MAY 18 2002

★★★✩✩

OUT NOW BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Featurettes, Book, Art cards

Writer/director Lucky McKee has gone on to bigger things (The Woman, Old Man), but is yet to match the aggressive strangeness of this indie slasher, which marked his solo debut. Blending whimsy with grotesque body horror, it follows a socially awkward veterinary assistant (Angela Bettis) who’s obsessed with perfection. A young Anna Faris also shines as the title character’s flirty colleague. Second Sight has given this cult fave quite the makeover – both the regular and limited editions come heaped with extras; the latter includes a 70-page essay book.

JURASSIC PARK PG 1993

The joy of Rex…

★★★★★ OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS

Thirty years, five sequels and many containment spillages of CGI on from its release, Steven Spielberg’s dino-splash seems to have much to answer for. But, just as Jaws wasn’t to blame for summer cinema’s misfires, so Jurassic Park transcends – and, cannily, preempts – the fallout from its success.

Working from Michael Crichton’s nastier novel, Spielberg posits a key question: when you open Pandora’s box, can you control what emerges? While that query resonates with modern AI anxieties, in 1993 the film’s demons were genetics and CGI. Although twinkly salesman John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) can’t contain his animals, Spielberg attains his CG peaks with discipline. Recalling Crichton’s Westworld, the set-up sees experts Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum corralled into assessing Hammond’s park. Then life breaks free. But Spielberg treads carefully, using a ‘seeing’ motif – specs, mirrors, debates about spectacle – to sharpen our senses and max suspense before unleashing the beasts. He casts superbly, too, with Neill/Dern making wry work of the parental themes and Goldblum earning his memes.

Once the screaming starts, Jurassic aces the popcorn rush with precision pacing and – alongside a little mocking disrespect for the merch tie-ins – respect for the animals. Right up to this year’s 65, no film since has made dinosaurs so potent. With John Williams’ reverential score soaring, Jurassic Park roars with unstoppable life.

SERPICO 15 1973

★★★★★

OUT 18 AUGUST CINEMAS

Back in cinemas for its 50th anniversary, Sidney Lumet’s tough-as-tarmac true-life drama stars Al Pacino as crusading cop Frank Serpico, who blows the whistle on his corrupt NYPD colleagues. A between-Godfathers Pacino garnered a Best Actor nod for his dextrous, decade-spanning turn as the long-haired law enforcer who refuses to take bribes. But what really linger are the gritty feel and writers Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler’s attention to the details of Frank’s daily life. A masterful meditation on standing up for what you believe in, told with street-level authenticity.

WEIRD SCIENCE 12 1985

★★✩✩✩

OUT 21 AUGUST 4K UHD

EXTRAS ★★★✩✩ Alternate cuts, Documentary, Featurettes, Galleries, Poster

Written and directed by John Hughes and available for the first time in ultra-high-def, this sci-fi sex comedy has not aged well. Horny high-schoolers Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith create the perfect woman in the form of Kelly LeBrock, ushering in all manner of problematic anarchy. A good cast (including Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Paxton) can’t save proceedings from being creepy, sexist and – in a scene where the boys get drunk at a Black bar – staggeringly racist. Disc includes extended and editedfor-TV versions.

TOKYO STORY U 1953

★★★★★

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS

A high-ranker in best-ever-films lists, Yasujiro Ozu’s classic carries its greatness lightly. The plot upholds simplicity’s virtues: elderly spouses visit Tokyo to see their children, only to find their offspring too busy for them. Refusing to judge, Ozu invests his spare narrative and minimalist compositions with cumulative emotional power, percolating in the spaces between stoicism and sorrow. As a profound portrait of disappointment takes slow, soft shape, Setsuko Hara’s daughterin-law Noriko impeccably embodies Ozu’s cushioning currents of kindness and empathy.