Over the phone from Connecticut, Barry Levinson said the unexpected kick he got from showing his film essay on media, celebrity, and politics, PoliWood, to a responsive crowd at the TriBeCa Film Festival was "how many big laughs are in it -- laughs as big and as frequent as in any of my pictures."

They weren't from the "Gotcha!" moments that arouse cheers and jeers in partisan documentaries. They rose from Levinson's sharp, knowing presentation of bewildering disconnections that make no sense at a human level.

"David Crosby can't believe he was jeered for singing a song about the lies that went into the Iraq War, and he's right. What do people expect? Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing 'four dead in Ohio' after Kent State; it is like booing the planes at an air show."

One advantage of seeing this film Sunday at the Maryland Film Festival is that Levinson will be there to answer questions about the movie as well as discuss its issues with Matthew Modine, David Brock and Dan Rodricks. And Levinson's riffs are often as sharp and funny as the material that makes it into his films. "When one woman says there are stars in Hollywood that can't get work because of their conservative beliefs, I don't take her on," Levinson says. "But whenever I watch that I think, 'how does she think they became stars in the first place?"