Thirst

Last night I watched a Korean movie from 2009 called Thirst, directed by Park Chan-Wook. It tells the story of a priest (Song Kang-ho) who works at a hospital and volunteers for a medical experiment to cure a painful and fatal disease, a process which involves him being infected by the disease and a series of blood transfusions. The priest becomes the only one out of five hundred volunteers to survive the experiment, however he finds that there are strange side effects as his senses are heightened to an incredible degree, he has supernatural strength, speed and agility and can instantly heal from any injury. However, sunlight burns his skin and the only way to prevent the disease coming back is by drinking human blood. He also starts up an affair with the wife of a friend of his. The film is hugely stylish and swings between gruesome horror, philosophical musings, romance and bizarre dark comedy. It's another entry in the kind of vampire romance genre but it is gorier, funnier, stranger and more inventive than many. Also the vampires neither sparkle nor play baseball.

It was yet another very dull and ordinary day at work. After work I went to the cinema where I met my Mum and we saw the movie Up In the Air, directed by Jason Reitman. The film stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a man who works for a company which is hired by employers to fire their employees for them. So he travels back and forth across the USA firing people, feeling at home only in airports, planes and hotels. However his solitary travelling life is threatened when his company brings in a young woman (Anna Kendrick) who has the idea of the company firing people via live video feed over the internet. Bingham takes her on the road with him to show her what his job really involves. It is a very funny movie, and very intelligent, moving and thought-provoking. After the movie we went along to my parent's house for something to eat.

One thing that I did find quite interesting about Up In the Air was that George Clooney's secondary job was as a motivational speaker. I know a lot of people are terrified about speaking in public, but for me it is one of the very few things that I actually do well, and I actually enjoyed doing it.