As the prestigious Sundance Film Festival is drawing to its end, the 'King of California' has been officially crowned as one of the biggest motion pictures this year. The Festival is a very important platform launch for independent movies, which are usually screened for the public, awarded and also acquired by domestic distributors, if they're lucky.

'King', starring Michael Douglas and Rachel Evan Wood, a powerful dramedy about a man just released from a mental hospital who chases what seems an almost impossible dream, was among the lucky ones. First Look Pictures acquired the North American distribution rights for 'King' for a sum of less than $3 million, but a release date in the US is yet to be announced.

Useless to say, Douglas' performance is breathtaking: he is the lunatic father who comes back from the hospital and forces his 16-year-old daughter to join him in his absurd journey. His character truly believes he is in possession of a map that leads him to a hidden treasure, buried by Spanish missionaries in California. By the time the movie ends, both them and the viewer learn that sometimes a dream is more powerful than its actual concrete result, that it helps people maintain hope alive, bringing a certain meaning to their otherwise pointless existence.

We've all seen Michael Douglas in many roles but this is by far one of his greatest performances - he will make the viewer laugh and cry, all in the course of a couple of minutes. He is a genuine chameleon in what concerns acting, a feature made even more poignant in 'King of California', where one can hardly recognize him as the sex symbol of a couple of years ago.

But, what's more important, he proves once again that he has never lost his sense of humor. Just the other night, as he was giving interviews to reporters, Douglas experienced on his own what 'lost in translation' actually means. As one French reporter asked him whether it was hard for him to 'focus on film', the actor had some serious trouble in keeping a straight face.

What happened was that he obviously misunderstood, because of the reporter's accent, 'focus on film' for 'f**k us on film' and he just couldn't stop laughing. You have the video HERE, were you can also see that, after fighting really hard to stop laughing, Michael tried to explain to the interviewers, in French, what it was that made the entire situation so funny.