Previous 10: 5 November - Fest Overload 1

Thanks to the Saint Louis International Film Festival, I've fared a lot better on seeing decent films, as six of these ten will be playing there this year. As for Pierre Morel's Taken, you can sort of group that with Steve McQueen's Hunger as 2008 films that probably won't get their official release until 2009; 20th Century Fox delayed its fall release to January. Wendy and Lucy, the new film from Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy), was just as wonderful as I had hoped, and perhaps the biggest surprise was Mary Bronstein's Yeast, another m*mblecore flick that actually displayed tone, albeit one of utter frustration. I expect I'll have another ten by the weekend.

La Crème

A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin - France - IFC Films - with Jean-Paul Roussillon, Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Laurent Capelluto, Emile Berling, Emmanuelle Devos, Hippolyte Girardot, Françoise Bertin

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father - dir. Kurt Kuenne - USA - Oscilloscope Pictures

Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson - Sweden - Magnet Releasing - with Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Mikael Rahm

Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt - USA - Oscilloscope Pictures - with Michelle Williams, Wally Dalton, Will Patton, Larry Fessenden, John Robinson, Will Oldham

Yeast - dir. Mary Bronstein - USA - Frownland - with Mary Bronstein, Greta Gerwig, Amy Judd, Ignacio Carballo, Sean Price Williams

Les Autres

Shelter - dir. Jonah Markowitz - USA - here! Films - with Trevor Wright, Brad Rowe, Tina Holmes, Jackson Wurth, Katie Walder

Taken - dir. Pierre Morel - France - 20th Century Fox - with Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Xander Berkeley, Lelard Orser, Olivier Rabourdin, Gérard Watkins

Untouchable, The [L'intouchable] - dir. Benoît Jacquot - France - Strand Releasing - with Isild Le Besco, Bérangère Bonvoisin, Parikshit Luthra, Marc Barbé

The Bad

Humboldt County - dir. Darren Grodsky, Danny Jacobs - USA - Magnolia - with Jeremy Strong, Chris Messina, Brad Dourif, Frances Conroy, Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Madison Davenport

Nights & Weekends - dir. Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig - USA - IFC Films - with Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, Jay Duplass, Elizabeth Donius, Lynn Shelton, Kent Osborne