Why were four men (two of them uncredited) necessary for creating the script for The African Queen (1951)—an adaptation of a novel yet? I don’t know, but no wonder the script is so palatable. One of the writers, John Huston, did some soundly inspired directing of the film, and of the actors. Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, both sublime, play good people—one a riverboat operator, the other a missionary—in Africa as WWI commences.

The force and threat of a big river is a nifty subject in this entertaining adventure. What’s more, the movie is a terrific travelogue of nature as filmed in such places as Lake Albert and Murchison Falls in Uganda. Pleasingly, the shots of animals—lions, hippos, crocodiles—for which yesterday’s Hollywood didn’t have much patience are offered respectfully in Queen.

The demolition in Jamie Quatro‘s story, “Demolition,” is that of a church.

After Corbett Earnshaw, a deaf eccentric, visits the church one Sunday morning, the stained glass windows start breaking up of their own accord. Through a helpful boy’s sign language, Earnshaw declares to the congregation that he does not believe in Christianity. He has other beliefs. By and by, church members sympathetic to Earnshaw allow a wrecking crew to come and raze the church. What it all symbolizes is the superseding of Christianity in American history by strange, heretical religion. Earnshaw becomes a cult leader.

In light of this, it is no surprise when Quatro makes mention of Victorian Spiritualists in 1885. It is thought-provoking that Earnshaw rejects the concept of sin and has apparently led his cult followers to value “authenticity” (so beloved in the modern world). This, says the narrator, is “Our unnamed longing, revealed.” Of course sex is a big part of the picture. In fact, the cultists regard sex and stillness as sacrosanct, even as their growing children begin to quietly rebel against the cultists’ primitive living.

Quatro is a true artist, the penetratingly written “Demolition” possibly the most artistic fiction about heretical religion ever produced.

Does the Woody Allen picture, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), deserve the warm reaction provided by many of the reviewers? I’m afraid not, despite its being somewhat superior to other Allen items.

This is primarily because of the premise: “Two friends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture” (imdb.com). The two friends (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) are American and visiting Catalonia; the painter (Javier Bardem) is a naughty lover boy. The girls are not boring, as I think the painter is, but everyone here is so blasted morally weak the film loses plausibility. Hall’s Vicky, for example, begins to love Bardem more than her amiable new husband. The painter’s ex-wife (Penelope Cruz), believed by some to be a “genius,” is emotionally weak, at the end jealously wielding a pistol. When the pistol goes off, the bullet strikes Vicky’s hand but seems not to cause her any genuine pain, which is nonsense.

As ever, much of the dialogue is pathetically bad, and the successful acting of the principal players would be easier to appreciate if the characters were a bit more than Allen’s puppets. We see him, not them. At least there are some great shots of Barcelona, but it is not enough.

In Like Crazy, from 2011, Felicity Jones is natural and likable in the role of Anna, an English girl attending college in Los Angeles. Anton Yelchin is graceful and credible as Jacob, the American student she is quickly attracted to. She wants to know him, a love affair is born. Themes include long-distance relationships, the testing of the heart, fear and uncertainty when a marriage partner is not fully known or understood. As it happens, Anna deliberately overstays her visa in America to avoid betraying, in a way, herself and Jacob but, later in the film, there are other actions which flatly feel like betrayals to both of them.

LC is a pretty decent film, especially if one has not seen an abundance of romantic dramas. Directed with too many fancy touches by Drake Doremus, its astute screenplay was co-written by him and Ben York Jones. Nudity is absent and profane talk is kept at a minimum. (Sex is another matter.) Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead are notably savvy as Anna’s parents.

Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011) is not quite as good as his Sideways (2005), but better than all his other films.  It partly concerns when the knowledge about other people ineluctably oppresses the heart and mind, and when such knowledge is withheld for other people’s good.  Adapted from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, it is superbly put together with smart, appealing cinematography, compassion without heavy pathos, and acting that deepens the proceedings.  This last emanates from George Clooney, Beau Bridges, Shailene Woodley and a splendid Judy Greer.

(The photo is of Alexander Payne.)

Image by Pink Cow Photography via Flickr