Actors are directing. Singers are acting. Drama directors are making concert films. Former presidential rivals Al Gore and Ralph Nader are hitting the big screen. And Hollywood's much-maligned system of rating movies stars in its own film.

The Sundance Film Festival, the country's foremost showcase for independent cinema, gets under way Thursday with an intriguing mix of role reversals among its cast. Gore and Nader lead what's shaping up as a powerhouse year for documentaries, always a strong suit at Sundance. Director Davis Guggenheim's "An Inconvenient Truth" chronicles former Vice President Gore's dogged campaign to convince a reluctant society of fossil-fuel profiteers and consumers about the dangers of global warming.

Nader, viewed by critics as the spoiler whose campaign kept Gore out of the White House in the 2000 election, is the subject of Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skrovan's "An Unreasonable Man," a portrait of the crusader for consumer rights and safety.

Sundance opens with writer-director Nicole Holofcener's "Friends With Money," starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman in limbo about her future after quitting her job and taking up temporary work as a housecleaner. The film centers on her relationship with three affluent friends (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Joan Cusack).

Actress Joey Lauren Adams ("Chasing Amy") directs Ashley Judd in "Come Early Morning," a drama about a Southern woman struggling to turn around her self-demeaning life. Comic Bob Goldthwait directs "Stay," a romantic comedy about a relationship strained to the breaking point by a pact of absolute honesty.

Jonathan Demme, the Academy Award-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs," is showing "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," which captures the rocker in concert accompanied by Emmylou Harris in Nashville last year.

Singer Justin Timberlake joins Emile Hirsch, Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone in Nick Cassavetes' "Alpha Dog," a tragic tale of rivalry and violence among young drug peddlers. Musician Tom Waits is among the cast of "Wristcutters: A Love Story," Goran Dukic's offbeat film about a dreary afterlife reserved for people who have killed themselves.

Among other Sundance highlights: Finn Taylor's "The Darwin Awards," with Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes in a twisted comedy about people accidentally killed in idiotic ways; Dito Montiel's "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints," starring Robert Downey Jr. and Rosario Dawson in a mean-streets drama set in 1980s Queens; Laurie Collyer's "Sherrybaby," featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal as a prison parolee trying to rebuild her life; and Isabel Coixet's "The Secret Life of Words," with Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley in the story of a nurse tending a temporarily blinded man on an oil rig in the Irish Sea.

As Sundance has grown from its roots as Robert Redford's little place of discovery and nurturing for new talent, celebrity hoopla and corporate marketing gimmicks often have overshadowed the films. Critics say Sundance has gone commercial, yet defenders insist such trappings are outside festival organizers' control.

Source: New York Daily News

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