"Into the Wild", directed Penn

Movie, 2007

Story of society drop out who graduates form college, then bums across the USA before ending up leading a mouth to hand existence in an old school bus in Alaska. A mixture of uplifting frontier anti-establishment action and some more toe-curing material every now and again, of the primacy and spirituality of the individual. Overall, pretty good, although could perhaps have benefited from a little more rigorous editing. A true story, so some nice steers away from the bleedin' obvious avenues the plot may have dived into.

Poster - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11893732

"30 Days of Night", directed David Slade

Movie, 2007

Edgy vampire horror set in Arctic Alaska, in which a Neil Tennant lookalike leads a gang of vampires against a small town's dogs, its police station and then anything else living. There are some decent concepts within this set up, but the film never fully makes the leap from a series of set pieces in which evil usually triumphs over good and various characters crack under pressure. While the vampire characters are pretty menacing, they're not fully convincing and speak in a funny, made-up language. Entertaining if you can stand the gore.