This weekend's worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--If the Film Forum's blurb touting Samurai Rebellion—"The incredibly built-up tension is orgasmically released in Mifune’s — or anybody else’s — most dramatically powerful one-against-all fight … with Mifune acting throughout the flailing steel"—is not enough to get you into the theater this weekend, then you, my good friend, are without soul or salvation. The sparkly new print of Rebellion (right) kicks off FF's month-long Summer Samurai series, which includes a few of the obvious (The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) and some cool surprises (Kill!, the Mifune-as-Cyrano adaptation Samurai Saga). Consider this a shout-out for the next three weekends, as well.

--If Martin Scorsese has a forgotten film in his oeuvre, it has to be 1985's breezy burst of paranoia After Hours (tonight and Saturday at midnight, IFC Center). Griffin Dunne stars as an uptight computer programmer whose quest to meet a mysterious woman (Rosanna Arquette) propels him into a threatening SoHo otherworld of hunter, hunted and downright lost. Scorsese managed to squeeze this in after one of many delays afflicting The Last Temptation of Christ (Warners' second choice? Tim Burton), and thank God he did, if only for Michael Ballhaus' spellbinding camerawork and Teri Garr's beehive hairdo. The rest of the movie rates high as well, and at least now if it fades deeper into obscurity, I will not be responsible.

--Opening today, Disney's Valiant features Ewan McGregor, Ricky Gervais and John Cleese providing the voices of animated WWII homing pigeons. I would write more but my eyes just started bleeding.