Los Angeles under siege is a timeless Hollywood conceit. In Wednesday's New York Times, Chris Gorak's first film Right at Your Door, starring Rory Cochrane and Mary McCormack, is summarized like this:

In his bleak envisioning of a day in Los Angeles that begins like any other, bombs go off downtown, in Beverly Hills and at the airport; countless people are killed as toxic ash carrying a deadly virus falls like snowflakes; the air becomes unbreathable; thousands are driven from their homes; confusion and misinformation reign; and ordinary citizens are victimized not just by the unseen terrorists but also by their own overwhelmed and unprepared government.

[snip]

"I always saw the ash cloud as the shark fin in 'Jaws,' " he said. "Once you saw it circling the boat, you knew it was omnipresent, it was always there. But the only reason that works is because of the world we live in. In 'Jaws' it works because we know the shark's in the ocean. This works because, unfortunately, we live it, and it can happen at any time."

It premieres this month at Sundance.