Secret in their Eyes, Hail Caesar! and 10 Cloverfield Lane

A reasonable remake of the brilliant original, Secret in their Eyes had a good enough script and locations to keep me interested all the way through. Julia Roberts excelled as the bereaved Jess, it's just a shame her character was not given the tortuous waiting of the earlier film.

Hail, Caesar promised to be a fun movie and it really was. The Coen brother's homage to the golden age of the movies was littered with the best of Hollywood entertainment. There is a flimsy yet heart warming plot that holds the thing together and a number of fabulous cameos, obviously from George Clooney but more memorable is Tilda Swinton (her pronunciation of Eddie will live long in my memory) and, I never though I would say this, Channing Tatum. Leading it all was Josh Brolin in a career defining performance. Great stuff.

For all but the last fifteen minutes, this could have been a piece of theatre brought to the big screen, the claustraphobic bunker was like a stage set. When the superb Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle finds herself captive there (after being "saved" after a car crash) we wonder if John Goodman's creepy Howard is telling the truth about the apocalypse outside. Thank goodness for fellow "survivor" Emmett. This three hander is so well written that the tension remains throughout, partly due to some extraordinary background music that is scarier than Michelle's predicament. And then we have the ending. Much has been written and I'm glad I didn't read it until after seeing the movie.