Sundance Volunteers have 'Power' to Trump Suits

By Gregg Goldstein

At Sundance, volunteers are wanted, but not always film execs.

Several buyers found that out the hard way Friday night when they tried to get into a volunteers-only 8 p.m. Library screening of Ari Gold's air-drumming comedy "Adventures of Power," starring Gold and Adrian Grenier.

They were hoping to get a jump on the film's official midnight Sunday premiere, but they were left out in the 1-degree cold, trying their luck again for 10 p.m. and midnight screenings of "Anvil! The True Story of Anvil" in the same theater.

Several made it in to the comic heavy-metal rockumentary, which (despite a few dissenters) emerged with good buzz. No final verdict on its distribution fate should arrive until after Friday's official 5:30 p.m. premiere at the same venue.

One of the first films to bring in distributors (Miramax, Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics among them) was Friday morning's premiere of "Good Dick," pictured, an entry in the Dramatic Competition. The psychodrama laced with dark humor stars first-time writer-director Marianna Palka and her offscreen beau Josh Ritter as two emotionally damaged characters who embark on a tortured relationship.

Audiences were divided, with some echoing the Sundance programmers' enthusiasm and others hating it with a passion. Its characters and themes are similar to one of the worst films I've ever seen, Tom Noonan's stagy and pretentious first-date-gone-wrong drama "What Happened Was ..." But somehow this one managed to engage and impress both me and my colleague Steve Z., despite the frequent eye-rolling of a few former colleagues sitting next to me.