Another reason you should go? The festival offers just about anything you’d want to see. Those interested in indie films can check out “23 Minutes to Sunrise,” a film starring Eric Roberts that focuses on four couples who meet at an out-of-the-way diner for a life-changing night. Psych majors will appreciate David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method,” which concentrates on the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Those looking for a sneak peek should check out “Butter,” an indie comedy starring Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell (“Modern Family”) as a champion butter-carving couple. The film will not be wide-released until March. Foreign language students can “study” while watching films screened in languages like German (“3,” a Berlin-based screwball comedy) and French (“Le journal d’Aurélie Laflamme,” a Canadian coming-of-age story).

And that’s just the feature films. SLIFF will also be featuring a number of documentaries, dealing with themes ranging from most serious ones to some plain old fun ones. “Brick by Chance and Fortune: A St. Louis Story” showcases St. Louis’s history in the brick industry, and the story is surprisingly complex. “Circus Dreams” stars kids in Circus Smirkus, the country’s only travelling youth circus. “You’ve Been Trumped” paints Donald Trump as the villain who tried to buy some of the last acres of Scottish wilderness to build golf courses, but it, of course, also focuses on the homeowners who attempted to fight back.

In addition to the full-length films, SLIFF showcases sets of short films tied together by a common theme. The sets are primarily short documentaries or animation features, but there are a few highlighting the works of the winners of the 2011 Stella Artois St. Louis Filmmakers’ Showcase. Animator Bill Plympton is the recipient of this year’s SLIFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and he will appear on Friday, Nov. 11, at Webster University to receive the award and screen some of his animated shorts.

The festival runs from Thursday, Nov. 10, until Sunday, Nov. 20. Tickets are available online at SLIFF’s website and at the box offices of the Tivoli Theatre and the Plaza Frontencc Cinema. For more information, check out http://www.cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2011.

Nov. 12-22 at various theaters across the city, including the Tivoli, the Hi-Pointe and the St. Louis Art Museum. The 18th annual festival features movies from all over the globe and of all levels of notoriety; films range from up-and-coming relative no-names to ones starring Robert Di Niro and Drew Barrymore. Tickets are $10 a show.

Film Festival Closing Party

Nov. 22 at Eclipse, 6177 Delmar Blvd., starting at 8 p.m.
A mixer with some of the films’ writers and directors, as well as film fanatics. Admission is free, and there is a cash bar.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Nov. 18 at The Big Bang, 807 Second St., starting at 7:30 p.m.
Come celebrate The Big Bang’s eighth birthday with a circus-themed party that will include carnival food and activities and great music. There is no cover and plenty of drink specials.

Macy’s Holiday Festival of Lights

Nov. 20 at Kiener Plaza and Memorial Park downtown, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Welcome the start of the holiday
season with lights and fireworks displays.

The Great Depression setting helps the tone immensely, and the authenticity shines through most of the script’s quirks. The plot is conventional: An imaginative boy, Lester (Jesse Bradford), with a penchant for lying wants to make whatever money he can to save his family from immense debt. It’s charming to watch him scramble around in search of cash; his lies take on a life of their own, even though he only lies to save the last shreds of dignity the depression hasn’t already snatched away. But there’s always an underbelly that is almost never dealt with, that character and filmmaker must have noticed. It’s depressing in every way, which makes some of the more lighthearted moments feel out of place instead of relieving.

The large cast of child actors doesn’t always hit the right notes, but they get the job done. Bradford does justice to A.E. Hotchner’s screen-self, Aaron Kurlander, by at least looking level-headed in even the most adverse situations, and while a young Adrien Brody isn’t a major player, he is wonderfully slick in the role of Lester.

“King of the Hill” is an adaptation of St. Louisan Hotchner’s memoir, and the best part about seeing this one at SLIFF may be the panel on book-to-film translations that accompanies the screening. You’ll get the opinions of travelled cinematographer Elliot Davis, casting director Carrie Houk and Wash. U. professor Henry Schvey on the panel, and I honestly think the diversity in the panel members’ opinions and backgrounds could turn out to be more interesting than the differences between text and screen.

Shortly after we’re introduced to Wendy, her car breaks down in an unnamed town in Oregon, setting off a chain of events culminating with the loss of Lucy. As Wendy attempts to better her situation, she interacts with a limited but compelling cast of characters, including a sympathetic security guard (Wally Dalton) and a terrifying, unhinged homeless man (Larry Fessenden).

The film doesn’t tell us much about Wendy’s past, but, regardless of the level of responsibility she may have for her present situation, it’s almost impossible not to sympathize with her. Her borderline poverty places a severe weight on the decision to spend just a few dollars, even when it’s for food.

If she has parents, they’re no longer in the picture, and her sister, whom she calls after losing Lucy, is more than cold toward her. Her dog is the only warmly-emotional bond she has. As Lucy continues to be lost, the desperation that creeps into Wendy’s voice is genuine. The bond between the pair could have easily been manipulated to falsely exploit the viewer’s emotion, but, to her credit, director Kelly Reichardt keeps the film grounded in honesty.

Williams turns in an incredible per-formance as the beaten-down Wendy. Life has obviously taken its toll on the poor girl, and she’s responded by emotionally closing herself off. Wendy is a woman of few words, and her expression rarely breaks from one of sad, numbed resignation. After her traumatic encounter with Fessenden’s homeless man, she finally does break down, and Williams’s performance, full of desperation and distress, strikes with a deep poignancy.

“Wendy and Lucy” may be small, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an impressive accomplishment for Reinhardt, further establishing her status as a talented indie filmmaker to keep an eye on. The film is strong in its own right, and it takes on an even greater significance when placed in the context of current events.

The filming was excellent. I liked the idea of a vampire waking up 100 or so years later not remembering anything and being hunted by a vampire slayer sent by the church. That fact that the vampire Laura can not remember anything about her past is flat-out told to the audience by a restau-rant owner who meets her for the first time and coincidentally happens to guess she has amne-sia. Yet throughout the film, the audience sees snapshots of Laura’s past before she was buried alive. So the audience usually forgets the amnesia idea until the end, when she is supposed to have her great awakening.

When we see a pastor driving a stake into Laura’s heart with a hammer and watch fake blood spew from her mouth, it seems easy to guess how the movie will play out. But in those assumptions, we would be wrong; I, for one, was surprised by the ending, nor were my questions about Laura answered. If there was some higher message, I don’t think I grasped it.

On a positive note, the costum-ing was well crafted (except for one particularly finely-dressed bum). But the story both told too much at the beginning and not enough at the end. Combine that with the amateur acting, the unpredictable, yet close-to-cheesy script and the awkward plot warranted two out of five stars, if we’re being generous. See it if you want some easy watching; just don’t take any of it too seriously.

The rest of the film follows Xuemei as she deals with her new “marriage,” including her rape by her “husband.” The film also chronicles her various attempts to escape her fate as a purchased wife in a countryside village and the various alliances she makes—in-cluding a schoolteacher, one of her “nephews” and one of her fellow bought wives.

Overall, it’s a hard-hitting, emotional view of human trafficking in China. The movie, with no background music, looks and feels a lot like a documentary: Each shot brings the viewers in and exposes them to a side of China not often seen. “Blind Mountain” is ex-tremely powerful and engaging, but that doesn’t mean that it’s flawless. At times, it seems a little jumpy and doesn’t always explain changes in time, making the plot difficult to follow.

While “Blind Mountain” makes a deliberate attempt to draw on the viewers’ emotional response to Xuemei’s kidnapping and purchase, the film does so with fantastic acting, an intriguing plotline and a great message.

“Amal” is a poor rickshaw driver in India who one day drives a cranky old man to a seemingly-pointless destination. It turns out the man is a millionaire looking for a good person. It also happens that the old man happened to be on the eve of his death during the ride. He writes a new will hours before dying, leaving his money to “Amal” and not his partner or questionable children.

The film is subtitled (although there is some English), but don’t let that deter you from seeing it. Unlike Bollywood films, there is only one song in “Amal,” but it is beautiful; I watched it at least three times to fully grasp its meaning.

This emotional, moral and well-crafted film is one that should not be passed over. Go see it. You’ll come home with a lesson you didn’t know you wanted to learn.

Now, the problem with Oscar-worthy movies is that they tend to be difficult to understand. Half-Life is, quite clearly, at least somewhat about the consequences of global warming. But don’t despair, all you Freshman Reading Program veterans who think you’ve heard all you need to hear on that subject. The movie starts from the premise that California is underwater and the air is becoming toxic, but these realities are underplayed in favor of the story of a broken family.

The fact that everyone half-expects the world to end interplays with the world of the Wu family, which is crashing down around them. And in fact, reality becomes quite blurred at times. There is a “Calvin and Hobbes” effect going on with Timothy Wu, whose experiences tend to blur together with his drawings and incredible imagination. Or maybe he’s not imagining it, and he really has powers. In the end, the line between imagination and reality is so blurred that it’s better not to try to figure out what’s really happening.

There is a single story that ties the movie together, but for the first half hour or so, it can be hard to put that together. The beauty is in the visual vignettes: eclipses, a broken stoplight and several lovely dream scenes in animation at once eerily realistic and twisted in unexpected ways.

It all comes together to create not just a movie but an experience. If you do get a chance to see “Half-Life,” don’t try too hard to figure out what’s going on while you’re watching it. There will be plenty to talk about afterward, from homophobia to the environment, from doomed love to the need for control over an unpredictable world. But while it’s going on, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Dennis Dortch’s direction is both compelling and economical, though not in a way that cheats the viewer. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a jump cut to create comedic timing, and the camera bobs around like a balloon in the wind that isn’t frantic, but subdued and frank. The acting ranges from solid to superb.

There are two basic types of vignettes in this film. In the first type, what you see is what you get, and these are usually hilarious and chock-full of quotable lines. The other type, the yin to that yang, grabs you every time you think there’s nothing there, revealing an underworld of nuance just beneath the surface, the movie begging you to join in the fun.

It’s a smooth watch in the conventional sense; there aren’t any overdone processed shots or whoosh transitions. It’s old-school fun, and while this makes “Black & Sexy” a bit hokey at times, there’s no denying the authenticity it develops.

You’ve always wanted to go to a film festival, but it’s far too expensive to fly to Cannes, and you’re not really feeling the whole Utah in January scene. Well, my friend, you are in luck! Thursday begins the 17th annual Saint Louis International Film Festival. SLIFF, as it is more commonly known, was started in 1992 with the hopes of making film a more recognizable and dominant art form in St. Louis and showcases 25 innovative, independent films. SLIFF has come a long way from its humble beginnings. Now run by the non-profit Cinema St. Louis, SLIFF is one of the biggest festivals in the Midwest. Starting this Thursday, Nov. 13, and running until Sunday, Nov. 23, St. Louis will host more than 260 features, documentaries and shorts hailing from all over the world. But SLIFF does not just screen international and independent films; a lot of the movies playing have received rave reviews, and some have even generated Oscar buzz. France’s winning drama, “The Class” (showing at Plaza Frontenac on Nov. 22) was awarded the coveted Palm d’Or at Cannes. Peter Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” about an 18-year-old trying to win the love of his life by winning India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,” took home Toronto’s People’s Choice Award. And Mickey Rourke’s performance in “The Wrestler” has been warranting some talk of an Oscar nomination (but you can see for yourself at the Tivoli on Nov. 23.)

This year, SLIFF is awarding a Lifetime Achievement Award to Paul Schrader, writer of “Raging Bull” and the man responsible for introducing us to Richard Gere and Richard Gere’s junk in “American Gigolo.” Schrader will also be screening his newest film, “Adam Resurrected,” starring Jeff Goldblum as a magnetic Holocaust survivor living in a mental institution. And Saint Louis natives Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs will be holding a question-and-answer session after the showing of their film, “Humboldt County,” a moving story about a disillusioned UCLA med student who finds himself stranded on a pot-farm.

Although you probably won’t see George Clooney or Brangelina on the Loop this week, SLIFF has had some notable attendees in the past, including Ken Burns, Cedric the Entertainer and Kevin Kline.

With its dramas, comedies, romances and movies about exploiting the Pope’s visit to your town by buying a porta-potty and charging people to use it (Uruguay’s “The Pope’s Toilet,” Nov. 19), SLIFF has something to satisfy everyone.

Feeling a void now that the election is over? You can get your fix by watching the insane amount of work that goes into the senior-class presidential election at the renowned Stuyvesant High School in “Frontrunners.” What about those documentaries, you ask? From America’s dependence on oil (“Fuel,” Nov. 16) to the Miss Gay America contest (“Pageant,” Tivoli, Nov. 19) to soccer’s recogni-tion as a unifying global force (“The Power of the Game,” Nov. 23), the docs at SLIFF portray interesting takes on a wide variety of subjects.

Or, if you are a big Pixar fan, you can see 13 of their amazing shorts for free on Nov. 21 at the Saint Louis Art Museum. And, because vampires and teenagers go together like peanut butter and jelly, don’t miss Sweden’s “Let the Right One In” (Nov. 15) —a Hollywood remake is already in the works.

With so many good movies showing so close to campus (“The Making of Wall-E” is actually showing in Brown), SLIFF is an event not to be missed. Check out our picks, and for more information about schedules, other movies and advanced ticket sales, check out http://www.cinemastlouis.org/.