Kutcher portrays Apple founder in 'jOBS'

Kutcher portrays Apple founder in 'jOBS'

AP

Ashton Kutcher stars as Steve Jobs, a biopic about the late Apple founder playing at Sundance.

PARK CITY, Utah â€" The 2013 Sundance Film Festival ended Friday with a spot-on turn by Ashton Kutcher in the terrifically entertaining “jOBS, ” a biopic of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, the film chronicles Jobs’ life from his days as a free-spirited college student in 1974 through his technological achievements with Apple Computers through the late 1990s.

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The rock-‘n’-roll-infused movie uses the actual garage where Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak fused together the memory board that would become the basis of the Apple computer. The film is set to hit theaters in April.

“This was one of the most terrifying things I ever tried to do in my life,” said Kutcher after the premiere. “I admire what Steve Jobs did so much, and how the audience is filming me with an iPad right now!

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“I watched hundreds of hours of footage and listened to speeches to prepare. I talked to Steve’s friends and deconstructed how he became that guy.”

Kutcher said following Jobs’ “fruitarian” diet briefly put the actor in the hospital just before filming began. But he connected with Jobs on other levels.

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“Steve felt like he could sell any idea, and I think sometimes I get a little overexcited about things trying to get people onboard with an idea,” Kutcher, 34, said. But Jobs’ former partner, Wozniak, criticized the film, saying it failed to accurately depict the relationship between him and the Apple titan. “I’m not even sure what it’s getting at,” he told the tech blog Gizmodo.

Friday also saw the debut of “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete.” The George Tillman Jr.-directed drama about two boys (Skylan Brooks and Ethan Dizon) left on their own in a Brooklyn project co-stars

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Jennifer Hudson and Jordin Sparks. The film’s co-executive producer, Alicia Keys, contributed to the film’s music.

Hudson tells the Daily News that her character, a drug- addicted, neglectful young mother “is the complete opposite of myself in every way. She’s edgy, and it’s clear at one time she was that girl who ended up on the wrong track.”

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During production in Fort Greene last summer, the 31-year-old Oscar winner said she wasn’t recognized much, and even hoped at several points no one would catch a glimpse of her.

“There was a scene on a public bus, and between takes I’d walk back to the set from a bus stop, and I was worried someone might mistake me for a prostitute because of the way I was dressed! ‘That looks like Jennifer Hudson â€" she really have all those (fake) tattoos!’ ”

As Sundance wound down, the buzz was about smaller finds as much as high-profile premieres. Foremost among them was “Fruitvale,” a beautifully done, based-on-fact drama from first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler that takes place on the final day of Oscar Grant’s (Michael B. Jordan’s) life. The Bay Area man died a victim of police brutality in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2009.Another festival must-see was “Escape From Tomorrow,” a disturbingly weird and wry movie about a father who loses his job while vacationing with his family in Disney World.

Shot in black-and-white and featuring more than a few inappropriate images, the low-budget “Tomorrow” got Sundancers chatting about whether it would ever be distributed, given its secretly shot footage inside the theme park and its depictions of some of the corporate giant’s trademark characters.

jneumaier@nydailynews.com