What The Old Know But The Young Do Not Guess

Let me do something unusual - I will defer to my betters. The Groupie and I watched the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at the weekend - you can find it on iPlayer. This is a genuinely great film, all the more admirable for having been produced in the middle of World War II. As great a man as Winston Churchill objected to its premiss. Churchill was wrong. It laments the passing of chivalry. I won't spoil it by divulging the plot but will quote Roger Ebert (that better I was referring to) whose eloquence nails it:

It is said that the child is father to the man. 'Colonel Blimp' makes poetry out of what the old know but the young do not guess. The man contains both the father, and the child.

93/100. Nuff said. And now for something completely different. Ron Howard is a proficient director who would have made a tidy living and earned repute back in the old studio days. If you want to see his handiwork at its best, take Apollo 13, a movie that communicates tension even though we cannot but know the happy ending. But consider also his Inferno - the third instalment of the Dan Brown toshathon. The plot is absurd to the nth degree, just as its precursors, The Da Vinci Code, and Angels and Demons. In Inferno, Howard again has the services of the master actor, Tom Hanks. What they together fashion is a diverting piece of hokum, well-suited to a Sunday afternoon when you don't want to tax the old grey matter too much. It is product rather than art. 59/100.