Ben Lewin’s The Surrogate emerged as the undisputed hit of Sundance 2012, landing the biggest sale thus far (a $6 million sale to Fox Searchlight) with the unlikeliest of subjects: A paralyzed man’s quest to lose his virginity, based on the life and writings of Bay Area poet Mark O’Brien. Thanks to Lewin’s sensitive and honest script and an impressive turn by indie favorite John Hawkes -- who shines with wit and grace in a physically demanding performance as O’Brien, who has no use of his limbs due to polio but begins to explore his sexuality with the help of a hands-on sex therapist (Helen Hunt) – The Surrogate earned consecutive standing ovations and got critics buzzing with the possibilities for next year’s Academy Awards.
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Our Sundance bidding-war preview may have foreseen only part of the fervor around the John Hawkes/Helen Hunt drama The Surrogate, but how's this for compensation: As predicted, the Richard Gere/Susan Sarandon Wall Street thriller Arbitrage went to Roadside Attractions (with its partners at Lionsgate) for just over $2 million. Bam! That's not it for deals, either: Get the updated roster of Sundance pics -– and see which offerings earned raves, and which didn’t -- after the jump.
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As Sundance 2012 passed the halfway point, the celebs and hangers-on and people watchers started filtering out of Park City, leaving the sidewalks actually walkable and the shuttles downright spacious. I prepare to go home tomorrow, with many more interviews and reports to come, but the glorious peacefulness has me misty-eyed about the week that was; here's a quick rundown of highlights from the first week of the fest -- the movies I loved, the events that transpired, and yes, the time I met with Ice-T and Coco to talk hip-hop while they munched on pancakes.
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In his new Brooklyn-set drama Red Hook Summer, director/co-writer Spike Lee tackles the complex topics of religion and redemption within the modern African American experience, as filtered through the eyes of a spoiled Atlanta teenager (Jules Brown) forced to spend one hot, explosive summer with his preacher grandfather in the projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. It’s a richly conceived portrait of the Brooklyn neighborhood as microcosm for the black community at large, very much a Lee joint through and through. But, as the filmmaker reminded audiences this week at Sundance, where he railed against the Hollywood system, “it’s not a sequel to Do the Right Thing!”
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As sort of presumed, the John Hawkes/Helen Hunt-starring, man-in-an-iron-lung-virginity-losing, awards-ready indie drama The Surrogate made an impressive market showing Monday following its Sundance premiere, selling for $6 million -- more than twice the figure noted in last week's festival bidding-war preview -- to Fox Searchlight. Not bad! The studio also has all but closed a deal on director Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild; drop back by for more coverage of each from Sundance and, for The Surrogate in particular, from next year's awards season. Ahem. [Deadline]
If you've grown tired of the gimmickry and diminishing quality of "found footage" horror, Sundance's Midnight program just delivered the cure: V/H/S, an anthology film comprised of shorts by six up-and-coming horror/indie filmmakers, each working within the parameter that their story be told via found media. The Devil Inside this ain't; V/H/S is fresh and pulse-quickening to the end, one of the best discoveries of this year's fest.
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This is just terrible, terrible news: Former United Artists boss, October Films cofounder and recent appointee as S.F. Film Society executive director Bingham Ray has passed away following a series of strokes suffered while attending the Sundance Film Festival -- an event from which his name and influence have been inseparable for more than two decades. He was 57.
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A day after collapsing at Sundance -- prompting his swift hospitalization and his publicist's even swifter refutation of alcohol and drug speculation -- Tracy Morgan has just tweeted that he's recovering nicely. It was just that, well... Here, he can explain.
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Coming to Sundance with new films in the Premieres section, both Stephen Frears and Spike Lee were navigating new terrain, a pair of established directors seeking distribution for their independent features. Frears' betting memoir/dramedy Lay the Favorite went first, premiering to dismal reviews Saturday night. Lee's Red Hook Summer, a hotly anticipated entry that brings him back to his Brooklyn wheelhouse after the underperforming WWII pic Miracle at St. Anna, followed Sunday, drawing mixed initial reactions from Twittering press.
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A quick update on the flurry of Sundance deal-making of recent days, with well-received documentaries and less acclaimed but star-driven (read: marketable) narratives sitting pretty with distribution agreements. Will this be, as pundits predicted, a high-volume buying year in Park City?
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The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern reports from Saturday night's hot ticket: "Aziz [Ansari], barely audible over the jabbering crowd and telling jokes skewering everything from the gay hookup app Grindr to the sanctity of marriage, is bombing terribly. He’s visibly annoyed. All of a sudden, Cuba Gooding Jr. bum-rushes the stage out of nowhere, snatches Aziz’s microphone, and yells, 'Everybody, shut the FUCK up! Have some respect for the black men onstage.' Aziz —who is Indian— looks baffled, and when Cuba exits, remarks, 'Y’all would be paying more attention if we were showing Boat Trip up here!' Aziz: 1, Cuba: 0." [Sundance Channel/Daily Beast]
Every so often festivals feature films that so offend the sensibilities of audience members that post-screening Q&As take an ugly turn, with upset viewers voicing their beefs, and loudly, straight to the filmmakers in attendance. This year that provocation came in the form of Craig Zobel's Compliance, a drama based on an outrageous real-life crime that drew immediate backlash from some in attendance. Is being this year's The Killer Inside Me/The Woman a buzz-building coup for the film?
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I ran into Salt Lake Tribune critic Sean Means tonight at Sundance in a packed RV decked out with a mini tiki bar, neon lights, and a booming sound system -- also known as the RVIP Lounge and Karaoke Cabaret, a tricked-out mobile karaoke mecca and the jammingest place you’ll find in Park City all week. Since the word’s out (read his account of the karaoke madness), here are my two cents: You can have your Drizzy Drake concerts and Bing Bar bashes, but for my money there’s no better way to thaw out from the snow and mingle with Sundance strangers than while belting a karaoke jam or two.
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The most polarizing films are often those that dare to push the envelope farther than is expected or comfortable, whether audiences are ready for them or not, and for this reason I tend to find the divisive films more interesting than those with universal praise or derision. Simon Killer, from Afterschool director/Martha Marcy May Marlene producer Antonio Campos, reminded me of this rule when it debuted Friday at Sundance and left critics and bloggers somewhat split.
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Expect Twitter to explode shortly with reactions to the Sundance premiere of Gareth Evans' The Raid, the Indonesian actioner that blew minds at Toronto but has been kept largely under wraps until now by Sony Classics, who smartly snatched up the pic and will distribute it this March. I caught The Raid last week at a pre-Sundance screening with its new score by composer Joe Trapanese and Mike Shinoda -- yes, of Linkin Park -- and can attest that the early praise was well-earned because holy crap, it's amazing. Everything you've heard about it? True.
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