JAMES LILEKS: Six movies about pandemics to watch (or avoid) if you’re stuck at home. Including, not surprisingly:

“THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN” (1971)

The bug: A microscopic speck of silicon-based green goop that kills instantly by making all your blood clot.

The plot: Based on Michael Crichton’s first techno-thriller, it concerns a satellite that crashes in a tiny New Mexico town. Of course, the locals open it up, and minutes later everyone’s buzzard feed.

The team assembled to fight includes the calm, logical scientist; the young, handsome doctor angry at “the system:” the curmudgeon who’s too old for this, and the sarcastic, disillusioned but brilliant researcher with a dangerous secret. These all are clichés, of course — but they weren’t clichés in 1971. In fact, it almost plays like a documentary.

All of the recent photos of men in haz-mat suits, and the Chinese spraying bleach onto city streets at night from giant trucks is pretty much the 21st century promised by Hollywood’s 1970s eco-obsessed sci-fi until Star Wars in 1977.