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CURTAIN CALL (2 outta 5 stars)

Harmless, barely amusing tale of some blank-souled Yuppies who move into a house which turns out to be haunted by the spirits of a bickering husband and wife acting team (Michael Caine, Maggie Smith). James Spader plays the only person who can see them... as they continue to dispense advice... and turn his life upside down as he tries to avoid serious commitment to his long-time fiancée. Not really very funny, not really very romantic, not really very anything... just a way to kill some time. Not one of the more memorable comedies about ghosts annoying the living. Maybe with a better script the cast could have salvaged something out of it.

This movie was on TV the other afternoon and I decided to give it a go. I'm not usually a fan of these type of movies but I sat down to watch this willing to ignore its flaws and just be entertained.

I was entertained. Sure, it's not laugh-out-loud funny. It's utterly predictable. It's gimmicky. That's the type of movie it is. You have to meet it on its own terms and if you do that, you're likely to have a fun time.

James Spader stars as a selfish bachelor who buys a new luxurious house to anger his long-time girlfriend because he is afraid of commitment. When he moves in he begins to be haunted by the ghosts of two former classical actors (Michael Caine and Maggie Smith), who instill morals and so on and so forth, giving him friendly advice.

Yeah, I know, it's a pretty lame plot, but it works - mainly thanks to Caine and Smith, whose chemistry together really sparks. I'd recommend this to anyone who's just looking for some decent entertainment, not a masterpiece of the genre or anything - just a film to help pass the time, which this does; it's not insulting and it doesn't try to be anything it isn't.

What a perfect gem of a film. It would be a mean and clumsy spirit that did not respond kindly to this wonderful confection. Above all, the expertise of a crew led by the director of The Dresser which includes actors of the calibre of Michael Cain, Maggie Smith, Sam Shepard , not to mention Peter Spader, Polly Walker and Buck Henry leaves the viewer with a sense of secure pleasure that is very rare in today's cinema. The only scene which didn't quite work for me was the confrontation scene with Shepard in Washington but everything else flowed like a premier cru. Add cinematography, wardrobe and music that add to the sense of professionalism (no wonder the house and the New Year's Eve party seem so desirable!) and you have ninety minutes of gentle good humour. Michael Cain says towards the end "they don't write tunes like this any more" but here, once again, they did make a film like those by George Cukor with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. What a Philistine society we live in now that acclaims those commercial potboilers with poor old Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and overlooks a masterpiece like this.

It's funny that these sort of films used to be the mainstream back in the 30s and 40s. Now they're the "small" films. First of all, I can't believe they got this cast together.Even the smallest parts have great people in them. And the camera loves few women like it loves Polly Walker. This is a film for adults. Spader's character is a book editor and the film concerns how to keep love going as you get older. Geez, no wonder it's not mainstream.

A fun romantic comedy with Maggie Smith and Michael Caine as charming ghosts of a formerr era. The romance of the "alive" characters is fairly formula, but it is fun to watch Smith and Caine banter as they fade in and out of reality. Nothing serious, but a great movie for lovers of the theatre, or for bibliophiles.