Two Movie Rentals

Ghost Town (2008) is about a rude, antisocial dentist Bertram Pincus D.D.S (Ricky Geravais) whose life changes when he suddenly develops the ability to see ghosts all over Manhattan... dead people with unfinished business who need his help. Greg Kinnear plays a cheating husband who is suddenly struck dead, but in his remorseful ghost state wants to help his wife avoid a remarriage he is convinced is wrong. What follows is comic, touching and worth the rent. For a person who HATES films with ghosts in them, I was pleasantly surprised.

The Visitor (2008) is about a depressed economics professor from Connecticut who is coerced into going to the city to present a paper at a conference. He arrives at an apartment he and his late wife shared in NYC and is surprised to discover two illegal immigrants living there. He lets them stay for a few days until they find a place and in the process he gains new friends who begin to help him find purpose in a life he's lived by rote for far too long.

The films have little in common. The Visitor is far more bleak, but touching too. I'm not sure I'd watch it if you are having a "blue day." Ghost Town had a bit more of a comic element. I enjoyed them both. Next up... The Changeling and Frozen River.