It's funny, Totoro, because although I can see that you enjoyed most of these P&P films, just as I did, you ended up on the other side of most of them from me. The one I couldn't get my emotions around was Black Narcissus-- it just seemed too cold and distant for a film that speaks of uncontrolled emotions. And it is mostly because of the performances of the two leading women-- one being unbelievably reserved and the other unbelievably setting caution to the wind.
A Canterbury Tale shouldn't directly be compared to the book, I think. And the "glue man" is a red herring. The real issue is how all of these lives reach a climax at Canterbury-- they were all on a pilgrimage, but they didn't know it. The interesting background to the characters turn out to be significant in the end. I felt that it put the whole movie on its head and did so brilliantly. This might be my favorite story from the P&P I've seen so far.
I really need to see The Red Shoes again. I absolutely loved it, but I am not sure if I did a Saving Private Ryan and claimed to love the whole movie because of one long sequence-- in this case the ballet. I love how it all fit together and the color, but was the ending too predictable? I need to see how I feel about it a second time around.
As far as Colonel Blimp-- you do know that the title of the film is from comic strip, to which it bears almost no resemblance, right?-- it may be a mess, but it is a brilliant mess. A genius of a mess. I am tired of biopics that treat a life as nice and neat, fitting into compartments and tied up with a ribbon at the end. This is the first one that we can see the full messiness of a life-- the stupidity, the romance, the friendships, the disappointments, the glories-- all mixed up together as it really is. Although fictional, it seemed more real than any other biography I've seen. I wouldn't change it an ounce.