I dunno, I think your opinion on Gosling vs. McConaughey could change on that once The Dallas Buyers Club comes out.

You could say that about anything that hasn't happened yet.

Das Boot (The Boat), 1981, a West Germany movie about a fascist submarine caught in Atlantic war in 1941/2. Watched it two nights ago and still can't understand how this claustrophobic fiick kept my attention for almost five hours. According to wikipedia the actors spent months on location, so their growing exhaustion as film progresses is no makeup. Great movie, IMHO.

Today I watched Spirited Away of all things. A friend of mine nagged me to watch it for ages and lent me the DVD the other day, so I figured I'd give it a go. I've made a few rather negative comments about generic anime in the past but to call this generic would be a big fat lie because it's really quite brilliant. Well-written, well-animated, well-dubbed and altogether very well-rounded. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to anyone, even someone who hates everything remotely Japanese.

If you liked that, check out Princess Monoke. It's by the same director, Hayao Miyazaki, and it's even better. Miyazaki is a ****ing genius, and just about everything he touches is gold.

I've got two Japanese films on DVD which I've never watched, Spirit in the Shell and Blood the Last Vampire. They came with a magazine.

I'm assuming that's Ghost In the Shell (or at least that's what it's generally translated as)? If so, stop typing, and go watch it, and Blood the Last Vampire. They both rule, and are in no way Naruto/Bleach/Inu Yasha/etc/etc/etc style anime stereotypes.

Will do, there's nothing on TV tonight.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...RVKE_WODWceF2F
This is from Columbia of all places who are not really known for their film output but what a great little film. Shot on a shoestring budget on location on top of a mountain, it oozes menace and atmosphere.

A group of soldiers have to secure a military outpost but find it deserted with evidence of mass slaughter there but only have a woman bricked behind a false wall guarded by superstitious paraphernalia as the only witness to what went on and she isn't talking.

Refreshingly free of clichéd dialogue and exposition, it is a superbly shot film and has more in common with the film Session 9 than traditional Horror. No stupid shocks, twists or excessive gore to drive the film forward, it instead relies on acting chops and atmosphere as the soldiers slowly disintegrate into internal madness and desperation.

The film doesn't provide any definitive answers as to what went on and is all the more rewarding for it. Proof again that throwing money at a film doesn't always produce the goods.

That's his movie that's stuck with me the most, and I don't know if it's because it was my first Miyazaki movie, or if it just resonates with everything I was hoping for at that moment. In either case, I have a rule now where I buy a Miyazaki movie if I find it at the store, budget be damned!

Anyhow I watched this the other night.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...sleeppromo.jpg

On my roommate's projector and high quality speakers, whilst laying on her bed stoned out of my mind. Some of the dream sequences really grooved with the way I was, and the story was still pretty easy to follow despite all the wackiness and my inebriated state. Still didn't completely blow me away though, at least in the way I was expecting given how many people I know have hyped on about it. Overall though a very enjoyable film and one of the easier "foreign" movies to get into if you're new to them, because there's a lot of English and Spanish in the movie as well as French. The guy was a complete tool though.