Roger Ebert, the dean of modern American film criticism, has a festival every April called, simply, Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, though the kids call it Ebertfest. He chooses movies that he feels have gotten a raw deal in some way and that could use a little extra attention.

I am not nearly as important as Roger Ebert, I grant you. But when the world finally comes to its senses and I am hailed as a genius, I would like to program a film festival of my own. Sniderfest would also feature movies that have been overlooked, either in terms of poor box-office receipts, or in terms of never having been released theatrically at all. It would be like splitting open my head, scooping out my brains, and sifting through my memory to find hidden nuggets of cinematic treasures.

Here's what I would choose for the...

1st Annual Eric D. Snider Self-Congratulatory Named-After-Myself Film Festival (EDSSCNAMFF):

In the Valley of Elah (2007): This searing drama about a man trying to solve the mystery of his soldier son's disappearance was caught in the Iraq-movie overload last fall and made just $6.8 million at the box office. It's a shame, because Tommy Lee Jones' Oscar-nominated performance is devastating, and the film has an anti-war-in-general theme rather than a more controversial anti-Iraq War one.

Sister Helen (2002): A wonderful documentary about a no-nonsense, potty-mouthed Bronx nun who runs a halfway house for recovering addicts, Sister Helen went to HBO and then to DVD after winning several film festival awards (including one at Sundance). It deserved more attention than it got.

States of Grace (2005): Richard Dutcher's deeply uplifting spiritual drama is about two Mormon missionaries in L.A., but its themes of redemption and forgiveness are universal to all Christians. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Mormons and mainstream Christians never even heard of it, let alone saw it.

Series 7 (2001): This scathing pop-cultural satire -- about a reality TV show in which contestants must literally kill or be killed -- was trenchant in 2001. If anything, it's even more on-the-money now, and still hilarious.

Gretchen (2006): When I saw this at South By Southwest, I thought: Here is this year's Napoleon Dynamite. And then the film never got so much as a cursory DVD release. Won't someone distribute this very funny, quirky (in a good way) movie?

In Memory of My Father (2005): Another lost gem, this was a CineVegas Film Festival premiere featuring semi-improvised dialogue and hilarious situations as a hedonistic Hollywood family gathers to mourn the death of their producer patriarch. It's too funny to let it fade into obscurity.

New York Doll (2005): With a minimal theatrical run and a gross of just $200,000, the way this doc was overlooked is nearly criminal. It's about Arthur "Killer" Kane, bass player for seminal early-'70s proto-punk group The New York Dolls, and in particular about his life after the band broke up. Rent it on DVD: You will find it sweetly inspiring and absolutely endearing.

Slither (2006): This wickedly funny and offbeat horror comedy was the victim of Universal Pictures' terrible marketing and refusal to screen it for critics (which savvy filmgoers see as a warning sign). Turns out once the critics saw it, most of them loved it, and they'd have been delighted to tell readers about it sooner if they'd had the chance.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006). Admittedly, this is a niche film, a mockumentary that lovingly takes apart the slasher genre before turning into a pretty solid slasher flick itself. If you ever thought about why Jason Voorhees was always able to catch up with fleeing victims even though he walked so slow, this is the movie for you.

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Eric D. Snider (website) loves the way Sister Helen yells at drug addicts.

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