With Sundance 2010 just about to kick off, it's time to tie a bow around the 2009 festival -- and that means judging it by how last year's festival films did at the box office. ---

IndieWire provided this roundup of how 2009's Sundance competition slate performed in theaters, unintentionally emphasizing the bleak state of things in the art-house marketplace. While Precious (pictured) became a breakout hit, and An Education thrived, other independent films in general vanished quickly from theaters. And while it's wonderful to think of an institution like Sundance existing in a bubble where art is all that matters, any movie-lover should want the talented filmmakers and intriguing films it showcases to see the light of day outside its high-altitude confines. Box-office performance may be only tangentially related to quality across the board in the film world, but it would be wonderful if the risky proposition of championing a small, possibly challenging film were paying off more often for distributors.