And right about the end of the fourth full day, Sundance starts getting a bit psycho. Especially when you’ve seen 18 full-length and several short films, fought to find space on crowded shuttle buses, got by mostly on Cheetos, muffins, Starbucks coffee and Diet Cokes and dealt with the occasionally snotty producer. Here are a few notes from the last 24 hours:

Sunday 4-6 p.m.: At 350 Main Brasserie on Main Street, making our way through the crowd at the Seattle filmmakers party, hosted by Alpha Cine Labs. And while there, Alpha Cine president Don Jensen waxes a bit nostalgic. “I like Spokane,” he says. “I miss living there.” You’d think that, having lived in Spokane for 20-odd years, he would have had enough. But, no, he’s really sincere.

Sunday at 9:30 p.m.: Waiting for “The Machinist” to begin. While we wait for the Christian Bale/Jennifer Jason Leigh feature, we look around and do a quick celebrity check. Bale’s co-star Michael Ironside is here. But also we can see Benjamin Bratt (“Law & Order” and “Pinero”), and over there sitting next to the blonde is a long-haired Guy Pearce (“L.A. Confidential”). Later, friends tell us that Bale was there, too. But as he had dropped 65 pounds to play the movie’s insomniac protagonist, and since gained it all back, we don’t recognize him. Damn.

Monday at 1:30 p.m.: Walking back to the Holiday Village Cinemas to see the imaginative horror film “One Point O,” we see someone familiar standing in front of the theater. He turns out to be David Friedman, the oldest brother whose video remembrances of his family life were the basis of director Andrew Jarecki’s award-winning documentary “Capturing the Friedmans.” We stop and talk, tell him that we saw (and liked) Jarecki’s short film “Just a Clown,” a short about Friedman’s career as a professional clown in New York. He is gracious and outgoing, and he thanks us for seeing (and liking) both films. MP doesn’t admit to him that she was no big fan of Jarecki’s feature.

Monday at 4:15 p.m.: Park City drivers are the worst. If you stand in a crosswalk, you can wait all day and they won’t stop. You have to actually step out and force them to pay attention. And even then, you have to be careful. A car blasts past a guy standing in the middle of the street, just a few feet in front of me. He, being polite, merely makes a “What the … ?” gesture with his hands. I, being more outgoing when confronted by uncaring individuals, yell out a comment about the driver’s anatomy. He doesn’t even look back.

Monday at 7:55 p.m.: We’re in the makeshift theater in the Yarrow Resort Hotel, and the film “Dandelion” has just finished screening. Director Mark Milgard, in the Q&A, explains that he shot his film near Pullman, “In what’s called the Palouse,” in June 2002 because he wanted to take advantage of the time of year when there is both green and gold colors to the wheat fields. Makes sense. When the film is over, I figure the presences in the movie of abusive fathers, crazed Vietnam veterans, suicidal teenagers and pill-popping mothers is a use of basically “what’s called stereotypes”

Monday at 11:16 p.m.: We’re watching a video of “Word Wars,” a film about the national Scrabble tournament. I’m typing as I listen and watch, which isn’t easy because I’m essentially seeing double. We have tickets for tomorrow’s 9 a.m. showing of the film “Trauma” and the noon showing of the film “The Clearing,” which stars Robert Redford. Good. In the time we’ve been here, Bob has been conspicuously missing. Maybe he’ll show. It’s not crazy to hope, right?

Calling New Jersey the Garden State has always been a two-word joke for those who think that “The Sopranos” defines Jersey’s geographical attributes. Truth is, parts of New Jersey are more bucolic than anything in Eastern Washington. That has nothing to do with Zach Braff’s film “Garden State,” which I saw this morning. It just seemed like a good way to begin this entry.

Actually, the theme here is misdirection, which applies to the image of New Jersey as it does Braff himself. As the lead actor on the television sitcom “Scrubs,” Braff seems like a guy who’s more comfortable with a cheap laugh than someone who can write, direct and star in a film that actually has a heart. But a heart is exactly what “Garden State” owns.

It involves a 26-year-old actor/waiter named Largeman (Braff ) who is called home because his mother has died. In a daze because of the medicine cabinet’s worth of drugs that he has been taking since age 9, Largeman finds the means to change his life when he meets the oddly appealing Samantha (Natalie Portman). Not only is the film funny, it’s endearing and just the find of film that stays with you hours after seeing it.

I would, though, take issue with a description of Braff that was included in the Sundance program: “Without overstating things” — watch out when a sentence starts like that — “ ‘Garden State’ ” makes an excellent case for writer/director/actor Zach Braff evolving into the Woody Allen of his time.” Sure. And Tony Soprano is Santa Claus.

We’re sitting in the condo. We’ve already seen one film, a 9 a.m. press screening of “Chrystal,” a Billy Bob Thornton feature that makes me feels as if I’ve been slapped by the entire cast of “Hee Haw.” We’ve had lunch, though, and we’re up for more, namely a 3 p.m. movie. At least Mary Pat is. Trouble is, we have no tickets. And that is a problem.

So we head out, me in full pessimist mode, and arrive at The Egyptian Theatre at a quarter past 2. We go and find the wait-list line, which is reserved for those plebians who didn’t have the sense, or ability, to get tickets in advance. MP is impatient, as always, so she takes off for the theater entrance, looking for someone who just might be wanting to sell a couple of extra tickets. I stand alone.

Well, not alone, exactly. At 2:27 p.m. I’m stuck at the dead end of the line, waiting to get a numbered voucher that will show what my status is. See, I have to QUALIFY for a real ticket. We all do. Which is why everyone is standing around, wondering whether there will be enough seats for us all. And we’re not waiting in comfort. The tunnel in which we are lined up is as cold as an ice box, and the feeling is amplified by the fluorescent lights overhead. My hands go numb, but not too numb to write. Time passes.

When the vouchers are handed out, only the first 50 get them. I’m a few bodies back. Damn. And as the minutes go by, it begins to look bad. The line moves slowly, though, and by 2:51 I finally get awarded two vouchers. I look down at them: numbers 54 and 55. Still not looking good. But just three minutes before the movie is scheduled to begin, I’m finally there, handing over $20 for two tickets. And that is when MP shows up at the top of the stairs. “I bought a ticket already,” she says. The ticket seller smiles and hands me back a Hamilton.

I turn and run up the stairs. Then MP and I race to the front door. I hand over the ticket — by now I can’t wait to get rid of it — duck inside, run down to where we usually sit —front row on the far left — and… there is no one there! After all that effort, that worry, our regular seats are ours for the taking. I sit down, my hand frozen, anxiety having cut two more days off the end of my life. MP is happy, though. And I think, not for the first time: Just another day at Sundance.

After seeing “Remember Me,” we head off to the Taste of Saigon, our favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Park City. Then back to the condo. We’d started watching a video of “Deadline” before heading off to the Egyptian, and we not only finish that but we then watch Barak Goodman’s fascinating documentary titled “The Fight.” It’s a traditionally made, well-done film history of, actually, the two fights between legendary heavyweight champion Joe Louis and German one-time champ, then contender Max Schmeling. The two were more than just opponents in the ring. As the film shows, they were characterized as symbols of their opposing cultures: a black man from the United States, and a white man from the growing powerful and supposedly racially superior Germany. Although it’s tempting to wonder how, say, someone such as Errol Morris might have handled the story, Barak truly has made his everything a good documentary needs to be to win awards and earn a popular release (if only on television as it was produced by WGBH, Boston’s Public Television station). I’d make a joke here but it’s early, I’m typing on the floor of the condo, trying not to wake my wife, and, frankly, feeling a bit sober about being reminded once again of America’s tangled and often angry history of racial intolerance and nationalistic posturing. If only we were as good as we think we are.

The battle over the death penalty isn’t one that will likely be resolved anytime soon. Even though support is declining, most Americans are still convinced that the only way to meet evil is with the ultimate penalty. You kill someone, the state kills you. It’s that simple. But is it? “Deadline,” a documentary directed by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, doesn’t exactly answer the question, but it does pose it in an interesting way. It looks at the struggle of former Illinois Gov. Dan George Ryan to decide whether to commute the death sentences of all of Illinois’ death-row prisoners. Governor from 1999 to 2003, Ryan eventually did decide to spare the lives of 167 condemned convicts just before leaving office. His reasoning: If the system couldn’t make absolutely sure that each man the state executed was innocent, then capital punishment should be abolished. As he has said since, “(T)he capital punishment system just doesn’t work… . Our system should either be repaired or repealed, and I’m not sure it can be repaired as this point.” Not everyone would agree. But it’s a question that’s not going to just go away. “Deadline” is proof of that.

So, little sleep because of the late-night skiers who love to PAR-TEE! Or maybe they were filmfestgoers. Who knows? Anyway, I missed the 9 a.m. press screening and am now back in our condo watching a video of a Finnish/Danish film titled “Screaming Men” (yes, press can rent VHS copies of some movies). It’s a documentary about a group of Finnish men who don’t sing but who scream songs, including the national anthems of various countries. (Maybe they were the ones walking down Main Street last night.) In any event, the idea of a screaming choir is a curious phenomenon presented in an intriguing manner.

At one point, writer-director Mika Ronkainen intersperses shots of the choir shouting and a crowd screaming at a hockey game. One whole sequence involves the group contemplating the Icelandic nation anthem despite an Icelandic law that prohibits any alteration of the song (what they do is a dramatic surprise that causes the Icelanders in the audience to cheer). The leader of the group, Petri Servio, tells a Japanese audience that of all the reasons to shout, the final and most solid reason is “to express the most individual, spontaneous uncontrolled and unlimited human emotions.” When the group encounters problems with the French, the group’s more political motives comes through. In the end, the idea is just bizarre enough to be profound.

And then there is the first-night film itself, a surfing movie titled “Riding Giants,” which would be impressive if I hadn’t just seen “Step Into Liquid,” a surfing film directed by Dana Brown that features basically the same ideas, and all of the same guys, that “Riding Giants” does. There are some awesome shots of big BIG waves, but the only thing more outrageous than the audacity of the guys who surf big water is this film’s self-importance. To hear these guys talk, you’d think that they had pioneered cancer research or lunar exploration instead of just spending long days riding a fiberglass board down waves the size of four-story buildings. And once again I wonder: Just who the hell is it who chooses these opening-night movies? Wasn’t there anything better than this? I only hope that tomorrow is better. As for me, I’m going to pop open a beer and watch the final half hour of “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.” Now that’s an opening-night movie.

While waiting for the shuttle to take me to the opening-night movie, I meet a Philadelphia woman who says she is the film commissioner for the part of Pennsylvania in which she lives. She says that she has “two films playing here,” which means that two films playing at the festival were filmed in her area. The shuttle is late and she is worried that she will miss the 6:30 p.m. screening. I’m not worried because this year, for the first time in my experience, the Thursday-night opening is not in Salt Lake but in Park City, and the theater is a lot smaller. The result is that the press is not being let in. Instead, we’re being relegated to a special press screening, which begins an hour later. Sometimes being a second-class citizen offers it own rewards.

Driving us to Park City from Salt Lake City in his shuttle van, the 40-something driver turns to the eight other passengers and me and says, conspiratorially: “I don’t want to get you excited or anything, but” — and at this he points at an angle through the front windshield to a hill in the distance — “that’s where Johnny Carson lives.” His announcement is greeted with silence. I look around. The others are all in their 20s. I imagine they don’t even know who Johnny Carson is