Too much craziness and now, finally, the sweet relief of a weekend involving movies smart and dumb. As you may have noticed, I have a post-Marty glow. (Thanks.) It happens when you become the target of Scorsese’s gigantic cinematic insight. Our chat—which is very inspirational—is here. Go check out The Red Shoes at Film Forum. While I can’t fully recommend Richard Kelly’s The Box (”It’s better than Southland Tales” ain’t going on any movie posters), I do love our fun list of Team Film’s creepiest cinematic boxes. Oh, we remembered all of them. Finally, see that eerie image above? It’s from the Swedish silent film Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, which plays at MoMA this Sunday at 2:30pm with live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble. They have a restored print as part of their “To Save and Project” series. It’s scary, ridiculous and totally worth your time.

Back when low-budget indies used their freedom to address outré subject matter (not winning a beauty pageant), there was a golden age of genre trash. Roger Corman was its king, and this 1963 sci-fi gem, starring former A-lister Ray Milland, is probably the director-producer’s scariest. Milland plays the fantasy role of teenage boys everywhere: a scientist who invents X-ray vision. But the movie quickly enters dark territory as he begins to see deeper and deeper—into the substance of metaphysics itself. Our hero flees to Las Vegas, where he cheats at cards and also gets exploited in a carnival freak show run by Don Rickles. (I’m so not making this up.) No less an authority than Stephen King has celebrated this movie’s memorable climax, which I won’t ruin for you. It plays tonight at Anthology Film Archives at 9:15pm.

Us, too: We’re kind of bummed that Halloween is over—just when we were getting into this whole candy-and-costume lifestyle. Anyway, Anthology Film Archives feels our pain. Tonight at 9pm, it screens the 1959 Roger Corman horror-comedy A Bucket of Blood. It’s about a weird sculptor. Bring your leftover candy corn. We know you’re holding.

We’re calling it the horror film of the year—and by “we’re,” I mean me. But seriously: If you love suspense-driven, Val Lewton-esque thrillers, yet don’t make it out to see The House of the Devil, then you’re either lying or had a damn good reason, like being trapped in a cellar with Kathy Bates. Here’s my interview with the film’s 29-year-old wunderkind director, Ti West; also check out Keith’s glowing review. Halloween is upon us. I was putting together a list of movies that function like ghost stories but don’t actually feature ghosts—stuff like Jimmy Stewart’s quest for the mysterious Madeleine in Vertigo; or the eerie dance across a span of grey sky in last year’s subtly elegiac Man on Wire. Then, a new nonghost ghost story dropped right into my lap: Michael Jackson’s This Is It. You can read my review right here; suffice it to say, we were happily surprised. Anyway, enjoy the weekend. Boo!

Halloween reared its premature head last night as mobs of MJ look-alikes shuffled through Times Square’s Regal E-Walk theater, looking to take home more than a bag of candy. After five security checkpoints, multiple escalators and a much-needed trip to the concession stands, devoted fans gathered to discuss their expectations of This Is It. “I was supposed to see the concert in London!” one eager admirer screamed. A woman bedecked in sequins and sunglasses chimed in: “My plan is to get up and dance. I won’t be able to stop myself.” And she kept her word. The whole theater transformed into an interactive event with people singing aloud, dancing to the music and waving a gloved hand in the air. Even through spurts of corniness and numbers you wish you could have fast-forwarded, This Is It delivered—the King of Pop was cool again and everyone was thrilled. As people flooded out of the packed movie house, smiling to the endless line of fans waiting to get into the midnight show, a surge of emotions wafted through the misty air (in the middle of New York’s most impersonal neighborhood). “You really saw everything that he was,” a fan said after the show. “I’m not gonna lie, I cried.”

You’re probably hearing a lot about torture and Jigsaw and chaos reigning right about now. So let us offer you a few alternatives: Dave loves him some Elia Kazan, especially Film Forum’s weeklong booking of Wild River, a “terminally neglected 1960 melodrama” starring Montgomery Clift. Keith can happily vouch for an “extraordinary character study” called Night and Day by South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo; it’s playing at Anthology. And I dig Gena Rowlands, above, unraveling in John Cassavetes’s heartbreaking A Woman Under the Influence, at MoMA starting tomorrow.

Some people count down to Christmas; for me, it’s always been Halloween. (Only ten days!) The weather isn’t exactly cooperating—be fall already—but there’s an embarrassment of riches, spookswise, in theaters over the next couple of weeks. Tonight we recommend a relatively new horror anthology: Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat, a 2008 collection of interwoven shorts playing at 8:30pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The buzz is strong and serious—as if that photo above weren’t evidence enough.

Honestly, go. It’s fine. We know you’re going. Even though we can’t fully vouch for Where the Wild Things Are, we see you salivating. That’s cool. But if you really want our advice, we’d suggest exploring NYC’s wide, woolly world of revivals. Let the wild rumpus begin! Film Forum continues its Elia Kazan fest with A Streetcar Named Desire—and seriously, this Brando kid is pretty good. (It plays on Sunday at multiple times.) MoMA screens Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 breakthrough, Stranger than Paradise, on Saturday at 8pm. And finally, the Film Society of Lincoln Center brings the gooey, lovable Hammer classics Horror of Dracula (above) on Saturday at 6pm, and The Curse of the Werewolf directly afterward.

We are now in what must be called Phase Three of Project Jennifer Connelly—her post-bombshell dramatist phase. It began with the one-two punch of Requiem for a Dream and A Beautiful Mind. Yet it’s easy to cast back longingly to Phase Two, when Connelly’s curves and naughtiness showed up in material like Mulholland Falls, Inventing the Abbotts and The Hot Spot (ouch). But if I’m being totally honest, the version of Connelly I most prefer is Phase One, the period in which her sparky teenage braininess stole away Sergio Leone’s epic Once Upon a Time in America, partnered her with David Bowie in Labyrinth and commandeered this bizarre 1985 Italian horror film by maestro Dario Argento. (Connelly fun fact: She speaks fluent Italian.) In Phenomena, her 14-year-old character shares a strange psychic bond with swarms of insects, creatures she loves. Only slightly less creepy, she also bonds with bug expert Donald Pleasence. The movie plays at 9pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

You must must must see this documentary tonight at 8pm at IFC Center’s weekly “Stranger than Fiction” series. To whet your appetite, let’s start by saying it’s about sexy Italian club girls and the men who hope to put them on TV. But the inquiry extends to include a stunning indictment of Silvio Berlusconi’s tits-obsessed media empire, interchangeable in many ways with his political administration. Just when you’re gasping at this documentary’s reach, it swivels again and includes the gossip kingmakers and wanna-be reality-TV stars. Atmospheric and scary, Videocracy was easily the best nonfiction movie I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. As for its subject matter—presented like a Fellini horror film—I’d say it’s where America was heading if we weren’t already there. Videocracy still has no U.S. distributor; you can see it tonight.

Looks like we’ve got a proper midnight sensation on our hands: Paranormal Activity, a Blair Witch–like low-budget shocker, is beginning to pick up buzz from sold-out shows. Tonight it plays the Film Society of Lincoln Center at 7pm as part of its “Scary Movies 3” series, solidly curated (if a touch unadventurously). Other titles to check out include Candyman—giving lie to the idea that the 1990s were berefit of decent horror—and Dario Argento’s Phenomena, starring a teenage Jennifer Connelly circa Labyrinth.

Call it another British invasion—this time, of tough-minded cinema featuring arrogant characters with bad teeth. Two excellent films open today: Bronson, a “bizarre and mighty prison film” per our review, with an unforgettable performance by Tom Hardy (above). Here’s Dave’s interview with him. Then there’s The Damned United, which is sort of a movie about soccer, but not really. It concerns a hubristic coach played by Michael Sheen—and if the presence of this excellent second banana (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) doesn’t get you stoked, you need some serious correctional work. Then again, maybe you just want to stay in. Rent some of these, taken from our truly “banging” top-ten movie haircuts of all time.

Bet you haven’t heard of this one before. We kid, we kid. Fritz Lang’s massively influential vision of the future—lambasted at the time of its original release by none other than H.G. Wells—screens tonight at 7:30pm at Queens Theatre in the Park. You can thrill once more to Brigitte Helm’s genius double performance as activist Maria and her evil robot doppelgänger, not to mention Lang fixture Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the crazed inventor Rotwang. Consider this an appetite-whet for Kino International’s upcoming release of the 210-minute original cut, which Roger Ebert reports on here.

What’s that, you say? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah, it’s true that I’ve watched all 682 minutes of the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy countless times, and can even recite lines from the special-feature discs from memory. What? No, you’re the nerd. Dude, who was the one that wore elf ears and said things like “The Uruks are coming!” and “No one tosses a dwarf!” for two straight months? Yeah, I don’t blame her for dumping you. Look, I’m sorry she took the cat, but at least she had the good sense to change its name from Treebeard to Sprinkles. All right already. Because I feel bad for you and your miserable life, you can come with me. Yes, the Fellowship of the Ring is being screened at Radio City Music Hall tomorrow night, and the award-winning score is being simultaneously performed by the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra, the Collegiate Chorale, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Kaitlyn Lusk, as conducted by Ludwig Wicki. I know, it’s going to be awesome. Dude, stop crying. I know, I’m your best friend. You’re getting snot on my shirt. You can go Saturday night, too, if it means so much to you. There there. You know Gandalf isn’t gone forever. Shhhh.

Starting today, catch three films by Shigeko Kubota that will indulge your love of Marcel Duchamp, your wanderlust and the anthropologist in your heart. These early videos—Marcel Duchamp and John Cage (1972), Europe on 1/2 Inch a Day (1972), and Video Girls and Video Songs for Navajo Sky (1973)—are being presented by Electronic Arts Intermix at X Initiative through October 17. They run the gamut from a documentary elegy of an infamous chess match between famous artists, to a self-guided tour of the arts undergrounds of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris, to a diarylike record of Kubota’s time living on a Navajo reservation. Each running approximately 30 minutes, the films are presented in a loop during X Initiative’s open hours: Wed–Sun 11am–6pm.—Emily Bauman

We know how obsessed you are with your hair: We’ve seen you spit-comb your cowlick in the reflection of the subway doors. And we get it; hair says a lot about who you are—just look at Phil Spector. Even his hair looks guilty. So, what do the coiffs sported by actors in movies say about them and the characters they portray? Well, if you’re Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich, your frizzed-by-an-eggbeater hair says that you’re spacey and eccentric, and that you’re acting—that was her thespian hair. If you’re Christopher Reid, a.k.a. Kid, in House Party, then your vertiginous ‘fro acts as an exclamation point to your zany just-wanna-have-fun persona. (A man with that kind of hair would not commit murder, see.) Sadly, Reid did not make it into our faves, but you can see who did—like Jean Seberg, pictured above—in our banging top-ten list here.

A little secret: Tuesday night is “cozy night” at Film Forum. It’s not really. But wouldn’t that be a fun tradition for them to have? Seriously: Go to the esteemed venue during the middle of the working week and there’s a serene vibe to be had. No crazy crowds. No long lines. Just you, your hon and a classic rom-com like Some Like It Hot (tonight at 4:30, 7 and 9:30pm; final three days!). How nice does that sound?

Have you done a little NYFFing yet? (Sounds dirty.) The New York Festival proceeds apace and tickets are still available. We’re reviewing everything here, and while we haven’t been thrilled with all titles, tonight’s 6pm show of Everyone Else would merit our endorsement. It’s a breakup movie—a neurotic, passive-aggressive one at that. But director Maren Ade is a filmmaker worth watching. As of right now, Lincoln Center is reporting ticket availability.

Man, did it just get smart in here, or do we just like movies more? The Coens exceed even their own standards with A Serious Man, the first unmissable movie of the fall. (Check out David Fear’s chat with the brothers here.) Meanwhile, we might have to make room for more films from budding auteur Drew Barrymore; her first attempt behind the camera, Whip It, is utterly winning and an unexpected heartbreaker. Keith Uhlich loves him some Abel Ferrara, particularly the director’s latest documentary, Chelsea on the Rocks. And if you want rep—you got it! Billy Wilder’s comic masterpiece Some Like It Hot plays at Film Forum, while the first two Toy Story movies beguile in 3-D. In short, we’re talking options galore, people.

A highlight of the 2008 Film Comment Selects series, Heinz Emigholz’s Schindler’s Houses is a nonnarrative motion picture collage of 40 L.A. homes and structures built by architect Rudolph M. Schindler. It’s lulling in the best way—Emigholz’s slow, tracking camera induces a kind of transcendental trance state, and each building resonates with an unspoken, though still deeply felt sense of history. It’s definitely a rewarding way to spend an evening, so head on over to Anthology Film Archives where it will screen at 7pm.