Like many Americans, I often feel the funkiness rising up inside me. It sometimes needs purging. There’s no better opportunity than the one provided tonight at Maysles Cinema, screening Soul Power, a terrific concert documentary filmed in Africa. (It also plays tomorrow night and Wednesday at 7:30pm.) The movie captures legends like James Brown and B.B. King at the peak of their substantial gifts. Backstage: a playful Muhammad Ali, serenly confident of his soon-to-be-mythic victory over George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle.

So many of the photos for Alien (at Film Forum for its 30th anniversary starting tonight) are so beyond gross, it’s practically awe-inspiring. Even this one produces its fair share of willies. There is no finer horror film in the city this week. Watching Alien with a crowd means submitting to the genius of Ridley Scott—and also to that of creature-designer H.R. Giger, whom we chatted with in an exclusive interview. If you’re not feeling up to bodily invasions, try the funky concert doc Soul Power. I mean, it will move your body. And your booty. But you won’t go all John Hurt on the dinner table.