Straight Outta Gowanus, Brooklyn: Shareeka Epps and Ryan Gosling in Ryan Fleck's Half Nelson (Photo: Adam Bell)

As promised, the sexy folks at indieWIRE made a late-night booty call to their readers this morning with the Sundance 2006 competition line-ups. The Reeler passed along several of the NYC-connected films last week, but a few additions stand out: Patrick Creadon's New York Times Crossword-cult documentary Wordplay; Maria Maggenti's bisexual love triangle rom-com Puccini For Beginners; and to nobody's real surprise, Ryan Fleck's Half Nelson. The latter film is an adaptation of Fleck's own Sundance-winning short Gowanus, Brooklyn, with a little more starpower this time around in the form of Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie.

IW's Eugene Hernandez also features a chat with Sundance programmer John Cooper and director Geoff Gilmore, who go on and on about having a more independent festival featuring smaller films with fewer stars and less distribution hype right out of the gate. We will have a better idea of how that pledge panned out in exactly two months. when the festival hands out its hardware and the ink starts drying on deals for films like Half Nelson, Stephanie Daley and the Paul Giamatti/Michael Pitt vehicle Hawk is Dying. Just remember one key phrase, all you Utah-bound directors--as Craig Brewer is now fond of saying: "Cash up front."