The movie's poster, photographed at the Angelika.Photo: Alina Soler

Let's say you made a movie. In your wildest dreams, what's the most effusive blurb you could hope for? "Best movie of the year"? Maybe. How about "the best movie of all time"? Still not satisfied?

Well, if you're Julian Schnabel, and you directed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, you can boast a blurb even more ecstatic than either of those, and probably than every other blurb ever: "It feels like nothing less than the rebirth of the cinema." That's the quote that adorns the poster for the movie in the Angelika's café, and it's attributed to The New Yorker's David Denby. Why, it's the blurbiest blurb that ever blurbed!

But can it possibly be accurate? Blurb Patrol is on the case.

Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

Though we like writer-director Peter Hedges — he wrote About a Boy, No. 6 on our list of the best single-artist soundtracks! — we did not have high hopes for Dan in Real Life, Hedges's new comedy starring Steve Carrell. The trailer just seemed kind of awful. Happily, though, today's reviews have been mostly positive, with the movie currently sporting a Metacritic score of 65. The true measure of the film's genius, though, has been its successful utilization of comedian Dane Cook in a supporting role as Carrell's brother. Critics hate Cook — Good Luck Chuck sported a Metascore of 19, including lines like "Can we finally just admit that Dane Cook isn't funny?" — so it's fun to watch them grit their teeth and grudgingly admit that in Dan in Real Life, Cook does a pretty good job. Some of the blurbs Cook might want to cut and paste into his resume:

"Astonishingly tolerable!" —A.O. Scott, New York Times

We were watching CBS last night (as our way of saying thanks for pulling the trigger on Viva Laughlin), and we caught one of the network's new promos for Kid Nation (see above). Obviously this is the greatest thing ever. But then we realized that we'd never actually called Kid Nation "the best reality show of all time." Sure, we've said it's "the greatest reality show of all time," but there's a huge difference. Also, Vulture is not (technically) New York Magazine. Still, we'll take it! And if the CBS promotions department ever needs any more hyperbolic praise of Kid Nation, we've culled from our archives some of our more ridiculous acclaim.