How Richard Kelly uses music is actually really interesting once you watch his films a few times... You realize that he actually writes the scene around the music and lyrics. He does it several times in Donnie Darko (only really noticable in the Director's Cut after he moved around some songs and added more to fit his original vision) and to a lesser extent in Southland Tales (a real "love it or hate it" movie). If you have the director's cut of DD, watch the opening bicycle scene and listen to the lyrics... It's an interesting take on how to incorporate music into a film. It comes off as too literary at times, but it has a fun effect at others.

I agree on Euro films. I used to love them but find myself watching less and less of them as time passes. On the upside, it's interesting to see how some of them have adapted to moving to Hollywood and working on English-speaking films (Tom Tykwer, for example). The English film business has really taken off with Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn, and a few others so that's a real plus (just watched L4yer Cake last night, OMG at the "Ordinary World" scene in the diner).