Judging from the weekend box office estimates reported by Variety, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises was the greatest beneficiary of positive buzz generated by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Earning $36,851 per screen, the film known alternately as "the Russian mobster movie" or "the one where Viggo Mortensen fights naked," Cronenberg's latest soared to the top of the specialty charts. You can catch up by reading the review by Cinematical's Ryan Stewart and listening to James Rocchi's interview with the director. As I noted yesterday, Eastern Promises won the People's Choice Award at TIFF.

Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, driven by the music of The Beatles, drew some of the harshest reviews of any gala presentation at TIFF, though some, like Roger Ebert and Anne Thompson of Variety, vigorously defended it. Audiences flocked to see it, to the tune of an estimated $29,783 per screen. Trailing behind in third place, another TIFF gala presentation, Paul Haggis' war-themed drama In the Valley of Elah, still averaged a strong $16,666 per location. James Rocchi was not very enthusiastic, though: "You can tell everyone involved wanted to make an important statement. What they would end up making was a fairly indifferent movie."

Two other films that screened at TIFF also opened this weekend, though neither generated much buzz coming out of the festival. Mike Cahill's comedy King of California, with Michael Douglas and Even Rachel Wood, played at five locations and averaged $7,411 at five locations. While that's not terrific, it's far better than Francois Girard's period film Silk, with Keira Knightley, which tanked, earning just $1,058 per screen at 122 locales.

He's glorified greed, fended off a psycho ex-girlfriend and even served as president of the United States -- but at heart, Michael Douglas has always been plain ol' crazy. In King of California, a festival crowd-pleaser from first-time director Mike Cahill, Douglas is Charlie, who's just been released from a mental institution and is convinced that there's Spanish treasure buried under the local Costco; Evan Rachel Wood, as his teenaged daughter, plays Dulcinea to his Don Quixote. Though Douglas has always excelled at playing characters who are slightly unhinged (as Kim Voynar notes in her review), Charlie is what you'd call certifiable, and in a way this role brings Douglas back full circle -- he did, after all, launch his movie career by producing an indie about nutjobs called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. After endearing himself forever to this interviewer by chatting at length about the finer points of Cal football (go Bears!), Douglas spoke easily about his attitudes on directing, his lovely co-star and his recent return to madness.

Cinematical: It's rare to see you in an indie. Do you think that's because you see fewer smaller scripts these days, or do they just not jump out at you?

Michael Douglas: First of all, my whole career began in indie pictures to a large degree. I don't know. You know, I just haven't been been offered ... maybe people just get intimidated. I've had a few, but I haven't made that many movies really since I got married. If you look back, since 2000 I've only done about four pictures or something like that, so maybe that has something to do with it.

If there's one thing Michael Douglas does really well, it's crazy. In 1993, he did crazy to near-perfection as William "D-Fens" Foster in Joel Schumacher's Falling Down. I still think of Douglas's performance in that film 14 years later -- I ruminated on it most recently while stuck in traffic for 40 minutes due to road construction on my way to the Telluride Film Festival. Visions of Douglas wigging out and blowing up the construction site after he confronts the foreman and confirms his long-held suspicion that there was, in fact, no reason whatsoever for the construction that was tying up traffic danced in my head as I sat there whiling away the endless minutes. Douglas tackled a different kind of crazy in Wonder Boys, the film adaptation of one of my favorite novels, in which he perfectly embodied Professor Grady Tripp, who's gotten lost in a haze of pot smoke while having an affair with his boss's wife and endlessly writing a novel called Wonder Boys, which seems to have no end.

In King of California, which played at Sundance earlier this year and opens theatrically this weekend, Douglas tackles another kind of crazy as Charlie: long-haired, wild-eyed dad to a teenage daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood, who's become rather the go-to girl of the moment for angsty teen girl roles). As we enter Charlie and Miranda's story, Charlie has just returned home after a relaxing two-year stay in a mental institution, during which the now 16-year-old Miranda has fended for herself, dropping out of school in order to hold down a crappy fast-food job to pay the bills and keep their dilapidated house, and even buy her own car. Miranda has achieved a measure of scrappy independence without Charlie in her life, and his reappearance is met with something less than the enthusiasm Charlie anticipated.

Once again I don't see a theme forming in this week's gaggle of new previews, so I'm just going with stuff that I would plunk my hard-earned money down to see.

LOL
At first look I thought this humorous look at the relationships of three technologically obsessed young men was a documentary, and I think the realism the trailer conveys gives the film a sort of Blair Witch Project feel (that's a good thing). Director Joe Swanberg stars as Tim, who appears to be caught up in a triangle with his girlfriend and his computer. Tim's friend Alex is so obsessed with a beautiful girl he's met online that he doesn't notice the very real girl who is attracted to him. Chris finds himself separated from his girlfriend, and they are forced to continue their relationship through the technological filters of internet and cell phone. Karina Longworth reviewed LOL way back in March of 2006. The trailer grabbed my attention as something different, and Karina's positive review really has me wanting to see this one.

Dan in Real Life
Steve Carell may have taken a bit of a bath with Evan Almighty, but I suspect he'll be bouncing back with this one. He's still being funny here, but you can see a little more of the subtlety he brought to Little Miss Sunshine. Carell plays an advice columnist and single father of three girls. He meets a woman for whom he feels he has a special connection and she turns out to be his brother's girlfriend. As simplistic and sitcom-esque as the plot sounds, Carell really sells it with his usual warmth and likability. Scott found himself liking the trailer too and you can read his take on it here. The film goes into limited U.S. release on October 12 with a wider release following on October 19. Check out the trailer right here:

To most movie fans, Sundance is this far-off and distant place they can't visit because, well, it's a pretty damn expensive trip -- and who the heck wants to spend a week on a mountain in January and not ski? The second question I'm always asked upon my return home from Sundance (after "What good movies did you see?") is "What famous people did you meet?" But the third question is usually something like "So when will I actually get to see these movies that everyone's been chattering about for the last two weeks?" And so I decided to collect all the acquisition news from this past festival and offer it all up on one convenient platter. I'll keep the chatter to a minimum, but if you want more info on a particular film, please do partake of all the links below.

• Clubland -- Warner Independent Pictures -- $4,000,000
• Crazy Love -- Magnolia Pictures -- n/a
  
• Grace is Gone -- The Weinstein Co. -- $4,000,000
• How She Move -- Paramount Vantage -- $4,000,000
• In the Shadow of the Moon -- ThinkFilm -- $2,500,000
• Joshua -- Fox Searchlight -- $4,000,000
• King of California -- First Look Pictures -- $3,000,000
• La Misma Luna (The Same Moon) -- The Weinstein Co. & Fox Searchlight -- $5,000,000
• My Kid Could Paint That -- Sony Pictures Classics -- $1,500,000
• Nanking -- Fortissimo Films -- n/a
  
• Once -- Summit Entertainment -- n/a
  
• Protagonist -- IFC & Netflix -- Under $1,000,000
• The Signal -- Magnolia Pictures -- $2,300,000
• Son of Rambow -- Paramount Vantage -- $8,500,000 (some say even higher)
• Teeth -- The Weinstein Co. & Lionsgate -- $1,000,000
• The Ten -- ThinkFilm & City Lights Home Entertainment -- $4,500,000
• Waitress -- Fox Searchlight -- $4,500,000
• Weapons -- After Dark Films -- $1,000,000

Thanks to Variety, Movie City News, THR's RiskyBiz Blog, and our own Cine-maniacs (particularly Jette and Karina) for all the info. [Have any updates, additions or corrections? Leave 'em in the comments section please!] Added Bonus: After the jump you'll find a list of movies that already had North American distribution set up before they arrived at Sundance!

The 2007 Sundance Film Festival is a wrap. I saw some outstanding movies (King of California, Grace Is Gone, Son of Rambow, The Nines) and some not-so-outstanding movies (The Go-Getter, Smiley Face), some A-list celebs (Justin Timberlake, Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci) and some not-so-A-list celebs (Heavyset Girl #1 from Black Snake Moan). All in all, it was a great experience, full of flicks, fun and plenty of Bud Lights. In order to best summarize the things I saw, heard and learned at the festival, I now present Sundance by the Numbers.

1: Number of times I heard Justin Timberlake ask Samuel L. Jackson, "Are there any motherf#&!in snakes in Black Snake Moan?"

1: Number of times I heard Samuel L. Jackson reply "Only trouser snakes."

1: Number of movies about a girl who grows an actual set of teeth in her vagina. The twisted and, yes, crowd-pleasing flick is quite appropriately entitled Teeth, and those dangerous vajay-jay chompers belong to rising star Jess Weixler (Little Manhattan).

1: Number of people who laid down on the floor and went to sleep during the press screening of Heather Graham's Adrift in Manhattan.

1: Number of dudes dancing shirtless at the Sundance Awards after-party.

2: Number of movies in which a character goes off to war in Iraq and gives a loved one a digital wristwatch with an alarm set to beep at the same time as the alarm on his/her wristwatch -- that way they'll know they're thinking about each other at the exact same moment. Justin Timberlake gives one to Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan, and John Cusack's unseen wife gives one to their daughter in Grace Is Gone.

2: Number of movies starring a Fanning -- Dakota headlines the controversial Hounddog and younger sis Elle plays a supporting role in The Nines.

3: Number of times Christina Ricci takes her top off in Black Snake Moan.

4: Number of times Ryan Reynolds takes his shirt off in the first 20 minutes of The Nines.

4: Millions of dollars paid by Harvey Weinstein for distribution rights to Audience Award and Screenwriting Award winner Grace Is Gone.

5: Number of attempts it takes drunken teenager Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) to throw a cello through the window of the girl who jilted him in the Thumbsucker-esque Rocket Science.

Michael Douglas excels at portraying middle-aged men who are a few yards shy of being neurologically balanced. Witness his turns as a pot-smoking writer in Wonder Boys and as a same-sex-loving cop on TV's Will & Grace for examples of this. And now there's another role to add to this list -- that of the mentally unhinged Charlie in King of California, the rights to which were just picked up by First Look for a cool $3 million.

This funny, poignant, crowd-pleasing dramedy from talented first-time writer-director Mike Cahill tells the story of Douglas' Charlie, who returns home to his daughter Miranda (the sublime Evan Rachel Wood) after a two-year stint in a mental institution seemingly crazier than ever -- muttering about naked Chinese men washing up on the California beaches and 17th-century Spanish doubloons buried somewhere in SoCal. Thanks in part to her dad's magnetic eccentricity, his unflinching optimism that there is indeed buried treasure nearby, and her own sheer boredom, Miranda agrees to aid Charlie in his quest.

The film that emerges from their father-daughter treasure hunt could have been one 90-minute cliche. It could have been just another quirky indie about a cartoonishly dysfunctional family. But Michael Douglas, looking as bearded, mustachioed and grayed as the Man of la Mancha, is so sympathetic, so pure of heart in his delusion that it's impossible not to see him as a modern-day Don Quioxte. One crazy yet tender look from Douglas, his eyes popping wide out of his head, an innocent (and mildly deranged) smile playing across his lips, and it's easy to see why Miranda would line up next to him to joust a windmill or two. That said, the film would be lost without Wood's compelling performance to anchor it.

We're just over six weeks away from the Sundance Film Festival, and it's shaping up to be a fun fest. I love film festivals, and thankfully, haven't yet gotten so jaded that I don't get excited when fest lineups are announced (seriously, if I ever get to the point that I'm not excited about the possibility of finding a wonderful film or two a fest, someone please just shoot me and put me out of my misery). We've already told you about the competition films and the Midnight offerings, which Scott Weinberg will be covering extensively for us at Sundance, once he recovers from his deep disappointment at the lack of horror there this year.

Now it's time to unwrap the big, shiny packages labled "Premiere", "Spectrum" and "New Frontier" and take a peek at what's inside ...