Note: This is a reprint of my review of The Sessions, formerly The Surrogate, upon its premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. I've changed the name of the film below, but left everything else remains intact. It opens on a limited basis today and is truly one of the year's most special films. With…
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The story of a guy trying hard to get laid for the first time has been told and told again in many an R-rated comedy, but Ben Lewin's The Sessions isn't American Pie or even The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Instead, it's a truth-based drama that's garnering serious Oscar buzz for its star, John Hawkes. The Martha Marcy May…
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We can probably blame the Bruce Willis sci-fi film Surrogates for the fact that Fox Searchlight has changed the title of the John Hawkes-starring Sundance fave The Surrogate. The Willis film was pretty forgettable, but not quite forgettable enough that Searchlight wanted to go with the original title for the film about a sex surrogate…
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For ten days each January, in the snowy town of Park City, Utah, the year in independent cinema is set. The 2012 Sundance Film Festival was true to that promise and provided attendees with a slew of films that are sure to be not only among the year's best, but in the hunt for awards…
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The Sundance Film Festival prepared to come to a close for 2012 tonight as the festival held its some of its last screenings and mounted an awards ceremony to celebrate the best films of this year's festival. The biggest jury prizes went to Beasts of the Southern Wild (reviewed here) and Eugene Jarecki's war on…
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The title The Surrogate, to me, immediately calls up impressions of a horror film or thriller, but the movie that has had John Hawkes attached is something else entirely. An emotional thriller, perhaps. The Surrogate is based on a true story and will feature the actor as "Mark O'Brien, a paraplegic polio victim who lived…
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Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Starship Troopers) returns stateside to develop and direct The Surrogate for 20th Century Fox. This project shouldn't be confused with Disney's Bruce Willis sci-fi comic book adaptation Surrogates, although I would expect that Fox might change the title to avoid confusion. The plot can't be any more different, more…
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