Rye Lane. I hadn't hear of it but watched it on a recommend from someone I usually can trust. It's a romcom, and a rather delightful little (83 mins) one at that, set in Brixton and featuring two real people who end up helping each other through recent breakups. After a short time spent in their company you really do hope things turn out for them. On Disney+, though I'm pretty sure it never popped up in my 'recent addition' notifications.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. An interesting film made using interviews, stand in actors and clips from his TV shows and films. It tells the story of his journey from a young boy, to Hollywood, to his Parkinsons diagnosis, and how he now copes. I always liked him as an actor, and he's lost none of his sharp whit and determination. It's heart-breaking to see him walking along a pavement with a helper and a woman tells him how proud of him she is (I think that's what she said), he half turns to thank her and falls over, his helper picks him up and the woman timidly walks back to help, she seems conscious he doesn't want pity. He comes straight back with "see, I fell for you" - it made me laugh and realise his sharp whit is still there, even if it's slightly masked by a failing body.

Very emotional and of course, there's no happy ending, just acceptance and love.

Athena. If you like your action films topical, look no further (for the last few days anyway). The killing of an immigrant teenager at the hands of police, who then close ranks, sparks off a spate of riots throughout France. A brother of the deceased incites riots and the closing-off of a (fictional) Paris estate. Another brother, ex-soldier, tries to defuse the situation. Another half-brother is more worried about hiding his stash of illegal substances from the battalion of riot police about to storm in. A sound action venture in the vein of 'mobs and molotovs' rather than one-on-one martial arts, told in frequent long takes. Looks at times almost like news footage. A bit more character depth would have helped but it's a good watch anyway. On Netflix.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. More Marvel bloat and further proof the cash cow should have been shot in the back of the head after Endgame. It's alright, but no better, but compared to Doctor Strange 2 and Ant-Man 3 anything wouldn't look all bad (I am reminded, writing this, of the Guardians Xmas special which was horrible, just painfully horrible, as clear an example of 'do we really have to do this' that you'll ever see). The first few minutes and a moaning Radiohead song (one of the few I recognised on a pretty boring needledrop soundtrack) set the tone for the rest of it, which is partly a superfluous and miserable origin story for a character who's already been in four films, and partly a manipulative call against animal testing. That's a worthy message to be sure but every few minutes a pathetic cgi animal will be tugging at your tear ducts. I know any film that prominently features a raccoon and a tree (Diesel laughing all the way to the bank again) in space is going to be cgi-heavy, but too often this just looks like an excuse to have nothing but. Will Poulter is fun as some sort of superpowered but dim being, but he's underused. The big baddy is forgettably crap, as bad as Lee Pace in volume 1. And like any franchise-milker these days, it's half an hour too long. It's still quite entertaining... but no better than alright, and that shouldn't be good enough. Marvel is relaxing on its laurels, holding Vinnie's hand on the way to the bank. If they aren't careful, they might be overtaken by DC.

The Dish. An account of the big radio antenna in Oz that relayed the live stream of Neil Armstrong's moon walk. It doesn't matter that it's mostly fiction, it's one of those warm, nostalgic films designed to make you feel contented and fuzzy all over, and this one is shot with a soft golden glow to help the excellent cast along. The pace flags a bit now and then, but it works, and it's frequently hilarious.

Asteroid City. I used to love Wes Anderson films, at a time when he'd only made about three. This one reminded me why I usually don't look at them now. It's as if he wants to make the dictionary definition of 'quirky' all about him. More than ever he creates the impression that the cast are merely figures he's moving round a game board, and as a result I didn't care about any of them. The colours are dialled up to eleven and it's ugly. Characters talk in ways that hit you over the head with the idea that they're 'kooky' - you know, because it's a Wes Anderson movie. The low point of what I watched (about a third of it, I couldn't stand any more) was a speech given by Jeffrey Wright as some sort of military character. The badness of it actually started to make me squirm. Even knowing that Jeff Goldblum was in the cast later playing an alien couldn't keep me there.

Note: this was a review of a partial film by a former Wes Anderson fan. If you're a current Wes Anderson fan, you'll probably love it.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. According to wiki this was a financial bomb. Well, there you go. Having been uninspired by the trailer, I found myself enjoying it much more than I had expected to. I think it got mixed reviews but, on the whole, I'm surprised about that. It's predictable (Indy vs Nazis with mythical overtones) but you don't approach a 5th-in-the-franchise crowd pleaser expecting originality and innovation. And if the last half hour might look a bit too far-fetched, don't forget the original was all about a magic box and a non-existent sky wizard.

It's long (2.5 hours) and while it held my attention throughout, the opening WW2 sequence (with better than average but still not perfect cgi de-aging) could easily have been tightened up. The female lead is Phoebe Waller-Bridge playing Indy's goddaughter who turns out to be a bit of a rogue without any romantic entanglement - because it's Phoebe Waller-Bridge, of course. She's easily up to the task, and Mads Mikkelsen wastes his talent in Hollywood again while having fun with the European baddy role. Ford is impressively spry in the shots where it's obviously him and not a double/cgi creation. As I say, it's fun, and I enjoyed it, job done. However. It's overburdened with cgi, as if they'd decided to do away with practical effects wherever possible. A lot of greenscreening, a dreadfully animated cgi Indy running along a train roof (very brief, but a big sore thumb), and just general digital look that leaves it, in my jaded eyes, looking 'insubstantial'. We all know the internet doesn't weigh anything, and too much cgi just makes something like this look as if it'd blow away in a stiff breeze. If the cgi doesn't bother you, knock yourself out. It's still fun.

Die Hard With a Vengeance. Okay. I know it's dumb occasionally verging on moronic, I've seen it a few times already. But I had a pizza and a big bag of sweeties, and it's just what I was in the mood for. I watched it the day after Indy 5, and I found myself enjoying it even more than it deserves for the same reason I marked Indy 5 down - the lack of cgi. If they made this now it'd have the same homogenised look that most things do. Nowadays, the practical effects just make it look better.

We watched Dial of Destiny last night. Overall we enjoyed it, but the tuk tuk scenes were overlong, and the train sequence at the start just kept reminding me of the opening of Top Secret.

No-one Will Save You. New to D+. An alien home invasion thriller that's fine up to a point, the point being the ending, with pacing issues along the way. It concerns a young woman who, it becomes evident soon enough, is shunned by everyone in town. Then she's subjected to a home invasion by - aliens! That's in the description on Disney, it's not a spoiler. It's quite engrossing to begin with - I'd been watching over half an hour before I realised I hadn't heard a word of dialogue - and Kaitlyn Dever is always good (as you should know if you've seen Booksmart, Short Term 12 and the series Unbelievable). But even though it's less than 90 mins before credits, I felt it really began to drag. By the two-thirds mark it seems as if it's nothing but a woman being stalked by a succession of (creepy and well-designed) extraterrestrials with too many slow, lingering shots weighing it down. By the ending I just wanted it to finish. Oh, and excellent sound design.

A Man Called Otto. Comedy Drama with Tom Hanks playing a grumpy old man living in a "gated" community forced to deal with new neighbours. Superb performances all round, and we really need to clean the house more as there must be so much dust in the air judging by the amount that kept landing in our eyes whilst watching this. Solid 9/10. 

That's an unusually large gap between audience and critics ! I suppose that's what's called a crowd-pleaser ?