Looking for Ms. Goodbar

The reviews are in for Ryan Gosling gritty performance in "Half Nelson," and all signs are he's about to become a big star.

"Gosling comes through with an astonishing performance, as a dedicated teacher attempting to inspire his inner-city eighth-graders with impassioned lectures on dialectics. His disastrous personal life starts to intrude on his job, though, when one of his students finds him strung out on crack in a toilet stall."

Gosling has always been a cute face, but he's never acted in anything that I found appealing enough to see -- until now.

Read: Close Up (Village Voice)