Best "sleeper" film you've seen recently?

[Pale Blue Dot]

You know, the kind you've never heard of before, but you pick up at the video store on a slow night, and you end up loving it?

My most recent find was "p.s", and romantic drama about an admissions counselor at Columbia who believes that a new student is the reincarnation of her long-dead high school boyfriend. It stars Laura Linney (a great, great actress who also happens to be f*cking gorgeous), and Topher Grace (from "That 70's Show") who I am beginning to believe, after this film and "In Good Company", might be the next Olivier. (NOTE: Slight hyperbole intended.)

What recent sleepers do you recommend?

[On the Road]

1. Flowers of Shanghai

about a Chinese brothel about a hundred years ago. No sex, BTW. Largely business and personal relationships. Slow. Absolutely beautiful movie.

[Pale Blue Dot]

2. Sound good. Did you ever see "Raise the Red Lantern"?

The Chinese sure know how to make beautiful films about ugly things.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. ah yes that was a wonderful movie (nt)

[DS1]

9. Saw it in film class, professor was in love with Gong Li

Can't say I blame him

[vajraroshana]

18. I really loved that movie (eom)

[Warren Stupidity]

3. assasination tango

bob duval in a wonderful small film about an aging hit man and his fascination with the tango and life and love and...

[Pale Blue Dot]

6. He directed that too, right?

I'll add that to my list.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. dont know for sure

but that sounds right. It was so quirky and odd and unhollywood that I can't imagine how it would have gotten made otherwise. Plus it had buenes aires as a setting. Always wanted to go there.

[Mz Pip]

4. I liked

"Out of Time." Never heard of it but hubby rented it on Netflix and I really enjoyed it. It was based on a true story about a retired agent who is hired as a bodyguard for the child of a wealthy family in Mexico.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Pale Blue Dot]

8. Is that the one with Denzel Washington? nt

[bigwillq]

11. That was a pretty good flick

Denzel is always a safe bet.

[Gloria]

10. In Good Company is a sleeper for me, since I never go to the

movies but went to that one because it was playing at the right time.

LoveD it and Topher Grace was fab...but no Olivier. Topher has an odd quality...sort of a "Robert Downey in a Don Knotts body/mobile face" sort of feeling....

[Pale Blue Dot]

12. Paul Weitz (the director) really surprises me.

It's easy to forget, after the millions of tasteless imitations, how much heart there was deep down inside of "American Pie". Since then, he has made "About a Boy" and "In Good Company". I thought both were very real, and very funny.

And, of course, I don't really think that Topher Grace is the next Olivier. He's just a hell of a lot better than what we would have expected from someone who stars on "That 70's Show".

[saltpoint]

13. LATTER DAYS --

-- which is a delight.

[mark414]

14. not THAT new

but i thought 'in america' never received enough credit...came out in theaters right around this time last year...great movie

[gottaB]

17. I rented that. Big Samantha Morton fan.

It was a wee bit corny, a bit melodramatic, but tempered with realism, and humor, a few moments of genuine emotional depth. All in all a good movie.

[pres2032]

15. Brokedown Palace

about two american girls accused of smuggling drugs from Thailand to Hong Kong. A wonderful movie on the power of friendship and the messed up Thai justice system.

[kskiska]

16. Etre et avoir (To Be and to Have)

Directed by Nicolas Philibert

For To Be and To Have, Philibert and his crew of three set up shop, using only natural light, in a one-room schoolhouse in France's Auvergne farm country near the Massif Central. The film covers four seasons, conveyed in ravishing images, in the school days of roughly a dozen children aged four to ten, who all work at large separate tables in the same schoolroom. The class is small enough to make each child memorable. We see the pre-adolescents Olivier, whose father is gravely ill, and Julien, who wrestles with arithmetic while working on the family farm; a diminutive adopted Vietnamese girl, Marie; the painfully withdrawn Nathalie. And five-year-old JoJo, mischievous, spontaneous, master of stalling tactics—a charmer viewers fall in love with.

At the helm of this flock is the charismatic teacher Georges Lopez, a few years shy of retirement. The maitre lavishes on his pupils unstinting attention and sensitivity to their crises, and insists on manners and tolerance of difference—all of which brings out the best in them. In effect, we witness the very act of civilizing. Maybe that's why the film is so moving: From his little corner of the Auvergne, Lopez is making the world safer for the rest of us.

more (including interview with director)…
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/filmmakers/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000692757

[The Great Escape]

19. "Harrison's Flowers"...

When a Newsweek photojournalist disappears in war-torn Yugoslavia, his wife travels to Europe to find him.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216799/


caught it one night on a movie channel when I woke up and could not get back to sleep. I did not even know of this movie until I saw it that night. I have always been fascinated by Yugoslavia/Balkans, etc.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

20. King of New York. n/t

[Seabiscuit]

21. "He Loves Me, He Love Me Not" starring Audrey Tautou

[I_like_chicken]

22. Donnie Darko

my friend told me about, i had never heard of it, really good though, i think everyone should see it

[maveric]

23. Sweet and Lowdown

A Woody Allen film starring Sean Penn as an egotistical jazz guitarist during the 30's. Also has Uma Thurman in it.