Five days, 12 movies. Here's your quick-and-easy guide to the toughest ticket in town — with advice on what to do if the movie you were dying to see is sold out.

By Annie Fehrenbacher & Jonathon Baron
Gargoyle co-editor-in-chief & assistant editor
Posted Wednesday, April 26, 2006, The OG, arts

Champaign-Urbana will welcome home one of its most famous townies this week during the eighth annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, beginning tonight at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign and continuing until Sunday.

Ebert, an Urbana High School graduate and Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun-Times film critic, has selected 12 films to screen this year, nine of which were released after 2000. The three oldies but goodies are the Pygmalion-based 1964 musical “My Fair Lady”; a 1925 Rudolph Valentino silent film, “The Eagle”; and “Claire Dolan” (1998), which chronicles a prostitute's struggle to become a respectable mother.

Festival passes have been sold out since Jan. 20. Individual tickets for each screening cost $9. To buy them, call the Virginia Theatre at 217-356-9063.

If a film is sold out, DON'T let that deter you. According to the Ebertfest Web site's section on tickets and passes: “Go to the Virginia Theatre box office 30 minutes before screening time and wait in the rush ticket line. Shortly before the film begins, any empty seats will be sold on a first-come first-served basis.”

At the last three Ebertfests, everyone who waited in line for tickets to sold-out films got in.

Ebert will be joined by a number of renowned guests, including Oscar-nominated actor John Malkovich and legendary singer/actress Marni Nixon, who provided the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.”

The festival will also feature panel discussions and mini-seminars, one of which will feature Uni alum and filmmaker Michael Wiese. Wiese will present a session titled “Bringin' It All Back Home: The Principles of Independent Filmmaking.” It will be held from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday in the second-floor General Lounge at the Illini Union.

According to Wiese, he worked as a cub photographer at The News-Gazette at the same time Ebert worked there as a cub reporter. “At the county fair, I'd be shooting a picture of the big fat girl with her plump prize-winning heifer, and Roger would be interviewing her about what it ate,” Wiese says on his Web site.

Ebert himself will moderate a panel discussion from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday in the Pine Lounge of the Illini Union. The topic will be “The Festival Circuit: Launching Pad or Dead End for Independent Films?”

Ebert willl also sign copies of his books “The Great Movies II” and “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2006” at the Illini Union Bookstore on Friday from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Jim Turpin of local radio station WDWS-AM 1400 will interview Ebert live in the bookstore from 9 to 10 a.m.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
All screenings will be at the Virgina Threatre, 203 W. Park, Champaign

Wednesday
7:30 p.m. — “My Fair Lady”

Thursday
1 p.m. — “Man Push Cart”
4 p.m. — “Duane Hopwood”
8:30 p.m. — “Spartan”

Friday
1 p.m. — “Somebodies”
4 p.m. — “The Eagle” (with the Alloy Orchestra)
8 p.m. — “Ripley's Game” (John Malkovich is scheduled to appear at the screening)

Saturday
noon — “Millions”
3 p.m. — “Claire Dolan”
7:30 p.m. — “Junebug” (starring Benjamin McKenzie from “The OC”)
10:30 p.m. — “Bad Santa”

Sunday
noon — “U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha”

JONO'S PICKS
As usual, Ebertfest tickets are hard to come by, but if you're willing to wait in line until the last minute, you should be able to attend any of the festival's 12 films. Here are seven that caught Jono Baron's attention.

“My Fair Lady” — A musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's “Pygmalion.” It follows a lower-class girl who is brought into upper-class culture as part of a human experiment to see if she can truly adapt. Marni Nixon, who provided the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn's character, is scheduled to appear at the screening.

“The Eagle” — This silent film from 1925, starring screen legend Rudolph Valentino, follows a lieutenant in the Russian army whose life is stolen from him. He means to get revenge, but instead of becoming an outlaw, he falls in love. The Alloy Orchestra will perform live at the screening.

“Ripley's Game” — John Malkovich stars as a cold-blooded criminal. After being approached by a former business relation, he arranges for an innocent local picture framer to be turned to a life of crime. Malkovich is scheduled to appear at the screening.

“Millions” — From Danny Boyle, the director of “Trainspotting,” comes the story of a 5-year-old who, by some random occurrence, comes into possession of a large sum of money. The boy begins to analyze the world around him and the ethics that the people he knows truly live by.

“Claire Dolan” — This film is about a high-class Irish prostitute in New York. When her mother dies, she runs off to Newark, despite being deep in debt to her pimp, and works as a manicurist, living with her cousin. She has an affair with a taxi driver, who is confronted with her massive dues after the pimp finds her.

“Bad Santa” — Billy Bob Thorton plays a washed-up middle-aged loser who poses as Santa in malls at Christmas and robs each establishment he works at. When he meets a little boy who sincerely believes in him, however, the good starts to show.

“U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha” — This award-winning South African film is actually an adaptation of the Bizet opera. It powerfully portrays the slums of Capetown.