This weekend's worthwhile cinematic diversions happening around New York:

--Robert Frank (right) is one of those quintessential New York artists who needs little introduction, and as such, the New York Video Festival is plunging headlong into a complete retrospective of his video work. Starting with 1985's Home Improvements and winding down Sunday night with the NYC premiere of his latest project, True Story, the two-part series features 11 shorts over nearly four hours. None of the movies will likely be enough to make you forget the captivating edginess of his most accomplished films (Pull My Daisy, Cocksucker Blues), but who said they had to be? Plus, they are hardly easy movies to locate, so you might think twice about skipping out for that afternoon showing of Stealth.

--I know you are probably tired of hearing about it, but I will say it again and again: Craig Lucas' directorial debut The Dying Gaul is one of the year's most beautiful, sublime cinematic treats. And thanks to the Stony Brook Film Festival, you don't have to wait for Strand Releasing's yet-to-be-determined release date to check it out. The simmering Campbell Scott-Peter Sarsgaard-Patricia Clarkson love triangle screens tonight at 9:30 at the Staller Center for the Arts; yeah, it is a haul. It is also a near-masterpiece and easily worth the trip.

--We all knew director Edgar G. Ulmer had some shit (the guy made Detour in six fucking days!), but did we know he had enough to be the subject of a documentary feature? Evidently director Michael Palm did--his 2004 film Edgar G. Ulmer--The Man Off-Screen has a closer look at Ulmer's turbulent ride in and out of the Hollywood-schlock system and the influence he wielded on the generations that followed him. Palm offers commentary from authorities no less than Roger Corman, Wim Wenders and Peter Bogdanovich (whose own interview with Ulmer is one of the great reads in his great book, Who the Devil Made It?), and if that does not do the trick, you can always stick around Anthology for the next week and catch a screening of other seedy Ulmer classics like The Black Cat and The Man From Planet X.