Tarantino confronts paparazzi in Starbucks parking lot

A few final films

The Sundance jury and audience awards have all been handed out, but I think it's worth posting a wrap-up of the last few movies I was able to squeeze into my Park City stay.

"Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson": Alex Gibney, director of the award-winning doc "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," comes to Sundance with an exhaustive look at the wild and woolly days of the writer who coined the term "gonzo journalism." Thompson's exploits are covered through a wealth of interviews and archival footage and are accompanied by a greatest hits soundtrack that includes Warren Zevon and Jefferson Airplane. What's most striking about this film isn't the praise heaped on him by former journalists and counterculture icons, but how even those he pilloried, such as former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, recall the hellion's antics with fondness.

'The Wackness' wooed and won by Sony Pictures Classics

Sony Pictures Classics has reportedly picked up North American rights to Jonathan Levine's stoner dramedy "The Wackness," starring Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck and Mary-Kate Olsen. The deal was said to be in the low seven figures, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Here's our cast interview video from the film's premiere at Sundance last week:

Sundance winners: 'Frozen River,' 'Man on Wire,' 'The Wackness'

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival jury and audience award-winners were announced at the closing awards ceremony hosted by William H. Macy tonite in Park City, Utah.

The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to "Trouble the Water," directed by Tia Lessin (pictured, right) and Carl Deal. An aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, armed with a video camera, show what survival means when they are trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, and seize a chance for a new beginning.

The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to "Frozen River," directed by Courtney Hunt, about a desperate trailer mom and a Mohawk Indian girl who team up to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to "Man on a Wire," directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit's daring dance on a wire suspended between New York's Twin Towers and his subsequent arrest for what would become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to "King of Ping Pong" ("Ping Pingkingen") directed by Jens Jonsson (pictured, left). An ostracized and bullied teenager who excels only in ping pong descends into an acrimonious struggle with his younger, more popular brother when the truth about their family history and their father surfaces over the course of their spring break.

The Audience Award: Documentary was presented to "Fields of Fuel," directed by Josh Tickell. A look at America's addiction to oil, Tickell is a man with a plan and a Veggie Van, who is taking on big oil, big government, and big soy to find solutions in places few people have looked.

The Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to "The Wackness," directed by Jonathan Levine (pictured, right). During a sweltering New York summer, a troubled teenage drug dealer trades pot for therapy sessions with a drugaddled psychiatrist, and in the process falls for the doctor's daughter.

The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary was presented to "Man on Wire," directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit's daring dance on a wire suspended between New York's Twin Towers and subsequent arrest for what would become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”

The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to "Captain Abu Raed," by director Amin Matalqa. The first feature film to come out of Jordan in 50 years, "Raed" tells the story of an aging airport janitor who is mistaken for an airline pilot by a group of poor neighborhood children and whose fantastical stories offer hope for a sad, sometimes unchangeable, reality.

'CSNY' curtain call with Crosby, Stills & Nash

Musicians David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young were in attendance as the 1,270-seat Eccles Theater hosted the world premiere of “CSNY Déjà Vu” on Friday night, the closing film of this year’s festival.

Not exactly a concert film, the movie is more meant to stand as a document of the 2006 tour by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, when they were supporting Young’s then-recent record “Living With War” -– which featured the song “Let’s Impeach the President” –- and delivering an urgent political message night after night to often unsuspecting audiences.

Directed by Bernard Shakey, Young’s filmmaking pseudonym, the film examines what was going on with the tour besides just the music. The group brought on journalist Mike Cerre, a Vietnam veteran who had been embedded with U.S. troops during the invasion of Iraq, to cover the tour.

Throughout the film Cerre interviews audience members before and after the shows, getting a wide range of responses to the political messages coming from the stage. During a riotous performance in Atlanta, audience members are seen leaving in droves as the band tears through “Impeach the President.” Cerre also talks to various activists and veterans the group encounters along the way.

There were no less than five standing ovations during the course of the evening, two during the introductions before the film and three times during the post-screening Q&A. (One was when a group of veterans featured in the film were brought up onstage.) In the second question during the session after the film, a man standing in the side aisle of the theater announced that his brother had been killed fighting in Iraq and, “He would respectfully want me to tell you: great entertainment, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Neil Young quickly responded, “No, we don’t,” before someone from the audience said, “You do know what you’re talking about.” Young continued by saying, “I believe from the bottom of my heart you’re right when you say that, just as I believe I’m right when I say things to you… Under the Great Spirit I respect all those soldiers. I was torn up every day. But it has to be said, and sometimes you have to say things.”

When the question was raised if those onstage considered themselves anti-war, Young responded by saying “We mean no disrespect by saying we’re anti-war… It’s not unpatriotic just to talk.”

The evening was not entirely serious-minded. At one point during the Q&A, a voice from the back of the room yelled out “How old are you guys?’ Young asked, “Combined ages?” David Crosby stepped up to say “I’m 92 and very well-preserved.”

-- Mark Olsen

A different brand of 'Sunshine'

I only got here on Monday, missing the true crush of the festival’s opening weekend, and yet it is still remarkable how the tone and feel of the town changes through the week. On Monday and Tuesday there were still visible signs of the weekend’s party crowd, as well as an elevated feeling in all the screenings.

The pressure of showing at Sundance, the general feeling of heightened expectations, causes the crowds to respond in turn, laughing louder and harder than they usually might. The business contingent is still in full effect as well, with buyers and sellers all plying their trades.

By Wednesday, things takes a noticeable turn. Audiences seem to respond in a more genuine way, perhaps no longer desperate to have their worlds rocked by the next big thing. There is a more relaxed, less intense feeling overall. Ski sweaters are not worn ironically. The people seem more, well, normal. It’s probably more in line with what Sundance might once have been or ideally might still be. Thursday night I shared a cab -– an odd local ritual –- with three women visiting from Davenport, Iowa. The film “Sugar” had been shot in the town, and so they thought it would be fun to take a trip out to the festival.

Friday morning I slipped right into a screening of “Sunshine Cleaning,” one of the hot-tipped breakout films prior to the festival, now seen as something of a lame duck following a lukewarm response in the high-pressure environment of opening weekend. I found the film to be better than I expected, perhaps due to lowered expectations.

The biggest problem for anyone expecting the film to be this year’s “Little Miss Sunshine” is that “Cleaning” isn’t really much of a comedy. Its best moments come when it dips toward drama, leaving viewers off-guard. Arresting performances by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt move things along even as the film around them at times fails them. Just like the festival in its second half, “Sunshine Cleaning” works best when the pressure is off, when it's able to just be what it is and not what everyone would want it to be.

-- Mark Olsen

'Sleep Dealer' wakes to Sloan Award

"Sleep Dealer," director Alex Rivera's vision of a near future where humans perform tasks in a virtual environment, has captured the 2008 Sundance Film Festival's Alfred P. Sloan Prize.

The award comes with a $20,000 cash prize to the filmmaker, and is given by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a feature film "focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character."

The film was actually developed at the 2000 and 2001 Sundance Institute Feature Film Program labs, and won the the 2002 Sundance/NHK award and a 2004 Annenberg Feature Film Fellowship.

"Sleep Dealer" was selected "for its visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy rife with fundamental challenges and opportunities, and for its powerful and original storytelling and direction."

-- Jevon Phillips

Q&A with Vanessa Beecroft of 'The Art Star and Sudanese Twins'

International performance art superstar Vanessa Beecroft knows full well what it's like to put other people on the spot. Her celebrated, controversial pieces usually involve dozens of naked women dressed in designer pumps and accessorized in wigs or body paint, standing or lolling in place for hours under the blank stares of art world spectators who never stop swigging Champagne.

In filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly's feature documentary about Beecroft, "The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins," which premiered in competition here last week, Beecroft precisely explains the physical and mental metamorphosis she is looking for her models to undergo in such performances: "Standing there for hours, they go from beautiful to miserable to exhausted. The melancholy and the uncertainty and embarrassment is what I look for."

The artist herself completes a similar transformation in the film, which follows 16 months of her life as she attempts to adopt a pair of twins from war-torn Sudan. But in Beecroft's way are government red tape (Sudan has no established adoption laws), the twins' suspicious relatives (who wrench the boys from her arms in one scene), her husband (who is unaware she is even thinking about adoption) and her own powerful self-absorption.

In the film, Beecroft brings up her own impulses toward racism, post-colonialism and Third World exploitation, dangling them in the air without ever directly dealing with the issues. The result is a less than flattering portrait of the artist as a prospective mother.

Warming herself by the Yarrow Hotel's enormous fireplace, however, Beecroft (who was raised in Italy and currently resides in Los Angeles) appeared glamorous and relaxed, at peace with her portrayal in "Art Star" -- even if she stopped just short of saying the movie has her pegged all wrong.

Click through below for a Q&A with the Los Angeles Times' Chris Lee.

Will fans of Palahniuk's novel 'Choke' on the movie?

“Choke” writer-director Clark Gregg -– best known these days for his role opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the CBS sitcom “The New Adventures of Old Christine” -– spent two years trying to write a faithful adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel before he took the writer’s advice and finally started to improvise.

“He feels his books are channeling the philosophies of other people,” Gregg said of Palahniuk at a packed screening of the film Thursday.

“He said, ‘Don’t be too faithful.’ … To get more to the essence of the book, I had to go off it a little bit.”

“Choke” is the heartwarming story of a sex addict and scam artist with a mother complex –- a film certain to present its own marketing challenges for Fox Searchlight and one that played to mixed reviews at the festival this year (though it got several belly laughs at Thursday’s screening, particularly during the opening scene at a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting).

Sam Rockwell stars as Victor Mancini, a man emotionally paralyzed by his sad, itinerant childhood and trapped by his sexual compulsion. The early-onset dementia of his mother (Anjelica Huston) forces him to abandon medical school and take up a scam in which he deliberately chokes on food to embolden a wealthy restaurant patron to save him, milking them for cash for years after.

Gregg has known Rockwell for years, but he realized he was perfect for the part of Victor after he saw him as a has-been TV actor in the 1999 comedy “Galaxy Quest.”  “It’s Hamlet the way he does it,” said Gregg.

During the “Choke” shoot, Gregg said that Rockwell had grown so familiar with the novel –- listening to a cassette of Palahniuk reading the book on tape -– that when he improvised in the film, Rockwell was actually speaking lines from the book.

Gregg didn’t realize until recently –- when Palahniuk fans started worrying aloud on their blogs -- how highly anticipated his film had become among that “rabid and vast” network of readers.

“Fortunately,” Gregg quipped, “I haven’t found any black cars following me yet.”

"Choke" opens in theaters Aug. 1st.

-- Gina Piccalo

PHOTO: Clark Gregg, left, directed "Choke," a Sundance Film Festival entry adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, right. Photo shot on Wednesday, January 23, 2008. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times.

'Baghead' bagged by Sony Pictures Classics

In a deal that closed at 3 a.m. Thursday night/Friday morning, Sony Pictures Classics purchased all North American rights to “Baghead,” written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass.
 

"Baghead" is described by festival programmer Shari Frilot as a "genre-twisting comedy that explores the minutiae of relationship dynamics among a group of desperate actor friends and roasts a gamut of indie films in the process."

The Duplass brothers previously directed 2005's "The Puffy Chair."

The film is repped by Submarine Entertainment.

An SPC spokeswoman confirmed the acquisition on Friday morning but noted that the exact terms of the deal are still being negotiated.

Update: Word in Park City is that the film was sold for less than $1 million.

-- Mark Olsen and Sheigh Crabtree

PHOTO: Brothers Mark (top) and Jay Duplass directed, wrote and produced the Sundance Film Festival comedy, "Baghead." Photo shot by Myung J. Chun on Thursday, January 24, 2008.