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Ghost Town | 2008 | PG-13 | - 4.3.5
Ricky Gervais stars as a dentist who does not like people, and does not believe in ghosts. But when he dies for seven minutes and is then revived, he discovers he retains the ability to see the dead, and the ghosts follow him and pester him. One ghost (Greg Kinnear) is particularly insistent. Also with Téa Leoni, Alan Ruck, Jeff Hiller, Kristen Wiig, Jordan Carlos, Billy Campbell, Dana Ivey and Aasif Mandvi. Directed by David Koepp. [1:42]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - A nude man is shown from the waist up three times with bare chest, arms and shoulders. A young woman wears a scoop-necked shirt that reveals cleavage in two scenes.
► A man looks at a mummy's penis that's in a mummification jar (we do not see anything) and says to a female archeologist, "I know why they called him the King," and she replies, "Yes, it's huge." A woman tells a dentist about an alcoholic drink called a "screaming orgasm" and says her husband grabbed a bartender once and told him only he (the husband) was going to give her one. Throughout the film a man talks about his girlfriend and his wife. Two men talk about using prostitutes and pornography. A woman accuses a man of going with her husband to bars, strip clubs, and other places to pick up women. A woman says that her son asked, "I know that babies are inside a mommy's tummy, but my question is, 'How do they get there?'" A man says his girlfriend is "hot." A woman introduces her fiancé as someone who "worked with homeless prostitutes" and goes on to explain that he is a human rights lawyer. A woman remarks, "Ten hours of labor is too long."
► A man and woman kiss very briefly.
VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - An air conditioner falls from a window and smashes onto the sidewalk, a man steps into the street to avoid it, a bus speeds by and the man disappears as his coat floats in the air.
► A man lies dead in the street, a group of people stand around him and one woman cries, another man rushes forward and performs CPR while the man's ghost and several other ghosts watch; one of the ghosts vanishes in a ball of light.
► A man walks through another man, indicating that the latter is a ghost; this same thing happens to another man who sees himself lying on the street while another man is performing CPR but we see later that he was revived.
► A man in bed wakes to find the room full of ghosts asking for help, and he continues throughout the film to see and speak to ghosts (several ghosts vanish). A man walks down a street and is frightened when he is addressed by people nobody else can see; a larger and larger crowd of people runs after him.
► A man meets a woman's fiancé and tells a friend, "I want to run him over with his electric car, but she loves him." A man sits alone at night on a park bench and says, "You live alone, you die alone, and apparently you stay alone." A man and a young woman argue briefly about whether or not he can see ghosts. A man talks about another man's nightmare (being lost in the woods at age 8 and unable to find the way home). A man confronts his surgeon and demands to know if anything unusual happened during a procedure, and two hospital staff members tell him he died for about 7 minutes.
► We see a mummy, which is discolored, shriveled and missing teeth, and a woman lectures an audience about mummification, stating that the Egyptians sucked the brain out the nose and removed internal organs to jars through a slit made in the side, and she leans over and takes a deep breath, saying that it is the pine resin she likes. A man remarks about evidence of jaw decay and infection in a mummy, and we see a jar holding a mummified penis (the man looks and gasps, but we do not see anything).
► A man sits beside a dog and gags five times at its bad breath; he and a friend walk the dog and he gags as the friend gathers dog excrement into a plastic bag (we see only a full bag); we later see the friend brushing the dogs' teeth. A man pours a glassful of a liquid laxative that comes out in clumps, drinks one glass, gags several times, and he flatulates as he runs to the bathroom and shuts the door; when asked if the laxative worked, he says, "Wait 'til you get back there."
► Several extreme close ups of dental instruments appear in the opening of the film, including a large syringe, a set of pliers, picks and mirrors, and we see close-ups of someone grinding dentures.
LANGUAGE 5 - About 3 F-words and one not fully enunciated, 4 scatological references, 17 anatomical references, 12 mild obscenities, 3 religious profanities, 10 religious exclamations, name-calling (idiot, fool, devil, Mr. Wrong, pervert, brain-in-a-jar Narcissist, nasty piece of work, jerk, Mother Theresa, smock-wearing tooth jockey, Bonker-man, uneducated pervert).
SUBSTANCE USE - A dentist asks an associate to prescribe narcotics for him so he can sleep, including Percocet, Vicodin, and Morphine (the associate refuses), and a dentist rolls 3 canisters of nitrous oxide over to a patient, places a mask over the patient's nose and the scene ends. People drink red wine, we see two glasses of champaign, and in a bar a man orders a martini. Three nurses smoke outside a hospital entrance.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Death, afterlife, ghosts, getting along with others, letting go of the past, relationships, love, trust, redemption.
MESSAGE - Unfinished business will haunt you.
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CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
You Gotta Believe - 2.3.3
The Forge - 1.1.1
City of Dreams - 5.8.7
The Crow - 6.9.8
Blink Twice - 6.7.10
The Union - 3.5.5
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