Ghost Town (2008)

"The dead have a lot of unfinished business, which is why we're still here."

Socially awkward, curmudgeonly dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) demands a general anesthetic when he goes to the hospital to have a colonoscopy. On his way home, he is suddenly being followed by dead people who are incredulous that Pincus can see them. Pincus can't begin to fathom why he is seeing dead people until his surgeon (Kristen Wiig) tells him that during the medical procedure, he died for fully seven minutes before being revived. Pincus is stuck between the living and the dead.

Several of the dead want Pincus to carry messages for him to their living family and friends because they cannot leave this earth with unfinished business. But Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) beats out all the other NYC ghosts who have unfinished business in getting Pincus to do a favor for him.

Herlihy is disturbed by the fact that his widow Gwen (Téa Leoni) is now engage to Richard (Bill Campbell), a human rights attorney and professional do-gooder. Herlihy wants Pincus to run interference and break up this relationship.

Dana Ivey is also in the cast as an elderly ghost who needs a message taken to her daughter to settle a misunderstanding.

Co-written and directed by David Koepp.

Run time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual humor and drug references.

My personal rating: B-

Broken English (2007)

Attractive and successful in her career as a concierge in a top NYC hotel, Nora Wilder (Parker Posey) is left with a lingering emptiness. She longs for what her friend Audrey (Drea de Matteo) has -- a husband (Tim Guinee).

Nora's pushy mother (Gena Rowlands) desperately wants grandchildren and nags Nora to settle down already as Nora's step-father (Peter Bogdanovich) watches on benignly.

But Nora's life is a series of disappointments and one-night stands, punctuated with a huge exclamation point in the form of an actor, Nick Gable (Justin Theroux) who makes Nora feel that this could really be "the one." But again, her hopes are dashed when she realizes she's been used.

Finally, a French charmer, Julien (Melvil Poupaud) comes into her life but Nora is so gun-shy, she has trouble trusting and the thought of this relationship being real sends her into high anxiety. Though he seems sincere, Nora can't trust enough and is, once again, alone.

With friend Audrey's marriage crumbling, Nora and Audrey head off for a holiday in Paris. Can this be the adventure Nora needs to muster herself to accept who she is and have the confidence to follow up the previous "French connection"?

Roy Thinnes, Dana Ivey and William Wise have small roles.

Written and directed by Zoe R. Cassavetes. who follows in her father's footsteps in independent filmmaking.

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content, brief drug use and language.

My personal rating: C+

The Impostors (1999)

Quirky Zany Frenzied

If you enjoy madcap romps like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way the Forum, Noises Off, Some Like It Hot, almost anything by Mel Brooks, the Road To... movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one.

The film starts in NYC in the 1930s with two out-of-work actors (Stanley Tucci, Oliver Platt) practicing for roles they’ll never get and trying to scam food. When they insult a pretentious Shakespearean actor Sir Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina), they find themselves running for their lives and hiding on board a ship. When they wake up in the morning, the ship – an ocean liner – is preparing to debark.

Of course they’re not going to get off the ship in time because they’ve got big work to do coming face to face again with the pompous actor plus a Nazi ship’s staff director (Scott Campbell), the compassionate and lovely social director (Lili Taylor), a Russian terrorist (Tony Shalhoub), the ship’s lovelorn captain (Richard Jenkins), a deposed queen (Isabella Rossellini), an endangered sheik (Teagle F. Bougere), an impoverished grande dame (Dana Ivey, who flat out startled me in her similarity to Maggie Smith), and her plain and shy daughter (Hope Davis), an egocentric gay athlete (Billy Connolly), a suicidal singer (Steve Buscemi), a neurotic casting agent (Woody Allen), and several others.

Whew! All that in under two hours!

Written, produced and directed by Stanley Tucci.

Rated R for some language.

My personal rating: B