Ghost Town
Netflix synopsis: "British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man."

I really liked this movie. It's not that Ricky Gervais, who played a lonely dentist, saw ghosts: he saw people who had died in accidents, and they wanted him to take messages to their loved ones to set things right. To me that is different from ghosts. One woman was concerned that her daughters were not speaking to one another over a necklace because the letter she wrote explaining why she gave it to one of them got lost. Three construction workers wanted to let the operator of the crane that fell and killed them know that it was an act of God that the crane malfunctioned, and not his fault. And a father wanted to tell his wife that their son's beloved stuffed animal was under the front seat of the car.

The dead people followed the dentist around, pleading with him to carry their messages, but he was so used to being lonely and alone, he didn't care to help people, even if they were dead. Over the course of the movie he changed, and at the end did relay the messages. It all sounds kind of lame and trite, but the acting was just right and it was one of those movies where you like the characters and want to know what happens next. There was a little humor in the movie but it was never overdone or slapstick, and Ricky Gervais was just wonderful.

The Visitor was another movie that was sweet and touching. It could be subtitled: Immigrants are people, too.

"Widowed professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) discovers an immigrant couple, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), squatting in his Manhattan flat and becomes wrapped up in their lives when Tarek is thrown into a detention center. A wonderful Hiam Abbass co-stars as Tarek's mother, who forges an unlikely connection with Walter. Director Thomas McCarthy's follow-up to his indie hit The Station Agent was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards."

This dry as dust New England economics professor is just going through the motions of life after the loss of his wife a year or so previously. He's not doing a good job teaching and he knows it but doesn't care. When he is forced to deliver a paper in New York City, he returns to the apartment he owns there after a long absence to find that someone has rented it to a pair of illegal immigrants and he becomes involved in their lives. This is one of those stories about someone who discovers a new side to themselves, but it is handled very well, with superb, understated acting. In other words, when Mr. Dry as Dust takes up playing African drum, he doesn't change how he looks, he still looks buttoned down and boring, but he's happier and we can feel it. The movie could have had a sappy happy ending, but it stopped short - because we don't need to be spoon-fed and can use our imagination to end it however we want. I respect it for that.

Both of these movies were about lonely middle-aged men who were not necessarily good-looking and allowed people and circumstances to change their lives in a good way. Maybe it struck a chord with me at this time in my life because I could identify with their lonliness and feeling of alienation from the rest of the world.