GRAVITY 12A

2013 ★★★★★ OUT 20 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Awards success led some to reappraise Alfonso Cuarón’s space thriller, back in cinemas for its 10th anniversary. Overrated? Not at all. From its extended opening shot onwards, this is pure big-screen sensation, a wonderfully taut, spectacle-driven pulse-quickener delivered with bravura technique that fully earned its seven – from 10 nominations – Oscar wins. It arguably deserved an eighth: as harried medical engineer Ryan Stone, Sandra Bullock deftly combines panic and pathos, giving us a relatable hero you can’t help but root for, as implausible as her journey home occasionally seems.

BLAZING MAGNUM 18

1976 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD, DVD, DIGITAL 1976

EXTRAS ★★★☆☆Featurettes, Art cards EXTRAS

Italian director Alberto De Martino made his name repurposing successful US movies, often with eyebrow-raising results (see 1974 Exorcist ‘homage’ The Antichrist, also newly available on Blu). Part Dirty Harry, part giallo, this Ottawa-set thriller (aka Strange Shadows in an Empty Room) stars Stuart Whitman as a take-no-prisoners cop on the hunt for his sister’s killer. Though the film’s attitudes – which require a pre-credits disclaimer – are dated, there’s able support from a flock of B-movie favourites (John Saxon, Martin Landau, Tisa Farrow) and the car chases are extraordinary.

MATT GLASBY

I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! PG

1945 ★★★★★ OUT 20 OCTOBER CINEMAS

A newly restored print of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s romantic drama, released in cinemas as part of a BFI season celebrating the duo’s extraordinary cine-legacy. It centres on Joan (Wendy Hiller), a headstrong young woman travelling from Manchester to a Hebridean island to marry her industrialist boss. En route, she runs into bad weather, but also charming Scottish laird Torquil (Roger Livesey)... Playfully blending ‘reality’ and fantasy, the filmmakers conjure up a magical universe marked by ancient curses, wild storms and sublime natural beauty.

VALLEY GIRL 15

1983 ★★★☆☆OUT NOW BD 1983

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Featurettes, Music videos, Booklet

If not, like, totally bitchin’, director Martha Coolidge’s (Rambling Rose) teen romance holds up a lot better than many of its contemporaries. Stars Deborah Foreman (April Fool’s Day) and Nicolas Cage (in his first lead role) make for convincing star-crossed lovers - she a cool valley girl, he a dorky punk - which helps to offset the story’s familiarity. The affection all involved still have for the film shines through in the hours of interviews included here, which also packs in two commentaries (one by Coolidge) and a handy glossary (‘Pukeoid’, ‘Kiss my tuna’).

CHRISTINE 15

Rolling thunder…

1983 ★★★★★ OUT 20 OCTOBER CINEMAS

BFI, COLUMBIA, EUREKA, STUDIOCANAL, PARK CIRCUS, WARNER BROS.

Question: which 1980s adaptation of a Stephen King novel by a legendary film director made wholesale changes to the book and is reviled by the author? Answer: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, of course… but also John Carpenter’s Christine, which now motors back into cinemas for its 40th anniversary.

Set in late-70s LA, this tale of bullied teenager Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) and his unhealthy relationship with his first car – the titular 1958 Plymouth Fury that he restores to gleaming glory – is an unashamed B-movie, blasting 50s rock ’n’ roll as Arnie’s tormentors are reduced to roadkill. Is Arnie behind the wheel? Or is Christine doing it all by herself?

While Kubrick, an intellectual filmmaker, brought all of his art and ambition to The Shining, Carpenter, an emotional filmmaker, took a streamlined, no-nonsense, fun-filled approach. Both pictures received poor to middling reviews upon release, and both have since grown in stature, though it took Christine a good deal longer – only in the last 10 years has it been recognised as a top-tier King and/or Carpenter movie, or thereabouts.

Impeccably crafted, Christine is packed with quotable dialogue, cinematic kills and oh-so-cool moments (‘Show me...’), and compares to De Palma’s Carrie as a portrait of an alienated teen pushed into a roaring rampage of revenge.

THE VERDICT Bryan Fuller’s working on a new model of Christine. It’ll have to be truly special to compare.