Four Lions  ***1/2

Needing neither big budget production values, art direction or set pieces, nor requiring expensive gear to produce, the mockumentary has seen explosive proliferation recently as the gateway to entry for beginning filmmakers. Fortunately, as long as one has good writing and onscreen talent, it's very hard not to make a mockumentary that's will be seen as at least passably good by those who enjoy the genre.

One of the more amusing ones in recent years was Four Lions. The film depicts the misadventures of four incompetent Islamic jihadists. Imagine This is Spinal Tap except the story follows terrorists rather than a heavy metal band, and you have a pretty good idea of what the movie is like. While the film is never quite as funny as This is Spinal Tap (really, what is?), when it hits the mark, it really hits the mark. Minor spoiler: the terrorists plan to bomb a marathon prefigured the actual Boston Marathon bombing by a few years! It is a tad dated (it was made at a time when Osama Bin Laden was still at large), but worth a look if you can appreciate good dead-pan black humor.

Lone Survivor ****

Look, there are no surprises here. Even if you have no knowledge of the events experienced by the members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, you can pretty much guess what happens to them from the title what happens, and given that there is only one marquis 'name' star, you pretty much know who's going to be the last one standing at the end of the film. But what an intense journey it is! The film chronicles the true story of a group of Navy SEALs and their ill-fated mission. The tension never stops, and if you can deal with it (it's quite graphic), it's worth seeing.

The Amityville Horror ****

Beginning with William Castle's Rosemary's Baby in 1968, the B-movie studios discovered they could compete with Hollywood's big studios by supplying relatively low cost horror films in the Satanic/demonic possession vein as suspense is cheaper than special effects, and audiences were hungry for horror. By 1979 that had led to American International releasing The Amityville Horror.

For my money, the original Amityville Horror is better than the oft-cited 'best horror movie of all time', The Exorcist. While it shamelessly rips-off The Exorcist, it doesn't rely as heavily on shock value for instead building suspense in a day-by-day narrative that feels like it's leading to impending doom.

To be sure, there are a number of things that just don't work. Like a lot of haunted house type horror stories, it utterly fails when the entities so closely associated with a physical structure seem to be able to do things like affect cars on the road miles away, or attack people through phone lines (yes, it really happens in the movie).

And The Amityville Horror not only rips off The Exorcist, it also rips off The Shining, as male lead James Brolin slowly undergoes a mental and physical transformation similar to what Jack Nicholson's character experiences in The Shining.

But if you're going to steal, steal from the best, and what The Amityville Horror takes from other films it spits back with enough scares of its own to make it one of the most memorable horror films from a decade known for them.

Bottle Rocket ***1/2

A lot of people dismissed Bottle Rocket when it came out back in 1996, and to be fair, it was pretty easy to dismiss a cast of then-unkowns, and a young director making a quirky crime comedy-drama. In the years following the success of Pulp Fiction's release in 1994 there were literally scores of quirky crime comedy-dramas, and by 1996 when Bottle Rocket came out, audiences had become pretty jaded on that formula.

But writer/director Wes Anderson went on to excel at the quirky comedy-drama, producing a string of critically and commercially successful films about oddballs. Given such a distinguished track record, I felt it was time to go back and take a look at his first film, which I remember think was O.K., if a little contrived upon initial viewing.

I must say this is one film that has actually aged pretty well. After roughly two decades, it still maintains a sort of innocent charm. Owen Wilson (who co-wrote), and his brother Luke, and Robert Musgrave, play 3 would-be heist men, planning to make it big with a pre-planned 40 year criminal career. Trouble is they have no idea what crime actually entails, and are pretty incompetent at it.

So, after revisiting it 18 years later I have to say I still find it kind of contrived, but I feel it's entertaining and holds up well. A charming and witty little indie, worth checking out.