Bullock's Brockovich?

Forgetting this weekend's apparent stinkbomb "All About Steve" (which is currently sitting pretty at Rotten Tomatoes with a whopping 0% from critics) from her 2009 retrospective, this year is shaping up to be a good one for Sandra Bullock. While "Steve" makes a quick theatrical run before vanishing into Wal-Mart bargain bins on DVD (Kirk Honeycutt sees the movie's future "on airlines in two months and off everyone's resume within three"), "The Proposal" is gunning toward a worldwide total near $300 million. At $161 million domestic, Bullock's screen tango with Ryan Reynolds marks not only her biggest hit to date but also a comeback for the former sure-bet of the sweetheart genre.





Bullock is back in theaters November 20 in "The Blind Side," gussied up in a hairspray force-field with a southern accent and fancy outfits to boot. She plays a no-nonsense Texas housewife who develops an unlikely friendship with a homeless boy from a broken home, adopting the African-American teen into her wealthy suburban family.
Based on a true story, "The Blind Side" finds its footing when the young man, encouraged by brazen new mom Bullock, joins the local football team and shows Texas what he's made of. It all sounds very schmaltzy, and the trailer suggests, essentially, a by-the-book weepie. But Bullock means business, wearing the shit out of that teased-up blonde wig and spouting off contrived dialogue with conviction that would make Erin Brockovich proud. Could Sandy blind-side Awards Season with her own underdog success?

Poster Potential

With "Shutter Island" bumped back to February, Paramount is freed up to split its award-whoring efforts just two ways: Peter Jackson's predetermined Oscar-bait adaptation of "The Lovely Bones," due December 11, and "Up in the Air," director Jason Reitman's sophomore follow-up to "Juno." George Clooney takes the lead, splitting potential votes for his other fall comedy "The Men Who Stare at Goats," while Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick (the fast-talking debate team dame from "Rocket Science," more prominently known for playing BFF to Bella in the ubiquitous mess of "Twilight") do back-up. "Up in the Air" is tentatively slated to open December 4, though Paramount is treading water until the film's Toronto premiere before nailing down a date for good. "Juno" scored an inexplicable Best Picture nomination two years ago (along with a whopping domestic box office total just shy of $150 million), as did the nepotistic neophyte Reitman, pumping "Up in the Air" with precedent. Speaking of "Juno," Ellen Page is back in alt-cute default mode for Drew Barrymore's directorial debut "Whip It," leading an underdog pack of ragtag Rollerderby girls (Barrymore joins Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Eve and Zoe Bell as Page's freewheeling teammates) all the way to finals, no doubt. Having dropped out of Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" (replaced by Alison Lohman) in favor of being Barrymore's muse, Page was freed up to stick closer to "Juno" territory as Barrymore's "Whip It" heroine. The poster is pitch perfect, with Page front-and-center in gorgeous, saturated green, ready to rumble. "Whip It" opens October 2.
Also on October 2, The Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man" hits a handful of major markets, hoping to spark word-of-mouth for its gradual nationwide rollout throughout the month. Following the star orgy that was "Burn After Reading" (the Coens' biggest commercial success, by a landslide), "A Serious Man" is a decidedly smaller proposition. Its biggest star? Richard Kind, best known for a supporting gig on the Michael J. Fox sitcom "Spin City" (and he's not even the lead). While prospects won't be as bright as "Burn" commercially speaking, the Coen Brothers are odds-on for success. If the "Serious" trailer is any indication, it's a grand slam. Nice poster, too.

Art House Heat Wave

As a pair of specialty breakouts ride respective waves of momentum into the commercial mainstream, the upcoming weekend of July 31 will see notable glut of art house competition fight for the attention of trendsetting ticket-buyers.

The specialty box office has been threatening to spark fire all summer, with audience traffic for Fox Searchlight's second-weekend wonder "(500) Days of Summer" and Summit's month-old slow burner "The Hurt Locker" generating the most heat of late.
"Summer" meant business right out of the gate. The hipster romance averaged more than $30,000 from each of its 27 opening weekend screens, ramping up its sophomore venue count to 85 and scoring a sizzling screen average just shy of $20,000 before a planned expansion to 300 locations this Friday. With a cool $3 million total after just 10 days, the Zooey Deschanel/Joseph-Gordon Levitt duet should sing sweetly right on through August and into the Indian Summer sunset.

Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker," a decidedly macho alternative to the twee Searchlight sensation, is a riskier bet for distributor Summit. The upstart studio has mounted an impressively measured rollout to build word-of-mouth momentum, opening the gruelingly intense war-zone thriller on four screens over the weekend of June 26 and slowly turning up the heat as it expanded to cities nationwide throughout July. Over the weekend, "Locker" lit up 238 theaters and locked down a solid $6,000+ per screen, down just 15% from its average on 94 screens last weekend. Summit isn't slowing down now, unleashing "Hurt Locker" in more than 500 theaters over the July 31 frame, taking cover and holding on tight with hopeful expansions ahead if Middle America proves patriotic, indeed.

Getting an early start on the weekend traffic jam, Fox Searchlight opens the modest mentally-handicapped romance "Adam" at 4 exclusive venues on Wednesday, hoping to replicate on a smaller scale the buzz-building rollout of studio sibling "(500) Days of Summer." Good luck. The eponymous Hugh Dancy character is a man with Asburger's Syndrome, which afflicts sufferers variously but is usually defined by a collective lack of social tact, self-awareness, and brain-to-mouth filtration functions. Rose Byrne plays Adam's reluctant love interest, who sees beyond his condition to the probable soul mate within. Kleenex likely required.

Also sinking its fangs into a quartet of big city theaters, Focus Features' South Korean import "Thirst" arrives stateside after a boffo turnout at home, where public bloodlust hit a fever pitch for "Oldboy" auteur Park Chan-wook's spin on the red-hot vampire genre. The film scored the biggest opening of 2009, and hit the ground running at its Cannes premiere less than a month later. Universal's specialty division seems to have high commercial hopes for "Thirst," which joins the ubiquitous "Twilight" franchise and art house hit "Let the Right One In" (along with HBO's "True Blood," which has grown in popularity in cohesion with the demands of the cultural zeitgeist) as the latest offering for vampire-hungry audiences to taste and relish.

Sony Classics picked up "Lorna's Silence," the latest from the Dardenne Brothers of continuous Cannes-darling status, after the fest closed in 2008, holding the film back from U.S. release for more than a year. Commercial prospects are iffy, even without obvious studio reluctance threatening to derail buzz, so look for little more than silence from "Lorna" when the film appears in a handful of cities this weekend.

Also premiering at Cannes back in '08, the Danish import "Flame + Citron" finally opens stateside thanks to IFC Films. A WWII espionage epic from director Ole Christian Madsen, "Flame + Citron" was big in the Netherlands (thanks in no small part to stars Mads Mikkelsen and Thure Lindhart in titular starring roles), drawing comparisons to Paul Verhoven's exhilirating "Black Book" with its definitively Euro approach to the dusty genre.

The most promising of this weekend's lot is perhaps the least appealing on paper. "The Cove," a documentary about the conspiracy surrounding the endangered dolphins of Japan, boasts a killer trailer that likens the film to both "Flipper" and "The Bourne Identity" (!!!) and puts its money where its mouth is immediately, tightening a vise of unbelievable suspense and leaving audiences breathless in anticipation. Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate are joining forces to release the Sundance pickup, and if the tide of excitement preceding "The Cove" is any indication, the combined effort is sure to pay off.

Reading "The September Issue"

Hot on the stiletto heels of the little spring sleeper "Valentino: The Last Emperor" comes another fascinating fashion documentary that promises to illuminate an insider's angle on a fierce, fearsome industry icon. This fall, the notoriously icy figure behind Vogue magazine and its legacy of trendsetting power steps into focus for documentarian R.J. Cutter's "The September Issue," which, fittingly, actually opens August 28 (Roadside Attractions; NY/LA) before a slow expansion nationwide in the months to follow.

"The Last Emperor" gave its audience a rare glimpse at the craft, business dealings and personal capital behind the legendary designer Valentino Garavani, once simply the name of the film's eponymous subject, now a globally recognized brand governed by private investors and corporate control whose stakes in ownership have all but gobbled up the last vestiges of the designer's formerly modest haute couture enterprise. The film chronicles the lavish preparations for Valentino's final gala, a restrospective on his life's work organized by lifelong partner Giancarlo Giammetti, who has been by the designer's side in both life and business from the very beginning.

Directed and produced by Vanity Fair alum Matt Tyrnauer, the documentary benefits most from its frank depiction of the two men whose lifelong partnership has remained largely behind the scenes of all things Valentino. The designer himself is a rather tempestuous presence, swinging his mood whenever it strikes his fancy and generally unable to say "Thank you" regardless of the occasion, given to fits of dissatisfaction that seem arbitrary to the point of absurdity. With Giancarlo, whose cool rationale and selfless, seamless contributions are the irrefutable secret of Valentino's success, the Last Emperor of Haute Couture finds a counterpart to weight down his lofty ambitions, bringing Valentino back down to Earth whenever his total immersion in a bubble of self-importance and that monumental ego threaten to carry the mere mortal up, up and away.

Juicy details are sure to emerge from the behind-the-scenes access on parade in "The September Issue," the annual issue of Vogue that establishes the standard for fall fashions on a yearly interval and in whose pages are featured the looks, and more importantly the products, that represent billions in future revenue from fashion enterprises worldwide. As in "Valentino: The Last Emperor," this fall's fashion doc reveals the wind beneath the wings of the ostensible creative genius behind the institution, illuminating the role of artistic director Grace Coddington, a former model, now essentially the only person willing to face Wintour's withering glares of disbelief and offer up constructive criticism and a different perspective at Vogue.

The trends set by Wintour's September issue trickle down from the designer's handsewn originals in his or her boutiques, into the upscale boutiques featuring high-end replications inspired by the real deal, and on down to the department stores in metropolitan shopping centers, where the same basic design that retailed for $800 in the pages of last year's September issue can be purchased for a tenth of that. The downward journey continues for the styles selected by Wintour some September gone by, replicated with diminishing regard to cost and quality by the mass-market factories that manufacture the clothes sold at big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Target, after which an article of clothing is dropped off with a few bags of others at a local thrift store for less distinguishing shoppers to discover and make their own.

Even from beneath the depths of a $1 bin at the Goodwill, it isn't difficult to draw a direct line back through a few generations of American style to its inception in the offices of Vogue, where Anna Wintour has long ruled over the fashion kingdom from behind sunglasses, high above the sidewalks of Manhattan and the peasantries below. Determining the presiding fashion trends for a largely unwitting public has its downsides, of course, like having the infamously thorny reputation on which Meryl Streep's iconic magazine maven Miranda Priestley (the titular evil in "The Devil Wears Prada") was brazenly based.

In the New York Post last month, under the headline "The Ice Queen Melteth," Maureen Callahan underscores her piece about the impending release of "The September Issue" with frank clarity: "It is no exaggeration to say that Wintour is the only one in charge of the $300 billion-a-year global fashion industry: she dictates to designers, to fashion houses, to CEOs, to the retail industry, and to us -- without apology, engagement or explanation."

It will be interesting to see how much of Wintour's coolly controlling influence is apparent in "The September Issue," which shares the name of the fashion industry's annual "bible" but is ultimately not Wintour's to control. Or, is it? One wonders just what lengths R.J. Cutter must have gone to gain such unprecedented access to the preeminent control freak of global fashion and the private selection processes from behind the dressing-room curtains at Vogue. The tabloids will keep speculating, either way; just the same, Wintour will surely fire dozens of future assistants for an array of arbitrary dissatisfactions, and she'll keep picking out the clothes we'll wear tomorrow.

A final note, appropriately rife with scandalous implication: Jezebel reports that one of the two production companies behind "The September Issue," A&E IndieFilms, is owned by the publishing rival of Vogue parent company Condé Nast. Hearst Entertainment and Syndication, which along with the production company in question, owns the Vogue-clone Harper's Bazaar, lower-brow fashion mag Marie Clare, and a full roster of counterparts that stand in direct competition with Condé Nast publications. Much ado about nothing? Perhaps. But the question of editorial control (an ironic one, given the Wintour way) and whether Hearst might be staging a subtle campaign to sabotage Wintour's decidedly unadmitted attempts at pulling rank with popular opinion...we'll have to hold our breath until "The September Issue" opens its pages.

"The Hurt Locker" Detonates

For all the explosive buzz surrounding Kathryn Bigelow's tour-de-force bomb squad spectacle "The Hurt Locker," it seemed almost inevitable that, when the film finally opened in U.S. theaters a full nine months after its Toronto premiere last September, it would limp into theaters having buckled under the weight of its own praise. Early word was golden, with critical blurbs declaring the film a revolutionary masterpiece plastered across its very first theatrical trailer and the most preliminary of print efforts.

Summit Entertainment, responsible for turning "Twilight" into the inexplicable cultural phenomenon it has become, and guaranteeing profit margins for the next three years until the franchise runs its four-part course, deftly acquired "The Hurt Locker" during its festival run last fall, sitting pretty on the buzz-magnet while adoring critics fussed over the move and demanded the film's release. Smartly hedging its bets until a late-breaking confirmation of a rumored platform launch in late June, Summit has unleashed the full fury of Bigelow's immersive, relentlessly tense war zone in a slow-burn expansion to capitalize on rapturous applause from big city critics' and the art-house crowds that follow their advice. This shrewd distribution pattern could result in the first crossover from upscale markets into the mainstream, where the ravenous appetite for the latest breathtaking action spectacle awaits a sneak-attack from this summer's most visceral and explosive cinematic experience.

Within 15 minutes, "The Hurt Locker" establishes a transportive sense of verisimilitude that gives Bigelow the career opportunity she's been waiting for since bursting into Hollywood some 20 years ago with absurdly serious cult classics like "Point Break" and "Blue Steel." Long known for her uncanny ability to depict the extreme measures taken by tough guy prototypes as both convenient set pieces for crafting pure escapism and incisions into the modern male psyche, Bigelow has been limited by the material she's given, the demands of studio suits, probably even her own vision.

Whatever the forces that conspired to keep her previous efforts from really popping, they're nowhere to be found in "The Hurt Locker," which really does eviscerate the established standard of the "Iraq war movie" to deliver a ferocious blast of summertime entertainment. Brimming with masculine conflict, explosive tension and psychological depth unlike any of its genre predecessors, "The Hurt Locker" has one of Oscar's 10 newly expanded Best Picture nominations fixed squarely in its crosshairs.

Best known for his smarmy supporting work in excellent ensemble dramas like "North Country" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," Jeremy Renner moves front-and-center as Bigelow's protagonist, Staff Sgt. Will James, a chain-smoking badass who is shipped into 2004-era Iraq to fill the position vacated by his predecessor (played by Guy Pearce, Bigelow's unique spin on the ill-fated Drew Barrymore cameo in "Scream") in the film's crackling opener. James is essentially a modern version of the standard male archetype from countless westerns past, but Bigelow's measured direction and Renner's range of expressive nuance preclude convention from holding firm.

In his relationships with the film's two other main characters -- the cocky, usually level-headed Sgt. J.T. Sanborne (Anthony Mackie) and the young, relatively meek supervisor Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) -- and, ultimately, with his own true self, James exhibits a gamut seeming behavioral contradicitions that Bigelow manages to justify through a paralyzing series of set pieces, each of which place James against the clock and mounting external odds (sniper fire, traumatized civilians, a war of wills between soldiers), holding viewers in a near-perpetual state of breathless suspension as her protagonist goes about his business.

It is a testament to journalist Mark Boal's incisive screenplay that Bigelow has such rich, conflicted characters at her disposal, as the central trio of soldiers remain firmly fixed at the film's center, keeping a wide distance from the tendency for action to overwhelm the film's vital human presence. There are several moments of genuine, tender connection between the three men, even as an undercurrent of dreadful tension perpetually simmers between dueling alpha males James and Sandborne, straddling the fine line between vengeful bloodlust and homoerotic surrender.

In one scene, the men trade drunken punches to the stomach as young Eldridge plays referee, watching his two superiors wrestle around like schoolboys with a taunting attraction neither of them can resist. Before the scene is over, either James or Sandborne has pinned the other to the ground and is affecting a sexualized yee-haw thrill as he rides his bucking opponent, who suddenly lunges up with a knife to the throat of the domineer.

Mackie and Geraghty are both outstanding as Sandborne and Eldridge, respectively, and each actor invests in his role beyond the requisite standard conflict between masculine aggression and emotional vulnerability. Working from Boal's script, the actors make the most of what are essentially supporting roles to create, alongside indesputible protagonist Sgt. James, a trio of fully-realized lead performances through which Bigelow pumps the adrenaline on overdrive.

Bigelow has always specialized in taking cinematic action to the limit of full-tilt escapism, trafficking in hypermasculine characters whose conventional gender roles become extrapolated into the spellbinding set pieces that string together to form a narrative thread for testosterone-junkie entertainment. "The Hurt Locker" is easily her highest achievement, finally giving the dominant female force in action movies a fighting claim for King of the Mountain status.

Women's Liberation: The Directors of 2009

In 1994, when Jane Campion was Oscar-nominated for directing her masterpiece “The Piano” (she won for Best Original Screenplay), she became only the second woman in Academy history to compete for top honors among the male-dominated ranks of Hollywood directors. One more name has since been added to that short list (Sofia Coppola, nominated for directing “Lost in Translation”), but 2009 looks to be a game-changer for women directors and the Boys Club precedent of annual awards contention.

Campion is again poised for the big leagues, coming on strong with approaching release of “Bright Star” (Bob Berney’s yet-unnamed independent studio; 09/18) after a euphoric show of support in Cannes and a six-year absence from filmmaking since the disappointing “In the Cut” bewildered a tiny audience and promptly faded into memory. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw considers “Bright Star” to perhaps be Campion’s finest film to date, noting the “unfashionable, unapologetic reverence for romance and romantic love” that pervades Campion’s John Keats biopic into every inch of its being.

Magnificently mounted with the lavish costume design and graceful romantic flourishes so historically beloved by the Academy’s old-guard, “Bright Star” should live up to its name as a high point for Campion’s career. Ben Whishaw (an understated asset in “Perfume” and “I’m Not There”) plays Keats, whose love for Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, receiving the film’s best notices for acting) inspired much of the romantic poetry for which he became famous. The excellent American character actor Paul Schneider affects a Scottish accent to play Keats’ friend turned rival, both for Fanny’s affections and poetic accomplishment. Beautifully captured by cinematographer Greig Fraser, “Bright Star” remains visually relevant in the mind of audiences well-beyond the film’s initial impression, allowing affection for Campion’s latest to thrive and blossom with the promise of a fruitful future.

A world apart from Campion’s world of tartan waistcoats and lavender meadows, “The Hurt Locker” has become one of 2009’s preeminent classics by delivering visceral thrills and heart-stopping tension as it depicts the daily challenges faced by a team of bomb diffusing experts on duty in modern, war-ravaged Iraq. Like Campion, director Kathryn Bigelow has taken her time to bounce back from the distant disappointment of her last directing effort (2002’s “K-19: The Widowmaker,” the $100 million summer tentpole starring Harrison Ford, recouped less than half its budget and sank quickly into oblivion), and to say the wait has been worth it would be a gross understatement.

“The Hurt Locker” is doing gangbusters in limited release, with Summit expanding nationwide this summer in a measured approach that capitalizes on word-of-mouth from unanimous critical support and blown-away moviegoers. Bigelow is the woman behind testosterone-powered action movies like “Point Break” and “Blue Steel,” and her reputation among cult classic enthusiasts has gradually expanded to encompass a wider breadth of devotees. Its hard to imagine that the newly doubled slots for Best Picture won’t include a place for “The Hurt Locker,” given its universal acclaim, and Bigelow is widely seen as an auteur whose recognition is due.

Lone Scherfig, the Danish director of “Italian for Beginners,” has “An Education” in the running for Sony Pictures Classics (10/13), the same studio pushing French import “Coco Before Chanel” (09/25) into the fall fray. Both pictures have the pedigree to hit the ground running (scroll down for a fuller look at “An Education”), with director Anne Fontaine’s biopic about the legendary designer featuring Audrey Tautou (a household name to stateside fans of “Amélie”) in the lead and boasting the kind of historical illumination that is tailored to suit Academy tastes.

More promising still is Mira Nair’s biopic “Amelia” (Fox Searchlight; 10/23), which stars Hilary Swank as the fabled first female pilot to attempt a flight around the world, with Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor and Virginia Madsen along for the ride. The first trailer touched down a couple of weeks back, and with it the film’s potential shot sky high. A sweeping epic along the lines of “Out of Africa” and “The English Patient” was not what I had imagined, but it seems to be exactly the kind of picture Nair has delivered.

Already an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film some 20 years ago for “Mississippi Masala,” Nair hit it big on the indie circuit with “Monsoon Wedding” before her disappointing attempt at a period piece, the ill-advised Reese Witherspoon vehicle “Vanity Fair,” left room for significant improvement. “Amelia” promises that and more, with Nair looking to sneak into the final five among Best Director nominees if the powerhouse Oscar campaign team at Fox Searchlight has anything to say about it.

Nora Ephron should never be counted out, especially when she’s got Meryl Streep (the Academy’s most-nominated actor of either gender) and Amy Adams (reuniting with Streep after both received nominations for last year’s superb “Doubt”) in the mix. “Julie & Julia” seems like a hotter commercial prospect than awards fare, though the witty, split-narrative screenplay Ephron has adapted from two separate texts may be impressive enough for writing kudos. Having crashed and burned in 2005 with “Bewitched,” Ephron is ripe for resounding success. Check out this exceptional profile in The New Yorker for an insightful look at Ephron’s colorful life and career. It builds a comprehensive foundational context for her latest turn behind the camera, and illustrates a rare celebrity portrait that exudes cultural relevance beyond the page.

It’s doubtful that Sofia Coppola’s latest melancholy tale, the equivocally titled “Somewhere” (Focus Features), will make it into theaters by year’s end, though stranger things have happened. Set, like “Lost in Translation,” among the dislocating comforts of life in a hotel, “Somewhere” centers around the young daughter (Elle Fanning) of a movie star (Stephen Dorff, apparently gunning for a comeback) and the tenuous relationship they struggle to forge in the wake of the her mother’s death.

Also unsecured for 2009 release is Andrea Arnold “Fish Tank,” a big hit at Cannes, featuring the film debut of Katie Jarvis, a foreigner to acting who was plucked from obscurity to land the lead in Arnold’s latest. Jarvis plays Mia, a spoiled 15-year-old whose self-absorbed mother scoffs at Mia’s passion for hip-hop dancing; Michael Fassbender (“Hunger”) stars as Connor, her mother’s new boyfriend, who represents for Mia her first experience with a sympathetic, genuinely interested human connection. Arnold’s last film, “Red Road” (2005),” was another Cannes contender, and established her promising profile as a filmmaker to watch. “Fish Tank” has been picked up for U.S. distribution by IFC, though plans currently have the film penciled for a 2010 release.

Enroll in "An Education" for Fall Term

Sony Pictures Classics has released its elegant one-sheet for Lone Scherfig's "An Education," the Sundance sensation opening in limited release October 13, and the tone it sets couldn't feel more distinguished. The year's likeliest contender for breakthrough actress kudos (and the early favorite for Best Actress proper), Carey Mulligan, plays a prep-school student whose coming-of-age in 1960's London happens quite suddenly upon the arrival of a wealthy playboy (Peter Sarsgaard) twice her age.

"An Education" was received by critics at Sundance with rare and unanimous rapture, announcing the title way back in January as one of 2009's very best while giving the Park City stalwart a much-needed boost of legitimacy after years of commercial influence and lackluster lineups. "There's no movie in this festival that's quite as ravishing, as witty, as well-acted or as satisfying overall as 'An Education'" (Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, simply stated). Karina Longworth (SpoutBlog) went deeper, citing the true achivement of "An Education" are the moments when "it’s capable of recreating the insane fog of love, particularly first love, which always feels like last love." First and foremost, however, "An Education" is "an extremely classy film."

Consider the supporting cast: Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina play Mulligan's parents, Olivia Williams stars as her favorite teacher, Dominic Cooper ("Mamma Mia!," "The History Boys") as the playboy's more cautious best friend, with Sally Hawkins (so perfect in the lead for Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky") and Rosamund Pike (with whom Mulligan played two of the Bennet sisters in Joe Wright's glorious 2005 adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice) rounding out the impressive ensemble. Molina has been tagged by many as a standout (InContention's Kris Tapley among them), as have Thompson and Pike, who plays the playboy's regular girlfriend, so expect Awards Season attention across the board.

The last real heavyweight to emerge from Sundance and ride a wave of support all the way to the Kodak Theater was "Little Miss Sunshine," which premiered in 2006 to Park City audiences and sparked a steady word-of-mouth campaign that predicated big box office ($60 million domestic for distributor Fox Searchlight) and a handful of Oscar nods. This year, with "An Education" joining "Precious" in the top of the class (and "Moon," "In the Loop," "Cold Souls," "The Cove," "The September Issue," "Adam," and "Humpday" also generating heat from Sundance starts), that slump appears to be over.

Even without a stellar ensemble and its sophisticated art-house appeal, "An Education" would likely propel itself on the strength of Mulligan's breakout performance alone. The Hollywood Reporter sang the film's many praises last January, but nothing stood out so much as the young leading lady herself. "Mulligan captures every nuance of the character with an understated charm reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. Her transformation from an English schoolgirl in a gray uniform to a lovely young and desirable woman is nothing short of miraculous."