Mirror Mirror (PG)
A smart, sassy take on the Snow White fairy tale with the ever-reliable Julia Roberts starring as the Evil Queen and fresh-faced Lily Collins as you-know-who. Armie Hammer and Sean Bean pop as, respectively, the handsome prince and the King. It's directed by Tarsem Singh, who made preposterous, J-Lo-fronted sci-fi clunker The Cell, but let's not hold that against him: Mirror Mirror is highly enjoyable and all the better for having its tongue firmly in its highly-rouged cheek.
The Night Porter (18)
Charlotte Rampling is on imperious form in Liliana Cavani's film about a concentration camp survivor who, while visting Vienna in the late 1950s, recognises the hotel functionary of the title (Dirk Bogarde). In an earlier life, has was the Nazi officer who was alternately her tormentor and protector, a story we see in flashbacks. Deeply controversial in its day, it still packs a punch and well deserves the title "iconic". First time in the UK on Blu-Ray and extras include interviews with Rampling, Cavani and writer Italo Moscati.
Children Of Heaven (PG)
Think Iranian cinema and, if you think anything at all, you'll think moody, slow-moving films not exactly brimming with humour. An exception is the work of Majid Majidi, whose Oscar-nominated 1997 film gets a 15th anniversary re-release here. It's far from being a comedy and it certainly evinces social concerns, but its dominant tones are warmth, gentleness and humanity. If you like this, check out his 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival pleaser The Song Of Sparrows, which is set on an arid Iranian ostrich farm.
They Came From Beyond Space (PG)
In a rare example of a British director appropriating an American novel and setting it in the UK, director Freddie Francis took Joseph Millard's The Gods Hate Kansas and turned it into this 1967 sci-fi flick for Amicus Productions, best known for cult horror films like Torture Garden (also directed by Francis). To the plot, then: nine strange meteors land in Cornwall, a bowler-hat wearing government gent sends some scientists down to check it out and, well, you can probably guess the rest. Great fun.
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