LONE STAR 15

Sayles’ classic, finally unearthed…

STIGMATA 15

1999 ★★★★★ OUT NOW

DUAL FORMAT

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Making of, Deleted scenes, Alt ending, Booklet

This stylised shocker from Rupert Wainwright (2005’s The Fog remake) wants to be Se7en, but feels more like a forgotten grunge video. Patricia Arquette is Frankie, a hairdresser who starts having religious visions and, apparently, self-wounding. Trying to save her is sexy priest Father Andrew (Gabriel Byrne, who received a joint Razzie nod for this and End of Days). It’s badly written and choppily edited, and the fact that it’s been re-released in a gorgeous collector’s edition with plentiful extras is a greater mystery than anything happening on screen. MATT GLASBY

INSIDE 18

2007 ★★★★★ OUT 5 FEBRUARY BD

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

Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury left an indelible mark on noughties horror with this grisly home-invasion film; alongside the likes of Haute Tension and Martyrs, Inside was hailed as a key work of extreme French cinema. It still makes for distressing viewing, thanks to its visceral violence and taboo-smashing premise, in which a heavily pregnant woman (Alysson Paradis) is beset on Christmas Eve by an interloper (Béatrice Dalle) hell-bent on getting her hands on the unborn child. Second Sight’s quality package includes new commentaries, interviews and a 70-page essay book. JOEL HARLEY

1996 ★★★★★ OUT 26 FEBRUARY BD, 4K UHD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Essay

Iwant them to cross the border,’ says writer/director John Sayles (Eight Men Out, Matewan) when asked by filmmaker Gregory Nava what he desires viewers to take from Lone Star. It’s the resonant parting shot in a newly recorded 40-minute chat about Sayles’ long-unavailable masterpiece and his 45-year career as a figurehead of American independent cinema. Meanwhile, this Criterion disc’s other new interview, with DoP Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano, Once Were Warriors), explores how Lone Star transitions so smoothly between its twin timelines.

Set in the 90s and 50s, the film is all about borders, be they between races, fathers and sons or past and present. It opens with the discovery of a skeleton in the desert outside the Tex-Mex border town of Frontera. The bones belong to corrupt sheriff Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), who, legend has it, was run out of town in 1957 by heroic lawman Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey). Buddy’s son, Sam (Chris Cooper), is now the sheriff, and his murder investigation agitates racial tensions.

At once a detective story, a western and a film noir, Lone Star finds the political in the personal and offers a microcosm of America as it paints a vividly detailed portrait of a community. Quietly riveting, it subverts John Ford’s ‘print the legend’ ethos and boasts one of the most radical final lines in American cinema.

VERDICT Sayles marries his signature politics and social conscience to an engrossing murder mystery. Exceptional.

ONE FROM THE HEART: REPRISE 12

1981 ★★★★★ OUT 16 FEBRUARY

CINEMAS

A musical fantasy about romantic fantasy, Francis Ford Coppola’s infamous flop (returning in a 4K restoration) stands as a flawed but fitfully captivating dream story. Two lovers (Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr) fight; splintered, they embark on a neon-drunk 4 July night of infidelity. While their Vegas odysseys trace rote arcs, the songs (by Tom Waits, with singer Crystal Gayle - see p90) stun, the surreal set-pieces sing and the production designs pop. Like Nastassja Kinski’s tightrope interlude, the result is a high-wire act: sometimes risky and precarious, sometimes nimble and entrancing. KEVIN HARLEY

LA BAMBA 15

1987 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Making of, Featurettes, Audition footage, Essay

Boosting the careers of lead Lou Diamond Phillips and band Los Lobos, this biopic of Chicano star Ritchie Valens is a slight yet sensitive rock ’n’ roll fable. Director Luis Valdez frames it as a tale of innocence/experience, highlighting the contrasts between Phillips’ charismatic Ritchie and drunken sibling Bob (Esai Morales). Hints of sexism and sentimentality rankle, but the songs and snapshots of community provide strong anchorage before Valens’ too-soon death. Exemplary extras include a Valdez interview reflecting on the much-debated casting of Phillips.

MEAN STREETS 15

1973 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, 4K

UHD, DUAL FORMAT

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

What’s a ‘mook’? All you’ll ever need to know about Scorsese’s breakthrough movie, inspired by the Little Italy of his youth, is on this extras-laden disc, with producer Jonathan T. Taplin’s new interview particularly strong on Mean Streets’ making, distribution and reaction. The film itself is as vivid as ever, thanks to electric performances from De Niro and Keitel, the groundbreaking soundtrack, and a 4K restoration overseen by Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker. Dual-format limited edition includes 178-page book and eight art cards. JAMIE GRAHAM

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT U

1934 ★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY

CINEMAS Back in cinemas for its 90th anniversary, Frank Capra’s opposites-attract road-trip romcom was the first movie to take home the five big Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay). Its wit, charm and delicious dialogue (by regular Capra collaborator Robert Riskin) hold up beautifully in this 4K restoration. Claudette Colbert is the runaway heiress who hitches a ride and trades barbs with Clark Gable’s roguish reporter amid a media frenzy. The result is a screwball delight whose success nudged Columbia Pictures into the Hollywood big

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO 12

2022 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD,

4K UHD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Documentary, Featurettes, Essays

A handcrafted, heartfelt wonder, GdT’s stop-motion feature gets the Criterion treatment here. Extras include lead doc Handcarved Cinema, where del Toro hymns the ‘sacred’ elements of the stop-mo art.

Details abound, like the number of ‘masks’ (870) Pinocchio had for each emotion. Q&As with Neil Gaiman/Jim Cameron illuminate, while the ‘eight rules of animation’ featurette honours the animators who doubled as actors, performing through their puppets. One guy falls down the stairs for his art: now that’s commitment. KEVIN HARLEY

JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI BOX SET 12

1965-68 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Intros, Shorts, Booklets

Though Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski (the recent EO) has spent the bulk of his six-decade career working outside of his homeland, this welcome box set includes two monochrome mid-60s films (Walkover and Barrier) made in Poland before he went into exile, and portmanteau feature Dialogue 20-40-60, where he’s one of three Eastern European helmers. The standout is the surreal, jazz-scored Barrier, in which a disillusioned medical student wanders Warsaw and falls for a tram driver. Extras include early shorts and a booklet for each feature.