I watched From Up on Poppy Hill(2011 in Japan, 2013 in North America) and The African Queen(1951) the other day.
From Up on Poppy Hill - Very enjoyable, it holds the standard I've more or less come to expect from Studio Ghibli, and the soundtrack is amazing! The inclusion of period-appropriate (1960s!) music helped. If I have one criticism I'd say it very quickly turns into an 80s film, if that makes sense. It kinda had the standard "a bunch of kids band together to save something" plot that I notice seemed to be popular in the 80s and 90s.
As for The African Queen, well, it's considered a classic for a reason. The acting is wonderful, the location is gorgeous, it even manages to be in colour! The accents are kinda silly sounding though, and I don't know who had the idea to try to pass Bogie off as a Canadian, but it... didn't work. I very much enjoyed this movie though. Still... they make a movie called "the African Queen", actually go to the trouble to film it in Africa, in Technicolor no less (I saw a picture of what the cameras used to look like, they're ENORMOUS)... and they make it about two white people. I can't help but feel there's a missed opportunity in there somewhere. Then again, it was adapted from a novel, so I dunno.