I saw a wonderful movie today. It is in no way a movie for everyone, but I think some of my friends (Lydia, Ruth, and Renee) might enjoy it. It has not been pushed in advertising much, so I wanted to put it here... if anyone still checks this. It is called Spirited Away. It is a Japanese anime movie, but the quality is much higher than most of the Japanese anime that I have seen. Since it is in this genre there is some interesting beliefs and characters. But it was really neat to see those beliefs on the screen too. Here is a synopsis of the film... off of www.imdb.com. It gives away a ton of the story- sorry.

Chihiro and her family are on their way to their new house in the suburbs when her father decides to take a shortcut along a lonely- looking dirt road. After getting out of the car and walking along a path for a while, they discover an open-air restaurant filled with food but with no workers or customers present. Mom and Dad don't hesitate to sit down and dig in, but Chihiro senses danger and refuses. As night falls, she is terrified to see the area fill with faceless spirits, but when she runs to find her parents, she discovers that they have been turned into pigs. She is found by a mysterious boy named Haku, who promises to help her. He gets her a job working in a nearby building, which turns out to be a spa hotel for the thousands of Japan's gods and spirits. Though the work is hard and the people strange, she does as well as she can. Her parents, however, are still waiting in the hotel's stockyard, and Chihiro must find a way to break the spell on them before they end up as the main course of some guest's dinner.