Friday, February 04, 2005

Alec Guinness

My wife and I watched Kind Hearts and Coronets tonight, starring, among others, the great Alec Guinness. I think if you watched absolutely anything else he has done, you will learn to appreciate why people think it's sad he's mostly remembered for Star Wars. It was a surprisingly enjoyable film. It was obvious the story was well written and Sir Alec was almost showing off by creating and portraying eight different convincing characters. It was funny, but more in a Shakespearean kind of way. More like the in-between Shakespeare-and-now kind of funny.

An even more enjoyable film is Sir Alec's The Ladykillers, where he's wonderfully effective, and so is good old reliable Herbert (Going Bananas) Lom. This is a wonderful film, and is much smoother than what the Coen brothers' attempted with their 2004 remake. I urge you to see it.

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