Notorious Danish director Lars Von Trier may have put his foot in his mouth by comparing himself to Adolf Hitler while promoting "Melancholia" (tomorrow-Sunday), but don't judge the film on Von Trier's statements alone. Kirsten Dunst's performance, as a bride on her way to the altar as a new planet is set to hit the earth, has received across-the-board acclaim. Von Trier fanatics can also catch a 20th-anniversary rep screening of "Europa" (Sunday).
For those looking for something lighter, there's "Butter," (Sunday, Oct. 30) a political satire starring Jennifer Garner as a former beauty queen trying to take home another crown: champion butter carver.
"It" boy Michael Fassbender makes two major appearances this year playing wildly different characters. The chameleon-like actor reteams with Steve McQueen ("Hunger") in "Shame," (today) in which he plays a sex addict who must confront his own compulsions after his troubled sister (the similarly buzzy Carey Mulligan) moves in with him. Next he takes on famed psychiatrist Carl Jung in David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," (tomorrow) about Jung's fraught relationship with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). "Naked Lunch," Cronenberg's decidedly strange take on a decidedly strange book gets the 20th-anniversary treatment tomorrow.
Classical Hollywood comes to the big screen in the form of "The Artist" (today, Thursday), a black-and-white French silent film about an actor's fall from grace that was a favorite at the Cannes Film Festival. Michelle Williams takes on Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn," (Oct. 28-29) about the screen goddess' follies filming "The Prince and Showgirl."
More for the arthouse
