The Eberftest Twelve

The selections for the seventh annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival have been announced. The twelve films are:

-After Dark, My Sweet (James Foley, 1990)

Should have seen this one coming since the latest review in Ebert's Great Movies series is for this film.

-Baadasssss! (Mario Van Peebles, 2004)

No surprise here. Ebert championed this film last year, rightfully so, but it went relatively unseen despite pretty good reviews.

-Map of the Human Heart (Vincent Ward, 1993)

I think I've always confused this film with some other similarly titled film from the same time. There isn't a hot air ballon in this, is there?

-Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005)

Considering he raved about this coming out of Sundance, this doesn't exactly come as a shock.

-Murderball (Dana Adam Shapiro and Henry Alex Rubin, 2005)

I've seen a screener of this in consideration for our Columbus festival. It's pretty terrific. The directors, the producer, and two of the biggest personalities in the film will be in attendance, which should make for an interesting dynamic.

-The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925)

The Lon Chaney film, with The Alloy Orchestra providing accompaniment. Good job predicting this one, Jarod.

-Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)

In 70mm. I was pretty enthusiastic when I saw this last July. Seeing this on the big Virginia Theatre screen makes this the essential event of the festival.

-Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)

I've heard uniformly great things about it. Glad I'll finally have the chance to check it out.

-The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin, 2003)

Awesome. One of my 2004 honorable mentions.

-The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles, 1994)

This year's free family matinee. I believe that this is only available in a panned-and-scanned version on DVD, so this screening should be a nice bonus.

-Taal (Subhash Ghai, 1999)

The Sunday musical that will wrap the festival. Ebert has talked about bringing in a Bollywood film. With BRIDE & PREJUDICE doing decent box office in limited release, the time may be right for this. There's no way Rog will be able to bring Aishwarya Rai with the film, is there? One can hope.

-Yesterday (Darrell Roodt, 2004)

One of this year's Best Foreign Film nominees at the Academy Awards.

My first impression is that this is a great bunch of films. I've seen four of the twelve, but I don't mind seeing any of these again. Regarding PLAYTIME, let me repeat: do not miss this if you will be attending the festival. Festival passes are sold out, but individual tickets go on sale April 1. See you there.