit, and Henry guessed before the end. We prefer David Suchet to Albert Finney as Poirot, but Finney was plenty good enough. I thought Ingrid Bergman was stunning in every one of her scenes. She’s truly an amazing actress. The only thing I don’t like about that movie is the goofy, annoying soundtrack, especially in the “train rushing through the snowy countryside” scenes. Ugh. But other than that, a fine and very entertaining movie!
Then, in the evening, we watched the 1990 Hamlet starring Kevin Kline (my name is Otto, it means “eight”) as Hamlet. It was very good. Though I found a lot of the cast competent but unremarkable, Kevin Kline was excellent and practically carried the whole play. What a great actor he is! Gertrude and Horatio were also strong and convincing but Ophelia was ghastly. We turned her down. We were more-or-less gripped for three solid hours. Hooray for Shakespeare!