Film Clips: Elmo’s Happy from Twilight Melancholia
At Twilight, will your Melancholia make up for you Happy Feet?
- Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
- Feet so happy they’re jumping for joy in Happy Feet 2
OPENING FRIDAY
’’BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY (NR) This documentary profiles Kevin Clash, who went from being a would-be puppeteer in Baltimore to international fame (second-hand) as the voice and operator of Elmo on “Sesame Street.” At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.
’’HAPPY FEET TWO (PG) In this sequel to the first toe-tapping musical adventure, Sofia Vergara, Robin Williams, and Common are part of a large cast of A-listers who lend their voice to a chorus line of rapping, singing penguins whose feet have a penchant for walkin’ it out.
’’INTO THE ABYSS (NR) Legendary German director Werner Herzog continues his renaissance as a documentary filmmaker with this profile of two convicted murderers — one given a death sentence, the other life imprisonment — found guilty of a triple homicide in Texas.
[http://clatl.com/screengrab/archives/2011/11/18/depression-eclipses-the-wider-world-in-stunning-melancholia|MELANCHOLIA 4 stars (R ) In director Lars Von Trier’s latest artful feel-bad movie, Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg play sisters who contend with a tense, endless wedding party in the first half of the film, and the possibility that a rogue planet will collide with the Earth in the second. Dunst may not match the raw intensity of Von Trier’s usual leading ladies, but movingly captures a bride with increasingly debilitating depression. Von Trier oddball notions of human behavior tend to undermine his characters’ powerful expressions of emotion, but Melancholia’’ features numerous sequences of devastating beauty. — Curt Holman
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN — PART 1 2 stars (PG-13) The penultimate entry in the Twilight film series, Breaking Dawn achieves glorious levels of B-movie camp. The film opens with Edward and Bella cementing their union with a Midsummer Night’s Dream-y wedding, and then spirals into a teen romance grindhouse fantasy. Yes, it’s painfully misogynistic. Yes, it’s full of mixed messages about sex and abuse and purity. But the triumph of camp over earnestness makes Breaking Dawn’’ the franchise’s most watchable entry yet. — Debbie Michaud
DULY NOTED
FEMALE TROUBLE (1974) (R) Trash auteur John Waters casts Divine as Dawn Davenport, who devolves from loving schoolgirl to mass murderer after her parents fail to give her a pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas. Featuring a performance by Blast-Off Burlesque. Taboo La La. Sat., Nov. 19, 10 p.m. Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. plazaatlanta.com
HOUSE OF BOYS (NR) This coming-of-age story follows a young man named Frank who experiences the sex and music of 1984 in the shadow of the “gay cancer.”
Nov. 14-20. Cinefest Film Theatre, Georgia State University, 66 Courtland St., Suite 240. 404-413-1798. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft.
WORST IN SHOW (NR) Documentary filmmakers John Beck and Don R. Lewis take a light-hearted look at Petaluma, Calif.’s annual World’s Ugliest Dog pageant and the wider world of the “ugly dog circuit.” Preceded by the short “Pound Dogs.” DecaturDocs. Sat., Nov. 19, 5 p.m. The Laughing Skull Lounge, 878 Peachtree Street. $10 in advance. Worstinshow.eventbrite.com’’
’’]
’’
’’
’’