From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell. Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

One of the comedies that made a real stir at this year's Sundance Film Festival was the film by my guest writer-director, Jonathan Levine.

It's his film The Wackness, which takes a less sentimental look at the mid-90s than many of us might have imagined.

And Jonathan, first of all, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. And it's great to be at Sundance and finally hear Biggie Smalls

be used in the film soundtrack. It's a long time coming. Well, I'm glad we were the first to be able

to do that. Hopefully others will follow in our footsteps. I have to ask you about the whole

sundance process about your submitting the film and what that felt like?

And if you thought that Sundance was a place for this movie.

Well, I mean, we always hoped that, you know, the Sundance movies from the early 90s from the time that our movie takes place.

A lot of those films were ones that made me want to be a filmmaker.

So, you know, it was always,

kind of a hope in the back of our heads that we would get there. And we were very aggressive

about editing it so we could get a rough cut for them. And, you know, when I found out we got in,

I was really psyched. What were some of those films that came out of Sundance were that

were inspirational to you?

Soderberg, you know, sex lies and videotape and reservoir dogs and, you know, just kind of, I think independent films in general from that time, whether it's, whether it's Todd Haynes or Soderberg or Spike Lee, you know, all that stuff was really influential to me when I kind of figured out that the job of filmmaker

existed.

Is it right of directors that make more sense to you as kind of models rather than just

directors?

Well, I kind of, you know, I like both.

I think each one has its own unique challenges and, and rewards.

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