Man, That’s Totally Elfed Up

In the late 1950s, a young TV performer named Jim Henson cut up his mother’s old lime-green coat and fashioned it into a reptilian something or other that he called Kermit. From Kermit sprang multitudes of Muppets, which didn’t merely entertain — they taught millions of us to count and read. Then in 1982, after giving us decades’ worth of warm fuzzies, Henson decided it was time to properly freak us the hell out: The Dark Crystal follows the quest of a young Gelfling named Jen, dispatched by his dying mentor to restore a displaced shard to the mystical Dark Crystal, to fulfill prophecy and end the tyranny of the raptorlike Skeksis and their crustacean enforcers the Garthim. Get all that? Attend today’s free 6:30 p.m. screening at the Kansas City, Missouri, Central Library (14 West 10th Street, 816-701-3400) and save a bundle on psychotropic substances. See kclibrary.org for more, well, other details. — Brent Shepherd

Mondays, 6:30 p.m. Starts: Oct. 4. Continues through Oct. 25, 2010