Secondhand Lions
You want to talk about surprising movies, this is one of them....
Spent the first three minutes in the theater with a huge grin on my face as they ran the trailer for LOTR, Return of the King. Let me ask New Line Cinema something, do they really have to run promos for this movie? I mean, there is absolutely no way this movie could bomb especially after the first two? But I digress....
Kids were jumping up and down about going to see this movie for the past couple of weeks. Yes the girls are huge kitty cat fans, and Tyler will go anywhere as long as there's free popcorn involved. I truly expected to watch big kitty cat go running around and kids to squeal and I would play chess on my cell phone. That happily (for me) didn't happen.
This movie is awesome. This basic plot revolves around Haley Joel Osment's character who gets dumped off by his neglectful mom at his two uncles house, whom he has never met before. Kid grows up, mom comes back, he doesn't leave. End of plot. But in between, the script writing, the acting, and the producing are stellar. And the kitty cat shots take up all of five minutes....
IMDB has a much better writeup than I could ever do. Go read it first. :-)
If you get a chance, see it. I will be impatiently waiting for it to be added to my DVD collection...