Westworld (1973)

In this 1973 Michael Crichton written and directed scifi thriller, the author's first directorial effort, Isla Nubla is an immersive theme park and the dinosaurs are robots built to interact with and accommodate the high-paying tourists' every holiday whim, and while especially shallow (the plot is three-quarters peculiar robot glitches that perturb the theme park scientists but not enough to progress the plot, and one quarter sudden showdown (in which mildly perturbed scientists flip their lids and turn suddenly into shrieking there's-no-stopping-them, robots-will-kill-us-all nihilists) it is a ripping sci-fi tale full of Planet Of The Apes/Soylent Green era kitsch and quite prescient future-imagining, with amusing performances from Richard "The 70s? I'm in everything" Benjamin, Josh "Am I twenty or seventy?" Brolin, and a 1973 version of the T-800, a sinister, sparkly-eyed Yul Brynner.

★★★★☆

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You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Woody Allen movies, and perhaps especially his romantic comedies with their thrown-together ensemble casts, ad-libbed dialogue, seemingly made-up-on-the-spot characters, and voiceover narrations of questionnable value, can give the impression the director isn't even trying, and so it is here in this romantic comedy which in its first half rambles breezily on about the love lives of seven or eight Londoners, appears to jump the shark in the middle with a sudden 'plagiarist writer' development, but finally ties everything together with lots of belly laughs and the idea that the tall, dark stranger of the title is ourselves trying things on in desperate moments, and of course there is the renewed conviction that even though it can sometimes appear he is just churning them out, Woody Allen's movies are always worth a look.

★★★☆☆

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Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Joel and Ethan Coen's movie about a 1950s Hollywood film studio is full of near versions of real Hollywood personalities from that era - Carmen Miranda, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Lash LaRue - embroiled in a plot ripped from 1950s celebrity tabloids and while it is certainly exuberantly acted and full of elaborate period detail, the movie's biggest problem is that it distances viewers looking for meaning - it's neither a light, frothy comedy spoof nor a biting political religious satire, but probably just a largely point-free Coen brothers indulgence - them revelling in the things they love.

★★★☆☆

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Hollow Man (2000)

The special effects are so good in this Paul Verhoeven scifi thriller, they still hold up today 16 years after the film's release and it's clear the time, trouble and money spent on them was at the cost of all else - the Jekyll-and-Hyde story of a mad scientist is essentially a comic book superhero tale without a superhero - inert, rudderless and with nowhere to go - and it has the diabolical invisible madman villain tipped over the deep end not by his brilliance but by a petty love triangle...all that sfx invisibility simply becomes the means he uses to exact his tired horror movie revenge.

★★☆☆☆

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Sicario (2015)

The covert black ops mission that sweeps up Emily Blunt's FBI agent is a shadowy, violent, and lawless battle against a powerful drug cartel, and the more she sees the more conflicted she becomes about the ethics of the mission, in Denis Villeneuve's brutal thriller and must-see travel guide for anyone contemplating a holiday to Juarez, Mexico.

★★★★☆

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The Goonies (1985)

A group of kids hopes to save their home from demolition with a last ditch adventure that proves to be a riotous treasure hunt involving pirate ships, bats, maps, codes, caves and the not so sinister Fratellis!

★★★★☆

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