Predecessors

John Podhoretz (whose taste I don't trust) is turning cartwheels over Ron Howard's latest, Cinderella Man. I'll check it out, but the trailer wasn't much--Seabiscuit with a boxer.

Scarier, he says Howard is this generation's William Wyler. Wyler was a tasteful Hollywood director who made many award-winning "classics," few of which move me. He's not bad--I like him better than the even more tasteful Fred Zinneman, for instance--but when his stuff is on TCM, I rarely make a point of catching it.

No, better Howard be this generation's someone else. Who, though? He's too sincere to be Billy Wilder. Too sentimental to be Howard Hawks. Too contemporary to be John Ford. Too commercial to be Orson Welles. Ron Howard, at his best, has humor, heart and a spark of humanity that set him apart. If he's got to be anyone, let him be our Frank Capra.