The Titanic doesn't need a love story to be interesting. It doesn't need Hollywood stars. All the essential conflict, irony, and notoriety are all inherent in the legend of the Titanic itself.

The task, therefore, is: how does one dramatize a legend that everyone knows? A Night to Remember does so by stripping it down the bare facts - the night, the chilling cold, a trolley quivering in a lavish restaurant, a little boy screaming for his mother, the ice…

It turns out I tend to like Hayao Miyazaki far better when his stories adhere more closely to a traditional Western format. I'm not sure exactly why that is - a cultural preference, I suppose (but odd, as I've enjoyed Kurosawa and Ozu films, even when unorthodox).

In any case, Porco Rosso is an absolutely lovely film, bursting with imagination and a painterly eye for cinema. It relies rather too heavily on a few over-worn Hollywood cliches to create its…