Blu-ray

At a time when some TV manufacturers are dropping 3D functionality from their newfangled 4K flatscreens, it's a pleasure to find that some Hollywood studios are still supporting the format. Case in point: Universal Pictures' Blu-ray outing for this 1953 science-fiction classic.

Not since The Rocky Horror Picture Show can we remember coming across a film as polarising as writer-director Richard Kelly's 2001 debut. A fever dream comprised of teen drama, time paradoxes, superheroes, '80s nostalgia, predestination and a man-sized rabbit, Donnie Darko offers no critical middle-ground; you either embrace its dreamlike structure and apocalyptic philosophising or you don't. In which case you'll and end up observing it all in a state of utter bemusement.

Following the critical and commercial success of his films J'accuse! (1919) and La Roue (1922), French filmmaker Abel Gance concocted an audacious plan to shoot a series of six films following the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. However, unable to drum up the funds needed to make all six, Gance was forced to stop shooting after a couple of years and instead contented himself with the creation of one epic movie culminating with Boney's invasion of Italy.

Midway into his five-year mission for the Federation, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is suffering from a serious case of space ennui and is thinking about jacking it all in. However, Kirk's long-term plans are put on hold when the Enterprise is sent to an uncharted nebula on a rescue mission, which turns into an ambush by an alien horde led by the fierce Krall (Idris Elba). With their ship destroyed and the crew scattered across an alien world, it looks like Kirk and chums have their work cut out if they want to stop Krall's nefarious plans.

These are interesting times for HBO's epic fantasy. With author George R.R. Martin still holed up somewhere beavering away on the sixth novel in the series (The Winds of Winter, release date TBC), the TV adaptation hasn't just caught up with the books, but in its sixth season is having to chart its own course. So how is the show faring without the luxury of one of Martin's novels to draw upon?

A caterer specialising in exotic foods starts targeting buxom beauties in a series of ritualistic killings. An innocent student is lured into a world of smutty photography in order to pay her college tuition. Biker babes run amok. Yankee tourists stumble upon a strange Southern town where they are brutally murdered. Welcome to the world of the late Herschell Gordon Lewis and his particular brand of exploitation cinema.