What the hell Downton Abbey?

Short Round is actually considering not watching the fourth season next winter.

Remember those scenes from Fahrenheit 451 where the wife character presses herself on her other, digital family? That is what just happened at the Osterhaus. Except there was a quorum of the family declaring such things about the Grantham family.

Seriously, who writes such great drama that our particularly cynical family actually removes themselves communally from reality on any regular basis to care about the fates of fictional characters?

That's my review. The whole thing. That is how good it is. 

Porco Rosso

I heard there was a sequel coming out for this. Not even from a living, breathing person, but from the reliable quorum of IMDB! I heard it was for last year! I love this movie. I have watched it, without doubt, more than any other movie.

Of course, nothing will ever compare with Gone with the Wind, but this is like the training wheels version of Casablanca; the merits of it being so I'll dictate later. In this little space of rant I'd like to pose the idea of another movie with these characters, a prequel.

Rarely would a prequel ever ever work for a movie. The meet-cutes would just lose their punch because you know the real deal is coming. Like How I Met Your Mother. The whole damn thing is a prequel. You'll never get to the climax, and if you ever do it'll be the biggest let down -- you haven't bonded with the real star, so you'll never accept them as a part of your own comfy, beloved.

Even for Casablanca, which basically begs for a prequel, can you imagine that romance being at all fulfilling knowing how it is doomed?

Porco Rosso, however, has the unique perspective of presenting a romantic characters not only in a pleasantly conflicted yet hopeful situations, but  it ends without resolve (hence the excitement for a sequel). On that point, it's just like Gone with the Wind. Not like Gone with the Wind, the historical fiction is very fictional, and childlike. It will adapt to having a sequel, because the bar is set to an achievable level. No sequel to GwtWwill ever live up to that splendor and wanting. The wanting, in fact is the whole thesis. PR's thesis is pure entertainment, and if that entertainment can be continued, we fans will like experiencing, and because of the level of fiction/story, Studio Ghibli won't have too difficult a time delivering.

On the other side, PR has two killer flash back scenes. Their presentation is brilliant for various reasons, but for the argument for a prequel they are brilliant for the amount of hopeful conflict they present.

There are at least three love stories presented. Only one is resolved in the flashback. There's a death. There's a definite posse with complicated interpersonal drama. There's this whole movie to show life goes on after that drama, and that the drama continues to exist in the present, and has potential to sustain itself well into the future.

Add to that the setting, of the first ever pilots experimenting with airplane design. The characters are bros like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with one chick sidekick like April. On the grand scale, these characters are fighting the first wars with planes. On the small town, micro scale individuals are in the midst of a clash between socialism and libertarianism. Fraught with physical peril, heroism, and then inexplicable magic transformation of man to pig, there is ripe territory for an audience drenched in adventure fantasy to dig in.

I want a whole movie or mini series following the meeting of Gina, Piccolo, Marco, Belrini, and all the little people they meet. They're young enough at the beginning that their parents could betroth one another, or forbid them associating with whichever appears most nefarious in any given adventure. There's innocent love and experimental kissing. The inevitable first crash in the open sea, stranded on an island. the character development of honor. Building up why we can never believe wrong of Marco, the inevitable turning of one of their party who joins the fascists and gets killed. The righteous anger there-associated.... I could go on. Give me the money for the time, and I totally will.

In the mean time, I just keep watching it and keep to myself how Marco becomes Porco and how Ferrali betrays his best friend. How Piccolo fathers a string of mediocre engineers but political geniuses, and how Fio is the ultimate last great hope for the Adriatic.