Gabriel Mann, a player in the "Bourne" thrillers, said his last visit here was 10 years ago, when "I lost all my money -- my money and my mind." Yet he declined repeated requests to explain this rap.

So even though CineVegas was a little crazier than usual -- with one Britney Spears sighting, an official party held at a strip club, and gobs of star-gazing parties stocked with free booze -- its stars were reserved actors showing art house fare to film lovers at the Palms.

As film critic Elvis Mitchell declared at the end of it all this weekend, thespians have reputations to protect.

"Actors don't want to say something that will keep them from getting work, so they're kind of like politicians, always wondering where their next job's going to be," Mitchell said.

PAMELA ANDERSON VS. ROBERT DUVALL

You could see how CineVegas brought a differently behaved celebrity to Vegas if you observed a non-CineVegas event competing elsewhere on the Strip.

For instance, Saturday at Planet Hollywood, Anderson peeled off her top during a Julien's Auctions bidding for her 2000 Dodge Viper, which fetched $65,000, all of which she donated to PETA. She kept her undershirt on.

First, Anderson stood next to a silver-tongued auctioneer, and she gave an excited flutter of a pep talk to entice buyers:

"I like fast talkers. I'm used to it. I hope you guys buy the car. PETA. Auction," she blurted. "I shouldn't be driving a fast car. I'm a fast driver."

She then offered to roll around on the car to make it more appealing.

"I've done it before," she said salaciously, without adding an expected "tee-hee."

Next came her top-taking-off and twirling-it-over-her-head. Afterward, I asked her talk about PETA, but she turned on a dime and speed-walked away while a TMZ.com-inspired gaggle of videographers collapsed toward us.

Now consider by contrast a CineVegas party the night before, when Robert Duvall chatted with a film reporter and me about the excellent state of international films, while dissecting the culture of Vegas.

"It's not a place I opt to come to regularly, but we have a good time when we come," Duvall said. "My wife likes it," because "at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, people are on the street," as is the case in her hometown in Argentina.

But Duvall himself had mixed emotions about the Vegas scene.

"I always say this is a town built on the losers," Duvall said. "There ARE winners. They make their money off the LOSERS."

A FROG IN A BUBBLE

Also rubbing against the grain of Pamela Anderson's Vegas was the most likely Anderson-ish character at CineVegas, Bijou Phillips. She was the hard-partying, "original Paris Hilton," yet she acted liked a calm pro at the film fest. Behind her back, filmgoers were talking less about previous carousing ways than about how well she sang in the independent movie "Dark Streets."

Phillips herself even pooh-poohed the party tattoo she's getting laser-removed from of an ankle.

"It's a frog in a bubble," she said of the tattoo.

I asked her what it symbolizes.

"It symbolizes I was 14 and probably shouldn't have been in a tattoo parlor," she said. "There should be age limits to that kind of stuff."

So there you go. In the shallow end of CineVegas, you could be impressed by Bijou Phillips being a voice of reason.

And in the deep end, you could have gone to Wynn Las Vegas' Lake of Dreams last week to see a work-in-progress screening of "Planting the Seeds" by Takashi Murakami.

Murakami is huge in the art world, having been called the present-day Andy Warhol for fusing fine art with pop art.

Murakami's film was a lovely little wonder of anime creatures learning how to grow watermelons by relieving their bowels on seeds, thereby fertilizing them with super poop.

"Planting the Seeds" was both cute and an artistic achievement, applauded reverentially by Steve Wynn, local art authority Dave Hickey and VIPs decked out in dress-up clothes.

Once the film ended, I asked Murakami an ice-breaker question: Was he having fun in Vegas? "No," he said, not understanding the query. His translator quickly phrased the question for him in his native Japanese, and Murakami laughed and corrected himself, "Yes!"

Suddenly then, Morgan Spurlock, the director of 2004's "Super Size Me" and the star of FX's "30 Days," jolted up to Murakami to ask him to sign one of Murakami's books. Murakami recognized Spurlock, they conversed, and VIPs started snapping photos of this unlikely but sensible duo.

After they said goodbye, Spurlock was in shock he had just met an art icon and idol.

"It's amazing, are you kidding me?" Spurlock said.

"He invited me to come see him in Tokyo. Now I've got to figure a way to get to Tokyo."

FLICKERS OF FILM NEWS

CineVegas also saw the trickling out of bits of film-geek news. Viggo Mortensen -- the acclaimed star of "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence"-- shot down a virulent and utterly freakazoid Web rumor that he will portray Edgar Allan Poe in a movie directed by Sylvester Stallone.

Mortensen also said he would like to replay the "Lord of the Rings" part of Aragorn in future "Hobbit" movies that have been announced by "Rings" director Peter Jackson.

"I'd rather not have another actor play the part I started out playing for Peter Jackson. And I had a lot of friends from that experience," he said.

Meanwhile, Duvall said he will start filming soon with James Caan for a movie featuring a Western feel. Duvall, who starred in "Lonesome Dove" -- "the cowboy bible" -- likes Westerns, he said, while repeating a line he's often quoted before:

"It's our deal. The English have Shakespeare. The French have Molière. The Russians have Chekhov. But the Western is ours."

Duvall said there aren't a lot of great scripts in Hollywood, as always. But there are now more great films made outside the establishment.

"So many good actors are coming up all over the world," he said.

INDIE SPIRIT

That international film streak was in full force at CineVegas, where about 40 percent of movies bore international roots, said Mitchell, the NPR film critic and former reviewer for the New York Times.

At CineVegas, Mitchell said, "You see filmmaking of color from around the world, which is a good thing. We ignore them at our peril."

There was a feeling among some people that the fest could make a bigger name for itself in the film world, like Sundance has.

But Mitchell said in some ways, CineVegas at age 10 had a better state of unpredictability than Sundance.

"Sundance feels like it's kind of (in) a box at this point. You go to Sundance, you have expectations of what you might see. But here, you're still caught off guard by movies, and audiences really go for that."

CineVegas is still "breaking," but that's good, he said.

"That means it's still exciting here, it's still growing, it's still taking people in, and it's inclusionary," Mitchell said.

"There are movies people think of as a 'Sundance film.' Here, there's not a 'CineVegas film,'" he said. "There's the same kind of appetite here for filmmaking that bends genres and takes chances."

Mitchell had a stake in the film fest. He came here on the other side of the lens, as a co-producer with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. They made the upcoming HBO documentary "The Black List," chronicling struggles and triumphs of prominent black Americans.

Mitchell's take on other films was up and down but nuanced. That's what film fests excel at, he said: They're a collection of good and bad art that viewers can discuss and appreciate, rather than just laud or dismiss offhand.

And you never know, he said, when you'll see a movie that can "change the bloodstream of filmmaking."

For the record, Mitchell said his Vegas moment was seeing the Murakami screening at the Wynn, especially since the film was projected above a pond in a restaurant "that probably cost more to make than the entire city of Cleveland."

And there, in a nutshell, was the oddity of CineVegas. It was brightly lighted with movie stars and measured in Vegas glitter. Yes, now and then, you heard behind-the-scenes rumors about a booze-craving, crotch-grabbing thespian or two.

But beneath the sparkle was an art house film fest enriched by the intellectual tastes of filmmakers who, unlike certain people named Pamela Anderson, were actually talented.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.