Oscar had his own boarding pass — and a major entourage — as film academy president Tom Sherak carried the golden statuette through the O’Hare International Airport.

The Oscar statuettes are made at local foundry R.S. Owens, and Sherak and other academy officials are personally escorting 42 of the coveted trophies back to academy headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sherak surprised people throughout the airport with the golden guy, and ticketed passengers lined up for a chance to be photographed with Oscar.

Passengers aboard the plane will also have a chance to meet Oscar and win Academy Awards-related souvenirs.

The Oscars will be presented Feb. 26.

The annual Berlin film festival is opening with a costume drama set at the beginning of the French revolution — the first of 18 movies competing at the event.

“Farewell My Queen,” from French director Benoit Jacquot and starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette, was making its debut at the start of the 11-day event on Thursday, the first of the year’s major European film festivals.

An eight-member jury led by British director Mike Leigh will choose this year’s winner of the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, and other awards.

The jury also includes actor Jake Gyllenhaal and Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian director of last year’s winning film, “A Separation.”

Leigh says he enjoys the midwinter Berlin festival for “its spirit, its atmosphere, its informality.”

We did have a winner: the Muvico Parisian 20 at CityPlace. Unfortunately, we also only had 65 votes.

(Understandable — we had just started Taking Your Pulse, so it wasn’t all that well publicized.)

So we decided to try again this year, and behind a much more respectable 333 votes, we have a new winner.

Your 2011 favorite movie theater is Cobb Downtown 16, in the Downtown at the Gardens center in Palm Beach Gardens.

The Downtown 16 came away with 30 percent of the vote, edging out the Cobb Jupiter 18, which had 27 percent.

Last year’s winner, the Parisian 20, was still a respectable third with 18.9 percent of the vote.

Rounding out the top five were the Cinemark Boynton at 5.7 percent and Boca Raton’s Cinemark Palace 20 at 5.3 percent.

Click here to see the full results.

His employer, National Geographic, said Sunday that deGruy and Australian television writer-producer Andrew Wight died Saturday.

Their helicopter crashed soon after takeoff from an airstrip near Nowra, 97 miles north of Sydney, police said. Australia’s ABC News reported that Wight was piloting the copter when it crashed.

DeGruy won multiple Emmy and British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA, awards for cinematography.

An accomplished diver and submersible pilot, the Santa Barbara resident was the director of undersea photography for James Cameron’s 2005 documentary “Last Mysteries of the Titanic.”

“Mike and Andrew were like family to me,” Cameron said in a joint statement with National Geographic. “They were my deep-sea brothers and both were true explorers who did extraordinary things and went places no human being has been.”

After spending three years at the University of Hawaii in a Marine Biology Ph.D. program, DeGruy moved to the Marshall Islands, according to his website. He spent three years there, working as the manager of the Mid-Pacific Marine Lab, before transitioning to filmmaking.

DeGruy spent much of his early film career traveling the world, shooting for clients including the BBC, PBS and National Geographic, his website says. He later began producing and hosting the films.

David Bennett, president of Australia’s South Coast Recreational Flying Club, said deGruy and Wight had set off to film a documentary when their helicopter crashed.

Wight, 52, of Melbourne, was the writer-producer of the 3D movie “Sanctum,” which took in $100 million and was Australian cinema’s biggest box office hit of 2010.

The 20th Century Fox release “Chronicle,” featuring a relatively unknown cast as youths who gain telekinetic abilities, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $22 million.

Sunday studio estimates put “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe’s ghost story “The Woman in Black,” released by CBS Films, just behind with a $21 million opening.

The results were close enough that the No. 1 and 2 rankings could switch when final numbers are released Monday.

The two movies had healthy starts considering it was Super Bowl weekend, when few people go to theaters on Sunday because of the big game.

Each movie landed in the all-time top-10 list for Super Bowl weekend debuts, which is headed by the $31.1 million opening for 2008′s “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert,” according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

“To have two movies over $20 million on a Super Bowl weekend is really strong,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “If the Super Bowl is as close as these two movies, that’ll be a really good Super Bowl.”

Both movies packed in solid teen and early-20s crowds, Hollywood’s bread-and-butter audience that had been giving movies a pass during a box-office slide late last year.

“Chronicle” was “designed and made for a younger demographic. That demographic has been the one that’s been missing from theaters,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox. “There’s something very unique and very innovative about this movie that they got wind of. There was a lot of pre-release chatter on social media that made a connection with this audience.”

From first-time director Josh Trank, “Chronicle” relies on documentary-style, hand-held filming techniques to tell the story of three teens (Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan and Alex Russell) who put their newfound superpowers to work in mischievous and eventually dark ways.

In “The Woman in Black,” his first starring role since last summer’s “Harry Potter” finale, Radcliffe plays a widowed lawyer beset by ghostly apparitions at the remote home of a recently deceased client.

While the audience for “Chronicle” was 55 percent male, the crowds for “Woman in Black” were 59 percent female, drawn by heartthrob Radcliffe and the lure of an old-fashioned Gothic ghost story.

Both films far exceeded industry expectations for the weekend.

“In retrospect, you look at Daniel Radcliffe, one of the biggest stars and one of the hardest-working kids in show business, you have a very well-made PG-13 scary movie,” said Steven Friedlander, head of distribution for CBS Films. “The only surprise, really, is why are we surprised? Those are all the elements for making a hit.”

The previous weekend’s top movie, Liam Neeson’s Alaska survival tale “The Grey,” slipped to No. 3 with $9.5 million, raising its domestic total to $34.6 million.

At No. 4 with an $8.5 million debut was another Alaska adventure, Universal Pictures’ family film “Big Miracle,” with Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski aiming to save three whales trapped by Arctic ice.

Pop star Madonna’s drama “W.E.” had a modest opening in limited release, pulling in $45,000 in four theaters. Directed and co-written by Madonna, “W.E.” blends the real-life romance of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and Britain’s King Edward VIII (James D’Arcy) with a fictional modern story of a Manhattan woman (Abbie Cornish) in an unhappy marriage.

Hollywood finished the first month of 2012 with strong revenues that are running well ahead of last year’s lackluster receipts. According to Hollywood.com, domestic revenues through Sunday totaled $967.5 million, up 14 percent from the same point last year.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Chronicle,” $22 million.

2. “The Woman in Black,” $21 million.

3. “The Grey,” $9.5 million.

4. “Big Miracle,” $8.5 million.

5. “Underworld Awakening,” $5.6 million.

6. “One for the Money,” $5.3 million.

7. “Red Tails,” $5 million.

8. “The Descendants,” $4.6 million.

9. “Man on a Ledge,” $4.5 million.

10. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” $3.9 million.

Humphrey Bogart

The son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall is opening the first film festival at the Smithsonian’s new movie theater on the National Mall with screenings of several of his father’s films, beginning with “Casablanca.”

Sixty-three-year-old Stephen Bogart says he only really knew his famous father from the movies. Humphrey Bogart died when he was just 8 years old.

Still, he says his father would have been shocked to find himself featured at the National Museum of American History. Stephen Bogart says his father wasn’t full of himself but was just an actor devoted to his craft.

The American Film Institute has ranked Humphrey Bogart as the greatest male legend from the screen.

Stephen Bogart is a real estate agent in Florida after a career in TV news.

Image via Wikipedia

Eastman Kodak Co. wants to end its contract for naming rights to the glamorous Los Angeles theater that hosts the Academy Awards as it tries to improve its financial position enough to move out of bankruptcy.

The photography pioneer’s financial advisers say in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this week that the benefits of having the upstate New York company’s name on the 3,300-seat Kodak Theatre aren’t worth the cost.

Details of the contract with CIM Group of Los Angeles weren’t disclosed. But the company says it pays a significant amount annually for the naming rights at the venue. It opened in 2001.

Rochester-based Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Jan. 19. The 132-year-old company is required to produce a reorganization plan by early 2013.

This week we pair Drew Barrymore's new movie 'Big Miracle' with food at Darbster.

The film: Big Miracle, opening Friday, in which a small-town Alaska TV reporter recruits his ex-girlfriend — a Greenpeace volunteer — to help save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle. | Showtimes, theaters

The food: Save the whales — or at least animals that typically wind up on dinner plates — when you dine at Darbster, a vegan bistro with a dog-friendly deck. The restaurant donates a portion of its profits to local animal rescue groups. And the chow’s not bad, either.

Darbster, 8020 S. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach, (561) 586-2622, Darbster.com | Directions, invite a friend

'The Last Supper', one of Da Vinci's most famous works, is among the works on display in the Fathom Events showing 'Leonardo Live'.

In an effort to get people into movie theaters, many of the multiplex chains are offering one-night only showings of everything from rock concert films to New York opera productions.

This month, NCM Fathom, which does most of the screenings across the country, is broadening its cultural offerings.

On Feb. 16, you can see a filmed tour of the current Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at London’s National Gallery, where the Wall Street Journal reports that patrons are queuing up at dawn to get tickets that are being scalped for prices up to $600. Here, you can see it for a ticket price of $12.50.

The HD movie will show highlights of the 60-work show, which features paintings and sculptures from the years Da Vinci was a court painter in Milan.

Speaking of British, Fathom will also offer a screening of the National Theater’s production of Travelling Light, the new Nicholas Wright play about the dawning of cinema. Other films include two Metropolitan Opera productions, a sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and a concert by the L.A. Philharmonic.

Here’s what’s showing this month:

Thursday: Kevin Smith: Live From Behind
Feb. 9: National Theater Live: Travelling Light
Feb. 11: The Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung Live.
Feb. 16: Leonardo Live
Feb. 18: L.A. Philharmonic, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting Mahler’s 8th.
Feb. 25: The Metropolitan Opera’s Ernani live.
Feb. 28: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, from a filmed Australian stage production.
Feb. 29: L.A. Philharmonic encore.

For information, times and locations, go to fathomevents.com.

GasLand (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

A documentary filmmaker has been arrested at a House hearing after trying to film the proceedings without the required credentials.

Joshua Fox of Milanville, Pa., was charged by Capitol Police on Wednesday with unlawful entry.

Fox directed the anti-drilling documentary “Gasland,” which was nominated last year for an Oscar. Fox also is an activist who has spoken out against hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which was the subject of the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee hearing.

Fracking takes place when large volumes of water, sand and chemicals are injected into wells to break up underground rock formations, allowing natural gas to escape.

The oil and gas industry has criticized Fox and his film for what they say is a sensationalized attack on fracking.

Clint Eastwood (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

The Smithsonian Institution is honoring Clint Eastwood on Wednesday for his six decades of work in American film, and the actor and director will cut the ribbon to open a new movie theater to showcase film history at the National Museum of American History.

Eastwood will visit the museum Wednesday evening to help dedicate the new Warner Bros. Theater as a space to present the history of Hollywood. Warner Bros. Entertainment donated $5 million in 2010 to renovate the museum’s old Carmichael Auditorium into a modern theater with 3D projection capability.

The new theater gives the Smithsonian its first space dedicated to film history, museum spokeswoman Melinda Machado. The 264-seat theater will be able to screen silent films and first-run movies.

“Films are an integral part of our culture and our daily lives,” said Marc Pachter, interim director of the museum.

Warner Bros. will help present four film festivals at the museum this year and into the future, Machado said. Most programs at the theater will be free to visitors, rather than charging for tickets as the Smithsonian does at its IMAX theaters.

On Friday, the museum will open a three-day film festival to highlight the work of Humphrey Bogart with free screenings of “Casablanca,” ”The Maltese Falcon” and other films.

Movie costumes also are going on display at the museum, including those worn by Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Eastwood, along with Harry Potter’s robe. The costumes are on loan from Warner Bros., along with animation drawings for Bugs Bunny and other memorabilia.

In a statement, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Barry Meyer said the new theater will be a place to highlight the nation’s movie legacy.

“This partnership with the Smithsonian, whose very name signifies the gold standard for the preservation and presentation of all things with historical significance, is a great step toward reminding people that movies and television shows are an important part of our shared culture,” Meyer said.

Eastwood, 81, will be awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal for his distinguished contributions in film. The award was established in 1965.

Seeing this headline, there might be some of you who’re saying, “Wait. I’ve seen this before.”

It’s true — we did ask people what their favorite movie theater was last year. But we only had 65 total votes.

Taking Your Pulse has had a few more people voting in polls since that time, so we decided to give this one another chance.

This is the first of our “do-over” polls — polls that for one reason or another didn’t quite work out the way we’d planned.

So vote below — and if you don’t see your favorite theater, click “other” and write in the one you like.

We’ll have the results on Monday.

Organizers on Tuesday presented the program for the event, the first of the year’s major European film festivals, which runs Feb. 9-19.

Outside the main competition, highlights include Meryl Streep being honored for her lifetime achievement; Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, the Bosnian war movie “In the Land of Blood and Honey”; and documentaries and discussions on the Arab world in the wake of the past year’s upheaval.

“There are a lot of films in this festival about changes happening in the world,” festival director Dieter Kosslick said.

The competition for the festival’s top Golden Bear award opens with French director Benoit Jacquot’s “Farewell My Queen,” a drama centering on the drama inside the queen’s palace as the French Revolution broke out, and starring Kruger as Marie Antoinette.

Thornton both directs and stars in “Jayne Mansfield’s Car,” a 1960s drama that also features John Hurt, Robert Duvall and Kevin Bacon.

Other entries range from Indonesian director Edwin’s “Postcards From The Zoo,” the story of a girl raised by a giraffe keeper, to “Caesar Must Die,” from Italian brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, following an effort to stage a Shakespeare play at a Rome prison.

Last year’s Golden Bear went to Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” which also swept the festival’s acting awards and has been nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-language category this year.

Farhadi is a member of the eight-member jury that will choose this year’s winners. Led by British director Mike Leigh, it also includes actor Jake Gyllenhaal; photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn; French director Francois Ozon; and actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Finally, an awards show with some surprises and spontaneity.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards featured some unexpected winners, including “The Help” for best overall cast performance and Jean Dujardin for best actor in “The Artist” alongside some of the longtime favorites in movies and television.

But there was a looseness and a playfulness that permeated the Shrine Exposition Center Sunday night — maybe because it was a room full of people who love to perform, without the rigidity of one single host to lead them.

Unlike the great expectations that came with the sharp-tongued Ricky Gervais’ reprisal at the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago or the much-anticipated return of Billy Crystal to the Academy Awards next month, there was no master of ceremonies at the SAG Awards. The presenters and winners seemed to have more room to improvise and put their own spin on the evening — but mercifully, the show itself still managed to wrap up on time after just two hours.

And so we had three of the stars of best-cast nominee “Bridesmaids” — Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy — introducing their comedy with a joke about turning the name “Scorsese” into a drinking game, which became a running gag throughout the night. When HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” won the award for best drama series cast, among the first words star Steve Buscemi uttered in accepting the prize were “Martin Scorsese” — he just happens to be one of the show’s executive producers.

One of the more exciting moments of the night was the announcement of Dujardin’s name in the best-actor category for his performance in the silent, black-and-white homage “The Artist.” In winning the award for his portrayal of a silent-film star who finds his career in decline with the arrival of talkies, Dujardin definitely boosts his chances at the Oscars on Feb. 26. Little-known in the United States before this, the French comic bested bigger names like George Clooney (“The Descendants”), Brad Pitt (“Moneyball”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (“J. Edgar”).

If he follows this up with an Academy Award, Dujardin would become the first French actor ever to take the prize. Asked backstage how it would feel, Dujardin launched into a jaunty rendition of “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.

“Pressure, big pressure,” Dujardin then added in his halting English. “It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing already. Too early to tell.”

Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer continued to cement their front-runner status in the actress and supporting actress categories, respectively, for their formidable work in “The Help.” Both women play black maids in 1960s Mississippi who dare to go public about the bigotry they’ve endured.

“I just have to say that the stain of racism and sexism is not just for people of color or women. It’s all of our burden, all of us,” Davis said, accepting the ensemble prize on behalf of her “The Help” co-stars.

Backstage, Davis said of her own victory: “A few more people checked my name in the box for whatever reason. This time I kind of fooled them.”

Meanwhile, Christopher Plummer picked up yet another supporting-actor prize for his lovely turn as an elderly widower who finally comes out as gay in “Beginners.” Plummer won at the Golden Globes and is nominated for an Oscar. He would become the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award at age 82, two years older than Jessica Tandy was when she won best actress for “Driving Miss Daisy.”

Backstage, Plummer joked when asked if he would like to win an Oscar, an honor so elusive during his esteemed 60-year career that he did not even receive his first Academy Award nomination until two years ago, for “The Last Station.”

“No, I think it’s frightfully boring,” Plummer said. “That’s an awful question. Listen, we don’t go into this business preoccupied by awards. If we did, we wouldn’t last five minutes.”

The win for overall cast for “The Help,” when “The Artist” and “The Descendants” have been the favorites all along, makes the conversation more interesting but it isn’t necessarily an indicator of how the film will do come Oscar time.

The guild’s ensemble prize, considered its equivalent of a best-picture honor, has a spotty record at predicting what will win the top award at the Oscars. While “The King’s Speech” won both honors a year ago, the SAG ensemble recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category.

The winners at the SAG ceremony often do go on to earn Oscars, however. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars — Colin Firth for “The King’s Speech,” Natalie Portman for “Black Swan” and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for “The Fighter.”

On the television side, comedy series awards went to “Modern Family” for best ensemble; Alec Baldwin as best actor for “30 Rock”; and Betty White as best actress for “Hot in Cleveland.”

“You can’t name me, without naming those other wonderful women on ‘Hot in Cleveland,’” the 90-year-old White said. “This nomination belongs to four of us. Please, please know that I’m dealing them right in with this. I’m not going to let them keep this, but I’ll let them see it.”

The TV drama show winners were: Jessica Lange as best actress for “American Horror Story”; and Buscemi as best actor for “Boardwalk Empire.”

For TV movie or miniseries, Kate Winslet won as best actress for “Mildred Pierce,” while Paul Giamatti was named best actor for “Too Big to Fail.”

The guild gave its lifetime achievement award to Mary Tyler Moore, presented by Dick Van Dyke, her co-star on the 1960s sit-com “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Moore recalled that when she entered show business at age 18 in 1955, there were already six others Mary Moores in the Screen Actors Guild. Told to change her name, she quickly added Tyler, the middle name she shares with her father, George.

“I was Mary Tyler Moore. I spoke it out loud. Mary Tyler Moore. It sounded right so I wrote it down on the form, and it looked right,” she said. “It was right. SAG was happy, my father was happy, and tonight, after having the privilege of working in this business among the most creative and talented people imaginable, I too am happy, after all.”

___

AP writers David Germain and Beth Harris contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.sagawards.com

Andie MacDowell with her daughter, Rainey Qualley, at the 2012 Golden Globes. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / MCT)

"We all have highs and lows. There are going to be moments that are perfect, and there are going to be moments that suck. You have to learn to be really happy in the moments that suck. That’s the true secret to happiness."

And with that, actress Andie MacDowell not only gives an idea for the next matter-of-fact T-shirt slogan, but sums up an attitude that she says has seen people through almost anything, including the women she’s seen heroically fight ovarian cancer.

"Those ladies are so inspiring, for us to see people who are dealing with real problems, instead of ‘Do you have a hit movie or not,’" says MacDowell, the keynote speaker for the Palm Healthcare Foundation’s H.O.W. (Hearing the Ovarian cancer Whisper) Time is of the Essence luncheon today at the Flagler Museum on Palm Beach.

"They can maintain joy and a sense of self and reach out to others to lift them up. I had some of the ladies over to my house recently, and they were trying to lift me up! It blows my mind how people can be so generous in their own spirit to do that. I’ve learned a lot from them," she says.

The actress (Four Weddings and A Funeral, Groundhog Day, Green Card, Short Cuts) became involved in ovarian cancer causes through L’Oreal Paris, which she has long promoted. Since 1997, the brand has raised more than $18 million for ovarian cancer causes. MacDowell says she has learned through her involvement that ovarian cancer can be particularly insidious because it’s not easy to diagnose.

"There’s no way to have early detection, because the symptoms can be so different for different people," she explains. "There are women who have said that their back hurt, and that was the start of it. Who would ever think that meant ovarian cancer? In a way I forgive the doctors who sometimes misdiagnose it initially, because those symptoms are hard."

She says that the key is in women being insistent on finding answers to the things that they know are going on in their own bodies, even if they can’t put a name to it.

"People quite often are in tune with their bodies and it’s sad to know that something is wrong, and maybe even where it is, and not know what," she says. "I don’t know how we teach that to doctors."

What has to be taught to women, who are usually busy taking care of everyone else, is to focus on themselves long enough to get checked out.

"I have heard this over and over again, that because their symptoms were not the kind of things that mean you couldn’t function, that didn’t stop you from making lunch or getting the kids dressed for school, that most of the time they kept doing for other people," MacDowell says. "You cannot ignore (symptoms), no matter how small. You cannot ignore it. The majority of these women ignored it, and they were really disappointed that they did."

MacDowell has been busy, apart from her acting and activism – her daughter Rainey Qualley, 21, a dancer and actor trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, recently served as Miss Golden Globes, an honor given each year to the daughter of a performer. MacDowell was beaming during Rainey’s introduction on the broadcast.

"I was certainly a proud mom," she says. "It was actually a lot of fun. We had a great time. Once I saw her out there, so poised, I was assured. Her legs were shaking so much she was afraid she was gonna fall down! I know that feeling, too. It dissipates."

She says that while there are no guarantees for the success of Rainey or anyone in Hollywood, it’s easier to achieve depending on one’s definition – "Is my success someone else’s idea of what it should be, or is my success my own?" she says. "People might judge me because I haven’t been in a hit movie in a while – although I was in (the remake of) Footloose - and say ‘She’s a failure. She’s been gone for years.’ People project that onto me. But I never felt I was a failure."

Neither would anyone, logically, who has been in as many hit movies as MacDowell, currently appearing on ABC Family’s Jane By Design. But the point she’s making is not about comparing box office numbers, but understanding and appreciating one’s successes by pride of accomplishment.

"I’m a successful mother, first and foremost, and a successful friend. My job doesn’t define me. It’s an asset to my life," she says. "I look at (my daughter) and say ‘OK, she’s going into a really risky industry. What isn’t? Can you maintain a balance in your life?’ That’s the key."

leslie_streeter@pbpost.com

Andie MacDowell: Time is of the Essence luncheon | Directions, invite a friend

When: Today, 11:30 a.m.

Where: Flagler Museum

Info: (561) 837-2285 or email jmcgrath@phfpbc.org.

Image via Wikipedia

Beware the Liam in Winter.

Liam Neeson’s “The Grey” topped the weekend box office with $20 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, continuing the actor’s success as an action star in the winter months.

The Alaskan survivalist thriller opened above expectations with a performance on par with previous Neeson thrillers “Taken” and “Unknown.” Those films, both January-February releases, opened with $24.7 million and $21.9 million, respectively.

But the R-rated “The Grey,” which has received good reviews, drove home the strong appeal of Neeson, action star. It’s an unlikely turn for the 59-year-old Neeson, previously better known for his dramatic performances, like those in “Schindler’s List” and “Kinsey.”

“Liam is a true movie star, period,” said Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films. It’s the second release for the newly formed distributor, created by theater chains AMC and Regal.

“My guess is that Liam Neeson in action thrillers would work just about any time of year.”

January is often a dumping ground for less-stellar releases, a tradition held up by two badly reviewed new wide releases: “Man on Ledge,” with Sam Worthington, and “One for the Money” with Katherine Heigl.

“One for the Money” fared better, earning $11.8 million, while “Man on Ledge” opened with $8.3 million.

Those were reasonably solid returns, and, in an unusual twist, were both ultimately for Lions Gate Entertainment. Its film studio, Lionsgate, released the romantic comedy “One for the Money.” The action thriller “Man on Ledge” was released by Summit Entertainment, which Lions Gate bought for $412.5 million earlier this month.

“One for the Money” was helped by a promotion with Groupon, the Internet discount site, with which Lionsgate previously partnered for “The Lincoln Lawyer.” David Spitz, head of distribution for Lionsgate, said the large number of older, female subscribers of Groupon matched well with the audience of “One for the Money.”

Groupon email blasts, he said, had a significant promotional effect.

Last week’s box-office leader, “Underworld: Awakenings,” Sony’s Screen Gem’s latest installment in its vampire series, came in second with $12.5 million, bringing its cumulative total to $45.1 million.

The unexpectedly large haul for “The Grey,” strong holdovers (such as the George Lucas-produced World War II action film “Red Tails,” which earned $10.4 million in its second week) and the bump for Oscar contending films following Tuesday’s nominations added up to a good weekend for Hollywood. The box office was up about 15 percent on the corresponding weekend last year.

So far, every weekend this year has been an “up” weekend, after a somewhat dismal fourth quarter in 2011.

“‘Mission: Impossible,’ I think, really helped reinvigorate the marketplace, and that’s carried over into the first part of the year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “That’s good news for Hollywood after the down-trending box office of 2011.”

Oscar favorites “The Descendants,” Hugo” and “The Artist” sought to capitalize on their recent Academy Awards nominations. Each expanded to more theaters and saw an uptick in business.

Fox Searchlight’s “The Descendants,” which is nominated for five Oscars including best picture, added 1,441 screens in its 11th week of release. It added $6.6 million and has now made $58.8 million, making it one of Fox Searchlight’s most successful releases.

Sheila DeLoach, senior vice president of distribution for Fox Searchlight, said the film’s nominations and its recent Golden Globes wins (for best drama and best actor, George Clooney) “played a big role” in its weekend box office.

Paramount’s “Hugo,” which led Oscar nominations with 11 including best picture, saw a 143 percent jump in business over its last weekend. In its tenth week of release, it earned $2.3 million, bringing its total to $58.7 million.

The Weinstein Co.’s “The Artist,” with 10 Oscar nominations including best picture, expanded a modest 235 screens to bring it to a total of 897 screens in its 10th week of release. It earned $3.3 million, with a total of $16.7 million.

The Weinstein Co. is being careful with the black-and-white, largely silent film. Thus far, it has appealed particularly to older audiences.

“It’s not the same type of picture as any other picture in the marketplace,” said Erik Loomis, head of distribution for the Weinstein Co. “Now that the nominations are out, we’re going to look to capitalize on it as best we can. … We’re being very, very meticulous with it. We’re not throwing it out there and grabbing every theater we can. At some point, we’ll open the floodgates on the movie, maybe closer to the awards.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “The Grey,” $20 million.

2. “Underworld: Awakening,” $12.5 million.

3. “One for the Money,” $11.8 million.

4. “Red Tails,” $10.4 million.

5. “Man on Ledge,” $8.3 million.

6. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” $7.1 million.

7. “The Descendants,” $6.6 million.

8. “Contraband,” $6.5 million.

9. “Beauty and the Beast,” $5.3 million.

10. “Haywire,” $4 million.

James Marsh won the documentary prize Saturday at the Directors Guild of America Awards for “Project Nim,” his chronicle of the triumphs and trials of a chimpanzee that was raised like a human child.

It was the latest major Hollywood prize for Marsh, who earned the documentary Academy Award for 2008′s “Man on Wire.” Among those Marsh beat out for the guild award was Martin Scorsese, who had been up for the documentary honor for “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” and also was nominated for the evening’s highest honor, for feature-film directing.

The film favorites were guild awards regular Scorsese for his Paris adventure “Hugo” and first-time nominee Michel Hazanavicius for his silent movie “The Artist.”

Also in the running were Woody Allen for his romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris”; David Fincher for his thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; and Alexander Payne for his family drama “The Descendants.”

At the start of the ceremony, Guild President Taylor Hackford led the crowd in a toast to one of his predecessors, Gil Cates, the veteran producer of the Academy Awards broadcast who died last year.

Robert B. Weide won the comedy directing award for an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Other early television winners at the guild ceremony were:

— Reality programming: Neil P. DeGroot, “The Biggest Loser.”

— Musical variety: Glenn Weiss, “The 65th Annual Tony Awards.”

— Daytime serials: William Ludel, “General Hospital.”

— Children’s programs: Amy Schatz, “A Child’s Garden of Poetry.”

— Commercials: Noam Murro.

The Directors Guild Awards are one of Hollywood’s most accurate forecasts for who will win at the industry’s top honors, the Oscars, which will be handed out Feb. 26. Only six times in the 63-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to take home the Oscar for best director, and more often than not, the film winning the best director Oscar is voted best picture.

Fincher had been the favorite going into the Directors Guild ceremony last year for “The Social Network,” but Tom Hooper came away the winner for “The King’s Speech.” Hooper went on to win the Oscar, too, and his film also earned best picture.

This time, Fincher’s the odd man out at the Directors Guild show. The other four guild nominees made the best-director cut at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations, but Fincher missed out. The fifth Oscar slot went to Terrence Malick for the family chronicle “The Tree of Life.”

French filmmaker Hazanavicius, whose credits include the spy spoofs “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” and “OSS 117: Lost in Rio,” had been a virtual unknown in Hollywood until “The Artist,” his black-and-white throwback to early cinema that has been a favorite at earlier film honors.

“The Artist” won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy and is considered a best-picture front-runner for the Oscars.

But Scorsese won the Globe for directing over Hazanavicius.

Unlike Hazanavicius, the other nominees all have competed for Directors Guild honors before. Scorsese earned his ninth and 10th guild nominations this season for “Hugo” and his George Harrison documentary.

Scorsese is a past feature-film winner for 2006′s “The Departed,” as well as a TV drama winner a year ago for an episode of “Boardwalk Empire.” The family film “Hugo” was a departure for Scorsese, known for dark crime tales, and the movie also was his first shot in 3-D.

Allen has been nominated five times and won for 1977′s “Annie Hall.” He had not been nominated since his 1989 “Crimes and Misdemeanors” but has been on a critical and commercial resurgence for “Midnight in Paris,” his biggest hit in decades.

This was the third nomination for Fincher. Payne was nominated one time previously, for 2004′s “Sideways.”

A mythical film starring an 8-year-old girl and a documentary about the war on drugs took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival.

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” won the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition, and “The House I Live In” won the same award in the U.S. documentary category Saturday in Park City, Utah.

Directed and co-written by 29-year-old first-time filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” follows a girl named Hushpuppy who lives with her father in the southern Delta. The film also won the cinematography prize.

Eugene Jarecki’s documentary “The House I Live In” examines the social, human and financial costs of the war on drugs. Jarecki won the same award in 2005 for his documentary “Why We Fight.”

Journalist William Davis (right) had a personal friendship with Margaret Thatcher for decades.

When I first met Margaret Thatcher, at her modest family home in Chelsea, London, she was not yet the "Iron Lady" — a label invented by the Russian media. (British tabloid newspapers usually called her Maggie.)

She had just become leader of the Conservative Party, and it was easy to see why: It made a welcome change from the dour and unpopular Ted Heath. Maggie was self-confident, pragmatic and decisive. She also had the common touch, which he had lacked.

I was the editor of the weekly magazine Punch at the time and soon afterward invited her to lunch at the Table, which for more than a century had been an all-male affair. Our regular writers and cartoonists were also impressed.

We met again when she became Britain’s first female prime minister. Her daughter Carol, also a journalist, took me along to the small flat in 10 Downing St. where Margaret Thatcher and her husband, Denis, now lived. We talked for an hour, by which time I had agreed to help with her speeches on a confidential (and unpaid) basis. Economists, she said, were bombarding her with papers, most of which she found indigestible and unrealistic. Could I read all this stuff and translate it into plain English? As a former economics editor of the Guardian, I felt well qualified to do so. I also shared many of Mrs. Thatcher’s views and, like her, detested pretentious jargon.

I used to see her on quiet Sunday evenings. She would explain what she wanted to get across in a speech but told me, early on, not to include any jokes "because I am no good at telling them." Her preference was for bold, simple statements that could be understood by voters. She accepted the need for memorable phrases and suggested some which I thought she would be comfortable with. One was "popular capitalism." She liked it because of her passionate belief in private ownership, entrepreneurial effort, and the importance of "rolling back the frontiers of the state." (She often described herself as a "conviction politician.")

Others also made contributions – the playwright Ronald Millar supplied some good lines – but the final version would always be very much of her own. She needed little sleep and sometimes stayed up half the night, making last-minute revisions before she had to deliver her speech.

There was one evening when she was uncharacteristically depressed because of a dispute with a cabinet colleague, Michael Heseltine. She even wondered whether she should resign. I was astonished and went on for some length about the need to keep it in perspective. After an hour of this tirade, I felt that I had gone too far and said so. "Don’t apologize," she responded. "That’s what you are here for." She soon regained her confidence, and there was no more talk of resignation.

Her husband, Denis, stayed out of the limelight. The media portrayed him as a gin-soaked buffoon, but he did not allow himself to be provoked by what he privately called "the reptiles." He had been a successful businessman and could always be relied on to strengthen her resolve.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Maggie’s personality was her feminine side. Cleaning, womanhood, and good housekeeping were themes she loved to mingle. She liked handsome men, as long as they were not stuffed shirts, and could be flirtatious. Denis did not object because he knew it was harmless – she was devoted to him.

François Mitterrand, who clashed with her when he was president of France, once said that she had the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe. She rightly dismissed this as rubbish, but was pleased when another world leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, made it plain that he found her attractive.

She often made a fuss in my presence about the way she should dress for major events. They were the only occasions when she did not display her usual certitude. All the other women, she said, would be in expensive outfits and dripping with jewelry. She could not match that. I told her she did not have to: As the prime minister, she would be the most important person there. An elegant black dress with a single broach would be fine. Maggie won three general elections and became increasingly domineering. She has come to regard herself as invincible and treated some of her cabinet colleagues with open contempt. She also lost the common touch which had served her so well. What, I asked her, had happened to her instinctive understanding of ordinary people and their concerns?

She sacked her foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, because she was irritated by his caution, which she mistook for weakness. He stayed on for a while, without any real job, but eventually decided that he could no longer serve in her government. His resignation speech was short and devastatingly effective. The subsequent leadership contest was a disaster for her and she left Downing Street in tears. She never forgave her colleagues for what she saw as their treachery. She and her husband moved to a stylish house in Belgravia, where we also live. She embarked on lecture tours of the United States, which she greatly enjoyed, not least because Americans still called her "prime minister." She was delighted by the warm welcome she received in Palm Beach.

Denis remained supportive, and their long marriage became even closer. She was grief-stricken when he died but was comforted by old friends. Her children, Mark and Carol, hate the biopic of their mother because of its emphasis on her sad decline into dementia. So do many other friends, despite Meryl Streep’s sympathetic portrayal. It is certainly not how Maggie would want the world to remember her. I consider myself fortunate to have known this remarkable woman at her best. She came along at the right time and had the courage to make radical changes. She had no time for class warfare: She was proud to be a grocer’s daughter who had gained a degree in chemistry at Oxford before going into politics and later becoming Britain’s first female prime minister. She made me chairman of the British Tourist Authority in 1990 because, she said, at some point in life a journalist like me should get some hands-on experience in the public sector. I accepted the challenge because I thought she was probably right.

There have been other Tory leaders since then but none has made the same impact. Two stepped down after losing a general election; another two resigned because they did not get enough support from their colleagues. David Cameron, the current prime minister, has distanced himself from "Thatcherism," which I think is a mistake.

When I last saw Carol she asked me: "She did make a difference, didn’t she?" I replied that it was a silly question; perhaps she simply wanted to assure her Mum that her achievements had not been forgotten. There was no need to worry. Margaret Thatcher will always have a firm place in British history.

William Davis is a former economics editor of the ‘Guardian’ newspaper and was the editor in chief of the weekly British magazine ‘Punch’ for most of the 1970s. Margaret Thatcher appointed him chairman of the British Tourist Authority when she was prime minister. Bill and his French wife, Sylvette, have a winter home in West Palm Beach.

Directors Guild of America Awards regular Martin Scorsese and first-timer Michel Hazanavicius are the favorites as Hollywood’s top filmmaker group prepares to hand out prizes.

Past winner Scorsese is nominated again for the guild’s feature-film honor for his Paris adventure “Hugo,” while Hazanavicius scored his first nomination for his silent-movie “The Artist.”

Also in the running are Woody Allen for his romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris”; David Fincher for his thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; and Alexander Payne for his family drama “The Descendants.”

The Directors Guild Awards are one of Hollywood’s most accurate forecasts for who will win at the industry’s top honors, the Academy Awards, which will be handed out Feb. 26. Only six times in the 63-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to take home the Oscar for best director, and more often than not, the film winning the best director Oscar is voted best picture.

Fincher had been the favorite going into the Directors Guild ceremony last year for “The Social Network,” but Tom Hooper came away the winner for “The King’s Speech.” Hooper went on to win the Oscar, too, and his film also earned best picture.

This time, Fincher’s the odd man out at the Directors Guild show. The other four guild nominees made the best-director cut at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations, but Fincher missed out. The fifth Oscar slot went to Terrence Malick for the family chronicle “The Tree of Life.”

French filmmaker Hazanavicius, whose credits include the spy spoofs “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” and “OSS 117: Lost in Rio,” had been a virtual unknown in Hollywood until “The Artist,” his black-and-white throwback to early cinema that has been a favorite at earlier film honors.

“The Artist” won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy and is considered a best-picture front-runner for the Oscars.

But Scorsese won the Globes’ singular directing prize over Hazanavicius.

Unlike Hazanavicius, the other nominees all have competed for Directors Guild honors before. Scorsese earned his ninth and 10th guild nominations this season; besides feature-film, he’s nominated for documentary directing for “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.”

Scorsese is a past feature-film winner for 2006′s “The Departed,” as well as a TV drama winner a year ago for an episode of “Boardwalk Empire.” The family film “Hugo” was a departure for Scorsese, known for dark crime tales, and the movie also was his first shot in 3-D.

Allen has been nominated five times and won for 1977′s “Annie Hall.” He had not been nominated since his 1989 “Crimes and Misdemeanors” but has been on a critical and commercial resurgence for “Midnight in Paris,” his biggest hit in decades.

This was the third nomination for Fincher. Payne was nominated one time previously, for 2004′s “Sideways.”

Kelsey Grammer is the host for the guild ceremony, which is not televised. Awards presenters include Oscar nominees George Clooney (“The Descendants”), Michelle Williams (“My Week with Marilyn”), Gary Oldman (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo (“The Artist”), and Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain (“The Help”).

Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana came to the Sundance Film Festival to promote their closing-night film, “The Words.”

The two actors play a married couple in the movie, which follows an aspiring writer who gains fame when he finds an old manuscript and passes it off as his own.

The pair avoided any appearance of their reported off-screen romance by staying apart from one another while posing for photos and giving interviews to support the film. Saldana did affectionately touch Cooper as they passed in a hallway, though.

Both had been to Sundance before, where snow fell throughout the festival and the weather dipped into the teens. Still, Saldana maintained her fashionista edge.

“I did bring warm stuff but I also brought fashion-y stuff. Come on. You’ve got to pay the price, even if it’s too cold,” she said.

The 33-year-old actress wore green suede shoes with spiked stiletto heels despite the slushy conditions.

“They’re kind of fabulous. They’re also lethal. So I have to be really careful, and somebody has to be careful not to piss me off,” she said with a smile. “Yeah right. I’m just trying not to fall. It’s like ‘Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall,’ if I’m walking.”

Cooper’s first time at the festival was 12 years earlier with the eventual cult comedy hit “Wet Hot American Summer.”

“I wasn’t even able to get into the screening,” he recalled.

Saldana said playing Cooper’s wife in “The Words” made her think about how she approaches relationships and the concept of unconditional love.

“Like how unconditional am I when I’m in love. Do you bypass certain things? Would I be able to be with a man — or with someone — that feels incomplete, doesn’t matter what we do?” she said. “If we change this, if we get married, if we have a baby — just someone that feels incomplete. Would I be able to deal with that for so many years and accept them as who they are and go, ‘Come as you are. This is who I fell in love with and I don’t want to change you?’

“I’m not like that, which is why I wanted to play her, because it was a challenge, you know. Look at me, I totally said I’m not unconditional at all. So awful.”

Cooper’s part as author-plagiarist Rory Jansen is his second writerly role after playing a novelist in last year’s “Limitless.” But that’s just coincidence, he said. Despite having a degree in English, the 37-year-old actor says he typically only writes in his “girlnal.”

“Journal, sorry,” he said. “That’s a ‘Wet Hot’ reference. Paul Rudd says that.”

Saldana, meanwhile, is in the midst of shooting the “Star Trek” sequel in Los Angeles with director J.J. Abrams and much of the original’s cast.

“It’s wonderful because I’ve been dying to work with the cast again, to work with JJ,” she said. “I love him so much. He’s such an amazing human being and such an amazing storyteller and a great director, so what more can I ask for? I start the year and I’m literally going back to a very familiar environment and being a part of a great story.”

“The Words,” which also stars Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes and Olivia Wilde, premiered Friday. It was acquired early in the festival by CBS Films, which plans to release it theatrically in the fall. Sundance continues through Sunday.

Jarecki examines the social, human and financial costs of drug policies in “The House I Live In.”

Jarecki says he was moved to explore the issue because, while his parents escaped persecution in Nazi Germany, he sees another kind of Holocaust taking place in poor communities targeted by drug laws and mandatory minimum sentences.

In an interview in Park City, Utah, Jarecki criticized the criminal justice system for its targeting and sentencing of non-violent drug addicts.

The Sundance Film Festival continues through Sunday.

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Turkey has marked the international Holocaust Remembrance Day by airing a French epic documentary about the Holocaust.

TRT television’s documentary channel showed filmmaker Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah” late on Thursday, on the eve of the remembrance day.

The filmaker said this is the first time the film was broadcast on state television in a Muslim country.

The documentary was aired as part of a campaign to promote understanding between Jews and Muslims and to fight Holocaust denial.

In March, a Los Angeles-based Farsi satellite channel had also broadcast the 9-plus-hour documentary in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned historical accounts of the Holocaust.

Lanzmann worked for 11 years on the film, which was released in 1985.

The budgets are bare-bones and the talent pool is limited, but Israel has emerged as a surprising powerhouse in the foreign film industry.

The Israeli film “Footnote,” up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, is Israel’s fourth such nomination in the past five years, giving Israel more nominations during that period than any other country.

It’s an indication to the renaissance of Israeli cinema, which has grown from a fledgling industry with poor cinematography and low box office sales to a darling of world film festivals. That’s in spite — or perhaps because — of the country’s troubled international reputation, due to its lengthy conflict with the Arab world.

The last three Israeli films that made it to the Oscar shortlist all mine the country’s troubles with its Arab neighbors. “Beaufort,” nominated in 2008, and “Waltz with Bashir,” nominated a year after, both explored Israeli soldiers’ experiences in Lebanon. “Ajami,” the 2010 nominee, centers on Arab-Jewish tensions in a violence-ridden neighborhood near Tel Aviv.

This year’s nomination went to an Israeli film featuring a more internal conflict — two professors of Talmud, a father and son, dueling for academic prestige and a coveted national prize.

“It’s a badge of honor for Israel,” said Moshe Edery, producer of “Footnote,” at a news conference after the Oscar nomination. “It’s Israel’s best business card around the world, especially these days.”

Israeli cinema was long an embarrassment. Cheap comic melodramas were the norm in the 1960s and 1970s. Called “bourekas films” — the Israeli equivalent of spaghetti Westerns — they dealt with ethnic stereotypes of European and Middle Eastern Jews.

Sick of those tired tropes, a group of Israeli moviemakers created an Israeli national movie fund in 1979, hopefully named the “Israeli Fund to Encourage Quality Films.”

With meager funding from studios and other private entities, filmmakers rely on public funds. But even with help from the new fund, the industry still floundered for two decades.

In 1995, the government cut public funding for cinema in half, leaving enough money to produce only five films a year. Three years later the industry hit an all-time low: Only 0.3 percent of Israeli moviegoers bought tickets to Hebrew-language cinema.

The national film body took on a new name, the Israel Film Fund, and in 2000 it begged Israel’s parliament to save Israeli cinema. It did, boosting the budget to $10 million a year for investment in feature films, mandating that young filmmakers get a chance to make themselves known.

It’s what gave Joseph Cedar, the Israeli director of the Oscar-nominated films “Footnote” and “Beaufort,” his first big break fresh out of film school: The Israel Film Fund supported his first feature, “Time of Favor,” which debuted in 2000.

“We didn’t know him, but he had enthusiasm. There was something about his passion,” said Katriel Schory, executive director of the national fund. “We took a chance.”

In the past, “cinema funds would not support a filmmaker’s first feature,” said Renen Schorr, founder and director of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. “Today, Israel wants young people to make their first films.”

The boost in public funding has dovetailed with investments in Israeli cinema by European and Canadian producers, totaling about $15 million and increasing the number of films Israel puts out annually to nearly 20, according to the Film Fund.

Israel’s television industry has also blossomed in recent years. After cable channels and a commercial TV station broke the monopoly and monotony of a lone state-run channel in the early 90s, there was a sudden need for new TV content, spurring competition and creativity among local screenwriters.

Now Hollywood TV executives are taking notice, adapting Israeli shows for American audiences. Showtime’s hit thriller “Homeland” is adapted from the Israeli drama “Prisoners of War,” the NBC game show “Who’s Still Standing” originated in Israel, and other Israeli adaptations are currently in development for American TV.

Despite the surge in budgets, funding is a fraction of public money available for filmmakers in European countries.

While Israel has scored some Academy Award nominations in recent years, it hasn’t won. None of the 10 Israeli films that made the best foreign language film shortlist over the years has won the big prize.

Now the focus is on Cedar, director of “Footnote,” but he told reporters that the coveted Oscar isn’t the only measure of success for a filmmaker.

That is exactly the lesson that his Oscar-nominated film imparts, he said.

“‘Footnote’ deals with the question of what happens when, while you’re living your daily life, a prize is offered, which really takes over your moral reasoning and changes your perspective and sometimes completely destroys your perspective,” Cedar said, summarizing the main plot line of his movie.

Hip-hop is making itself heard — and seen — at the Sundance Film Festival.

In addition to performances by rappers Drake, Common, Nas, Lil Jon and Chuck D, the festival includes documentary and narrative films about hip-hop culture.

Ice-T’s documentary, “Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap,” premiered at the festival. It stars artists such as Run-DMC, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Mos Def and Eminem.

Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew fame appears in a short film called “The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke.”

“Filly Brown,” a contender in the U.S. dramatic competition, tells a story of a rising Hispanic hip-hop artist in Los Angeles and the challenges she faces on the way to fame.

Sundance continues through Sunday in Park City, Utah.