"Paper or Plastic?", Ensemble Pictures, 2008

That last description would also apply to Lee Atwater, whose only appetite for destruction was focused towards the Democratic Party during the 1980s and early 1990s. His rise to prominence is chronicled in "Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story." The title refers to Atwater's condition after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor that led to his untimely death in 1991 right after he ascended to the top ranks of the Republican Party, but it could just as easily be called "Rove's Brain," a nod to the man Atwater mentored to be Bush's Brain. Director Stefan Forbes efficiently lays out the case for Atwater as the more influential political mind, from when the smooth talking southerner opts to be a campaign manager rather than a candidate in high school to his funeral, where former secretary of state James Baker admonishes him by saying he was "Machiavellian — in the best sense of the word." Interviews with Mary Matalin and Newsweek's Howard Fineman illuminate how Atwater plotted the path for George Bush Sr. to get into the White House, but it's those who Atwater left in his dust that naturally provide the most compelling material — from a still-befuddled Michael Dukakis, who Atwater blindsided with a series of racially charged campaign ads, to Reagan campaign director Ed Rollins, who was set up by Atwater to take the heat for an attack on then-vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro so he could run Bush's campaign four years later. To learn that Rollins would return to be at Atwater's deathbed as a sympathizer is one of the many surprises Forbes has up his sleeve in a compelling doc that has just enough spice to do the man, who apparently doused everything in hot sauce, proud.

Cutthroat competitors could also be found in "Paper or Plastic?" and "Pressure Cooker," the latter of which won a special jury award for its depiction of three inner city high school students in Philadelphia trying to earn scholarships to culinary academies. The former, however, was equally deserving and a bit more unexpected in its presentation of a contest between the best grocery baggers in the country, from Jacob Richardson, an awkward teen in Virginia, to Jon Sandell, a curmudgeonly 49-year-old in Minnesota, who emerge as geniuses at stuffing six-packs and eggs with military-like efficiency and speed. The other doc that took home a prize from the festival was "Loot," a love-it-or-hate-it proposition that won the $50,000 Target Documentary Award, but felt to me like a gorgeously shot excursion in search of a story. From the moment director Darius Marder drops the audience into the Philippines to watch Lance Larson tell the audience that he's plunged $100,000 into a hole in the ground in search of treasure, one gets the impression early and often that this would-be treasure hunter is no expert, though soon he sniffs out a potential goldmine of stolen valuables from the Holocaust based on a tip from a World War II veteran who swears he hid the goods in a house in Austria. (Once there, Larson attempts to speak like the locals by asking for "agua fria" in a restaurant.) The trouble is that "Loot"'s moments of levity undercut the film's subjects and the utter seriousness of what seems to be Marder's intent, particularly when the film culminates in an Ingmar Bergman-approved shot of an old man crying in a field. Marder manages to capture some provocative ideas about what should be treasured, as Lance attempts to bond with his son in the midst of his hunt for the Holocaust booty, but "Loot"'s lack of focus outside of its stunning camera work gives the film less cache than it should have.

The real find of the festival was also the film that had the most roots locally — "Largo," a facsimile of an evening at the Los Angeles restaurant/music club that plays host to such acts as Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, Patton Oswalt, Fiona Apple and Flight of the Conchords, all of whom are lovingly shot in black and white by Andrew van Baal and Mark Flanagan, who made the production easier, given that he owns the club. Since Largo recently changed its address in the city, the film acts as a bit of a time capsule for its more intimate and slightly dingier days when Zach Galifinakis could adjourn into the street after a joke combining the plight of children in Darfur and celebrity gift baskets falls on deaf ears or John C. Reilly felt comfortable sharing a "Boogie Nights" production story involving Burt Reynolds' insistence on an Irish accent for the porn director he played since his "lady friend" at the time suggested it. Yet beyond capturing a piece of history, the brilliance of "Largo" comes from how the film is framed with each musician and comedian getting just enough time to play a song or do a bit and leaving a little extra for the eccentricities of the club and its regulars to emerge naturally for what feels like the most exclusive one night only shows around. Dave "Gruber" Allen, best known to the larger world for his portrayal of the hippie guidance counselor on "Freaks and Geeks," parlayed his role as MC for Largo into warming up the audience for the film's premiere at the festival, where he leapt around the stage of the Majestic Crest Theater, going over the rules for the evening with such specifics as abandoning "the Trader Joe's zeitgeist and hackysacking in the aisles" to "class it up." No doubt it amused the many in the crowd filled with hip Angelenos, but it wasn't a necessary warning for what proved to be one of the classiest events of the whole festival.

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