Is tonight the night you finally go see Rashomon? Yes. We think it is. You’ve been putting it off, putting it off—yeah, it’s a biggie, but you had to go see Star Trek first, and also that Pixar movie, etc. But tonight you’ll commit. Film Forum is a lovely place to be, especially on a Thursday. You’ll feel like a real connoisseur. And this new restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 breakthrough is pretty tops. Subjectwise, the movie is about as modern as they come: Truth can shift and bend, depending on your perspective. So who cares that the film is close to 60 years old? You can appreciate older things. You can see value in cinema’s history. You’ve heard about samurai and Japan and Toshiro Mifune and want to learn more. See? You’ve totally psyched yourself up to go see Rashomon.

We just can’t stop mouthing off about this sick Tod Browning stuff. Once again, people: There’s a great old-Hollywood cult director to be discovered on Monday nights at Film Forum. Last week I went to see The Unknown with a pal and we couldn’t help but be floored by all the psychosexual awfulness intended for our enjoyment. (The crowd went nuts.) Tonight’s dark gem, 1928’s West of Zanzibar, is a favorite of retro auteur Guy Maddin. What’s in store? Two competing magicians! One paralyzes the other from the waist down! But there’s revenge to come—in colonialist Africa! Also, a daughter…and a brothel! (Seriously, those exclamation points are merited.)

Don’t even begin to tell us you haven’t seen Freaks. We accept you anyway. It plays tonight at Film Forum as part of a new Monday series devoted to the strange, anxiety-ridden filmography of director Tod Browning. Browning is the kind of mysterious legend who attracts a crazy cult. Born in 1880, he ran off to join the circus as soon as it was humanly possible. Vaudeville followed, then Hollywood in 1913, at that time a wide-open town. Two years later, he crashed his car in a horrifying accident that required two years of secret surgery and convalescence. Subsequently, many of Browning’s films concern personal catastophe; he bonded with star Lon Chaney, made a truly upsetting revenge movie about a limbless romantic (The Unknown) and hit it huge with 1931’s Dracula. The best Browning films have that scary, musty feel of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard: hauteur and entitlement cut short by awful fate. See as many of these as you can.

Like you don’t already have tickets. If not, brave the Trekkies and line up; here’s that truly rare summer movie that works for everyone. Josh loved it; we also have a chat with Shaun of the Dead funnyman Simon Pegg, whose take on Scotty sends the movie into comic maximum warp. Not digging the final frontier? Might we suggest Outrage, Kirby Dick’s well-reasoned exposé of closeted gay politicians? There. We just did. And if that’s still not enough for you, you can’t go wrong at Film Forum’s first weekend of its “Con Film Festival” (so clever), especially tonight’s The Criminal Code, featuring a pre-Frankstein Boris Karloff. It plays tomorrow too.

That’s actually a helpful note to any eds out there hoping to book the Canadian auteur for some copy. When faced with the prospect of writing a DVD review of Maddin’s soon-to-be-released 1992 cult film Careful, I sighed. Glancing at my heaving workload, I sneakily asked the director to do it himself. And he did! Maddin’s exclusive review for TONY of Careful is everything his films are: witty, fun and visually explosive. (Well, I thought the font was visually explosive.) Also: The lovable folks down at Film Forum are selling the DVD now—a week early—through Tuesday. Why wait? They have it exclusively. Hie thee to Varick Street.

How often do we award our most rapturous rating? It’s complicated—but basically, take the frequency of Supreme Court appointments, divide by the number of full-length Guns N’ Roses albums and subtract 22. We’re talking rare. Scarce. And yet, this week, we have one. The film in question is 1975’s mesmerizing Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which our critic describes as “maximal minimalism” and “timeless.” That’s funny, because the film is almost four hours long. Still, this is a beautiful piece of writing (if we might say so ourselves) and persuasive. Head down to Film Forum starting tonight and see for yourself.