Twelve Films At Christmas - 1 & 2

Sometimes you watch a film and find it perfectly pleasing in a passing and impermanent sort of a way, and then you find yourself wondering why they bothered. I'm afraid that is how I feel about the 2016 reboot of Swallows and Amazons. The books on which it is (loosely) based are precious to me. Arthur Ransome may well have been a funny sort of a cove (certainly his toleration of communist Russia doesn't read too well in retrospect - mind you 20/20 hindsight is a cheap virtue) but he was a damned fine writer of children's fiction and operated in an innocent age. The books warrant adult re-reading. There already exists a perfectly serviceable 1974 film version which sticks to the source novel. So why shoe-horn into this more recent offering a hokey plot involving muderous Russian spies? Daft and a disservice to the source text. 56/100.

And now for something altogether grander. Realised on a thrilling scale and, yes I'm going to say it, up there in discusssions as to the greatest films ever made (quite certainly amongst the greatest ever made in Britain) we have A Matter of Life and Death. No doubt you have seen it already but, if not, watch out for it at Christmas (it's usually on) and treat yourself. Fast-paced, brilliantly played, romantic, clever and, in its colour sequences, sumptuous. A genuinely great movie. 93/100.