Los Angeles

• Golden Child, The directed by Michael Ritchie (1986)

  [5/10]

  "Generally funny, but not riotously so."

• Hard to Kill directed by Bruce Malmuth (1990)

  [5/10]

  "A moderately fun romp with plenty of action, although Seagal's character probably disables just as many people with his gun as he does with martial arts."

• Magnolia directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (1999)

  [8/10]

  "Somehow, in spite of all the negative situations, Magnolia has a voyeuristic charm. I think we all can sympathize with one or more of the characters, and perhaps we realize (especially after the World Trade Center disaster) how easily outside events can pull our lives out of the track that we carefully planned an place us on a collision course with our past."

• War of the Worlds, The directed by Byron Haskin (1953)

  [7/10]

  "By today's standards, The War of the Worlds has pretty unbelievable effects, but you can tell that Haskin took enormous care with the effects available to him at the time. The effects do work well to establish the deadly nature of the Martians and the unbelievable firepower they could produce with even just a single craft."

  Average score: 6.25