One of the funniest and oddest features at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was a resolutely offbeat film about an air-drumming dreamer called The Adventures of Power, co-starring Entourage’s Adrian Grenier and directed by one Ari Gold. Yes — his name is Ari Gold, and the Entourage folks evidently “borrowed” his name for the show’s loathsome-lovable agent. (Gold and Grenier also play in the band the Honey Brothers together.) And although Power was Gold’s first feature film, many veteran Sundance viewers were familiar with him — three of his shorts had previously screened at the festival. One of them, 1996’s Frog Crossing, co-directed by Jamie Babbit (But I’m a Cheerleader), is another look at a crazy dreamer: A hyper enviro-conscious man stands by an empty stretch of highway warning passing motorists to brake for frogs. Meanwhile, a woman drives along the same highway, happily munching on her snacks, oblivious to the world around her. Needless to say, it’s only a matter of time before these two lonely souls connect. —Bilge Ebiri
