Sundance Film Festival

If you ever want to stump your movie geek pals with a barroom bet, just ask them who's the actor who appeared in only five feature films and all of 'em -- that's right, all five -- earned an Oscar nomination for best picture.

Two years ago, filmmakers would roll into the Sundance Film Festival confident that buyers would be willing to shell out $5 million to acquire their arty works, complete with a promise of a theatrical release. A lot has changed since then. The economy cratered, and dozens of independent films --including Sundance alumni "Hamlet 2" and "The Wackness" -- tanked. It was inevitable that this year's festival would be soft.

Many Sundance Film Festival movies left this year's gathering without a distributor, but indie film pioneer Harvey Weinstein is alleging that one of the festival's most acclaimed movies -- "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire" -- actually was sold twice. In three lawsuits filed Wednesday in New York against the film's sales agent, Cinetic Media, Lionsgate Films and the film's producers, Weinstein Co.

The positive buzz about this micro-budget spectral thriller started building at a Park City, Utah, film festival, word of mouth spread quickly via the Internet, early nationwide college-town screenings sparked even more interest, and a slowly expanding theatrical release fed the flames. It's the model that made "The Blair Witch Project" a cultural phenomenon and box-office blockbuster exactly a decade ago, and it's a carefully crafted plan that Paramount Pictures is following nearly to the letter with "Paranormal Activity."

Although accepting compliments about his novels is something that British writer Nick Hornby just can't get used to, he says that hearing all of the critical praise for his screenplay "An Education" has been easier than usual. "How ever many times people tell me that they really love [a novel], inside I think, 'Oh, God. You don't know what's wrong with this book,' " says Hornby, whose books "High Fidelity," "About a Boy" and "Fever Pitch" have all made their way to the big screen.

Despite appearances to the contrary, John Krasinski, the rangy costar of NBC's "The Office," does not fit into the category of actors who really want to direct. Even if the movie passion project he wrote and directed, "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men," is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. "I never wanted to be a writer, never wanted to direct anything," Krasinski, 29, said in West Hollywood last week. "People talk about being a triple threat.

Colin FARRELL, with his playboy rep and tabloid infamy, essentially started his career as a Hollywood star. Now he would like to concentrate on something else -- being an actor. "It kind of happened in reverse for me," the Irish-brogued Farrell, 31, said recently in a secluded corner at a luxury-level Beverly Hills hotel. "Sometimes actors ply their trade, their craft, their art for a long, long time, and if they're fortunate enough the opportunity arises, they find success. But for me, I worked a little bit, did a little bit of theater, I did some TV in Ireland, and then all this [freaking stuff]

While guests paused to watch the inauguration Tuesday, buyers and sellers at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah were busy wrapping up several deals. Fox Searchlight grabbed worldwide rights to "Adam," a dramatic competition entry about the relationship between a young woman and a young man who has mild autism. The film, starring Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, is scheduled to be released theatrically later this year. Magnolia Pictures acquired worldwide rights to "Humpday," a film also in the festival's dramatic competition.

Some films court controversy. Other films, controversy just finds them. "Downloading Nancy," which opens Friday in Los Angeles and New York, appears to be doing a bit of both. This kind of disputation -- organic or manufactured -- can overwhelm a film and obscure its more genuine, less sensationalistic qualities.

Whether rich and privileged or struggling and living on the margins, one of the principal ways that teens cope with the difficulties of a life in the process of defining itself is . . . they don't. Instead they lash out in anger; they shut down when they should open up; they walk away when they should stay. Add in the issue of race, and the pot boils over, scalding hot.