MEAN STREETS 18 AFTER HOURS 15

New York stories…

Marty marvels: Mean Streets (top) and After Hours

1973 ★★★★★ OUT 13 OCTOBER CINEMAS

1985 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD

EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Essay EXTRAS

There’s a lot to be said for working with what you know. In two films issued 12 years apart, an on-the-ropes Martin Scorsese proved as much, operating on lean, keen instinct to galvanising punk-rock effect.

After Scorsese made Boxcar Bertha (1972), indie godhead John Cassavetes told him he’d spent a year on ‘a piece of shit’. Marty’s answer was to make magic from home turf with Mean Streets, dissecting the American Dream via an anthropological study of Little Italy. The result bristles with urgency and hunger. As Harvey Keitel’s crook wrestles with religion, male bonds and loose-cannon Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro, electric), the spectacle of Scorsese’s voice-forming thrills.

A decade on, The King of Comedy flopped and The Last Temptation of Christ collapsed (temporarily). Cast adrift, Scorsese turned to a script about a man adrift. After Hours is a black comedy with Griffin Dunne pitch-perfect as a desk jockey navigating NY’s underworld after a meet-cute goes weird. With his Cannes hit, Scorsese rediscovered his low-budget know-how and his career footing. That’s him with the spotlight in the nightclub: lighting his path out of the darkness, the way only he could.

THE VERDICT With style and swagger, Scorsese marks his territory in two brisk, bracing Big Apple bangers.

GREGORY’S GIRL 12

1980 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD, DIGITAL 1980

EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Commentaries, Featurettes, Alternate music cues, US soundtrack, Booklet

A world away from the highschool comedies that proliferated across the Atlantic during the 80s, Scottish writer/director Bill Forsyth’s charming sophomore feature is a joy to revisit, courtesy of the BFI’s exquisite new 4K restoration. One of the few films to accurately capture the anticipation and awkwardness of adolescent infatuation, Gregory’s Girl eschews familiar genre tropes and stereotypes to craft something that feels altogether sweeter, funnier and emotionally authentic.

PEEPING TOM 15

1960 ★★★★★ OUT 27 OCTOBER CINEMAS

Michael Powell was as feted in his day as a Scorsese or Spielberg – until this seminal chiller shredded his reputation for several years. Centred on a focus-puller (Carl Boehm) who spends his free time making snuff films, it’s relatively tame by modern standards, yet what the viewer is left to imagine is far more troubling: the most frightening thing, its mantra goes, is fear itself. This 4K restoration suits a big-screen rewatch – not least for the unsettling way it conflates cinema’s inherently voyeuristic nature with our appetites as viewers. Little wonder it left critics spluttering in shock.

PRESSURE 15

1976 ★★★★☆ OUT 3 NOVEMBER CINEMAS 1976

A digital restoration of this pioneering coming-of-age drama, the first full-length British feature to be directed by a Black filmmaker, the late Sir Horace Ové. The uncompromising nature of his portrait of societal racism led to Pressure’s original release being delayed for a time. Shot in London’s Ladbroke Grove, it tracks teenaged second-generation Caribbean immigrant Tony (Herbert Norville), who’s caught between the conformism of his Christian parents and the Black Power militancy of his older brother (Oscar James). The film’s anger at the injustices experienced by young Black Britons remains undimmed.

FRIDAY THE 13TH 15

1980 ★★★☆☆ OUT 13 OCTOBER CINEMAS 1980

Back in cinemas for one week only – starting Friday 13 October, natch – this hit slasher remains crudely effective despite nine sequels, one crossover, one remake and the original Scream telling everyone that it’s actually (spoiler alert!) Mrs. Voorhees, not Jason, who’s slaying young Kevin Bacon and pals at summer camp. Sure, it misplaces the wit and sophistication as it rips off Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood and John Carpenter’s Halloween. But whichever way you slice it, Sean S. Cunningham’s film delivers its fair share of fear, including one all-timer of a jump scare.