dean spanley Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Death is ever present at the Toronto International Film Festival, both in the movies and in the eyes of the patrons dragging themselves to 9 a.m. screenings after a night of partying. Plenty of films treat the subject seriously -- you are never far from an indie drama in which someone mourns someone else's death -- but it's played for laughs quite a bit, too.

Ghost Town does the best job of it so far, neatly toying with the Sixth Sense model and finding plenty of comedy in people who see dead people. It stars Ricky Gervais as Bertram Pincus, a curmudgeonly dentist who, after a near-death experience, finds that he can see and hear the many ghosts who wander Manhattan. The comic twist: He hates people, dead or alive, and has no interest in helping anyone finish their unfinished business.

His most persistent dead acquaintance is Frank (Greg Kinnear), an adulterous jerk who wants to prevent his widow, Gwen (Tea Leoni), from remarrying. Pincus agrees to interrupt her new relationship solely because he has a crush on her himself, and that's good enough for Frank.

There's an awful lot going on here -- fulfilling dead people's requests, breaking up a romance, and learning to love humanity comprises a busy agenda for one character, and Ghost Town could stand some trimming and toning. But it's often hilarious, too, primarily because of Gervais' fine-tuned snark and misanthropy. If the film is little more than his attempt to break out of the "cult following" category and find mainstream American success, more power to him. He deserves it, and Ghost Town is an auspicious start.

Ghost Town's premise is supernatural but reasonably familiar to filmgoers. Somewhat more bizarre is Dean Spanley, a wonderfully charming and whimsical comedy about an Anglican priest who believes he is the reincarnation of a dog.

I've got yet more proof that Peter O'Toole has been replaced by a robot. The man is in his mid-70s, and after steadily doing a few projects here and there for years, he's taking on a cajillion, million roles. I seriously don't know where he's finding the energy, but now he's added another film to the roster, and possibly another chance at that little, elusive statue. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that O'Toole will join his Tudors co-stars Jeremy Northam and Sam Neill, along with Australia's Bryan Brown, in a new film called Dean Spanley. It's almost like someone was watching that show and figured they'd just cast from there, rather than go through the effort of a long search.

The feature is going to be the sophomore effort of Toa Fraser, who got the World Cinema Audience Prize at Sundance for his first film, No.2. Written by Rob Roy scribe Alan Sharp, THR describes it as a film: "Set in Edwardian England, where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Spanley reveals just how deep an Englishman's love for his dog can go." Yeah, so the beginning sounds so very O'Toole, but I'm not sure what's up with the whole dog twist. There's nothing quite like a good tale of animosity between the Colonies and Mamma England, mixed in with canine love. The film will slip into shooting next month.