Unfortunately there was a blogger/blogspot glitch as I was trying to enter this post, so in order to read it please go to the "first comment" which is where it is posted.
Speaking of comments, I would definitely appreciate some comments on this post especially as it is a review and I am curious if it inspired anyone to check into these movies.
Carmen
Again today this will be, of neccessity, a smaller post. The reasons are the same as usual. In a hurry to get going and didn't do this earlier when I should have. Bad Carmen. LOL.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, today I am going to do a, hopefully brief, dual review of the movies Stranger Than Fiction and Ghost Town. Which both came out within the last several years, I believe.
Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni was the first one I watched. Stranger Than Fiction stars Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Dustin Hoffman & Emma Thompson.
I decided to do a review of these two movies together as I thought they had a little in common. Maybe it's just my imagination, though.
Imagination is in fact what the common thread in these two movies is, I think. Both have "unrealistic" premises. Well, more unrealistic than most.
Ghost Town is about a misanthropic dentist, Bertram Pincus (Gervais) who hates dealing with people. Unfortunately, through a unfortunate circumstance that befalls him, he not only starts seeing ghosts but they inundate him with requests for help in the living world.
Greg Kinnear plays one of, in fact the main, ghost. Tea Leoni is Kinnear's widow who Gervais falls in love with. I have always been a fan of Greg Kinnear (I have liked Ricky Gervais as well ever since being acquainted with his work) but Tea Leoni was never a favorite.
In this movie though I must say she was good enough in her role (some critics did not agree at all!) that I didn't mind that she was in the movie.
Stranger Than Fiction is an atypical Will Ferrell movie. I have not seen many Will Ferrell movies but do know that he generally does not play things this straight.
That is most definitely for the best as the story is "unrealistic" enough already. That said, it's easy enough to get into and it definitely works.
Basically, Ferrell's character is a pretty regimented, a bit sad fellow that one day (very early in the story, in fact almost immediately) starts hearing voices.
More specifically, it's a single voice that he hears that does nothing other than (annoyingly, more about that later) narrates his movements, no matter how small.
He finds out (also very quickly) that he is about to die from this voice. Fast forward a bit in the movie and he meets both the MG & DH characters who are instrumental in helping him either live his life more fully (MG) or find the "author" behind the voice (DH).
What both these movies had in common, besides the "unrealistic" premise, is they both "worked" in spite of that (for me anyway), and for not the least of reasons because they were both very sweet & heart-warming and had rather unusual ways (again, I thought so anyway) of getting to the inevitable conclusions.
Finally, being both sweet and heartwarming, they both I will admit brought a least a tear or two to my eye. LOL. In short, definitely worth watching. In fact, I would even suggest watching them in short order to see if you agree that they have at least a feel to them that is the same.
As to which I preferred, I think it is a real toss up although if forced to pick I think it would probably be Ghost Town. One scene, in Stranger Than Fiction (I won't tell you which so as not to ruin it) makes me wonder about that though.
Well, that's it for today. Hope you enjoyed my little foray into movie reviewing for what is only about the second time I think. I certainly hope I have encouraged some of you to see either or, better yet, both of these movies. I don't think you will regret it.
Carmen