Laserblast (1978)

An American science fiction directed by Michael Rae, starring Roddy McDowall and Keenan Wynn.
A young man finds an alien rifle in the desert and starts blowing stuff away, but turns into a monster in the process. There are a pair of aliens and a government agent looking for the weapon.
I thought this was funny. Dude blows up the bullies, the cops, a Star Wars sign and (most importantly) that goddamned pinball machine! The production quality was low, video gritty and special effects were cheesy. What else would one expect from a Charles Band production? In some films, characters point a gun and I really want them to blow something or someone to kingdom come, but they don't. Not here. This guy just lets it fly at whatever gets in his way. The stop motion aliens were pretty cool and I wish they had more screen time. There is not really much else to say. It was fun to watch, so if you want cheap thrills, this is it. I rate this good.

As Good as Dead (2010)

An American crime thriller directed by Jonathan Mossek, starring Cary Elwes, Andie MacDowell and Frank Whaley.
A photographer is attacked in his apartment by white supremacists who say that he has killed one of their family members. They torture him, but soon begin fighting amongst themselves.
I watched this because I'm watching films that Cary Elwes acted in. For those who don't know, he was Westley in The Princess Bride (1987) and Robin Hood in Men in Tights (1993). I did not want to see such a good actor being tortured for so long. My only other comment is that the ending was completely unexpected. I won't spoil it any more than that. I rate this poor because of who was tortured.

How to Be Deadly (2014)

A Canadian Comedy directed by Nik Sexton, starring Donnie Dumphy.
A motorcyclist hangs out with his friends and competes in a motorcycle tournament against his rival.
I found out about this because Donnie Dumphy wrote the "Cold Beer" song that I was obsessed with a cover of, performed by Jesse Stewart. The film itself is more along the lines of Slacker (1990) and a little bit like Mike Leigh "slice of life" dramas, with just a little bit of Clerks (1994). This is good. The camera-work and production were better and more creative than what I see as it's influences. The opening scene of riding the motorcycle through town was filmed in extremely creative camera angles. I can't even figure out how something with a crane on it kept up with Donnie on his bike so smoothly. The characters seemed real, like I've known people like them real. Their dialect was authentically Canadian. As wrong as the dialogue in The Mummy (1999) was, this was right. I was disappointed in the ending, but otherwise thought it was great. I rate this awesome. Watch it!

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

An American comedy film noir directed by Carl Reiner, starring Steve Martin.
A detective investigates the case of a woman whose father has been killed.
What makes this film unique is the use of clips from old detective movies. It was all done in that 1940s style and the old clips fit seamlessly in among the new footage. Some of the humor was funny. I think my favorite joke was the detective making coffee. There was also a running gag of him getting shot in the same location. The only other thing to note is Steve Martin with black hair. Other than what I mentioned, it was pretty mediocre. I rate this o.k.
Yes, I'm back to short reviews because writing about every film element for every movie was extremely boring for me and probably for the reader as well. Also, I'm only writing about films that I actually have something to say about.

Sommers series Mummy & Scorpion King (1999 - 2018)

An American action fantasy by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser and The Rock.
A British adventurer encounters conflict with a mummy in Egypt, meets his wife and they have a son. The trio then travel to China after the son finds a burial complex there. An Akkadian mercenary assassin becomes a hero by defeating corrupt and dangerous leaders, with the help of beautiful women.
Almost intolerable. All of the films were hokey and cheesy. At least the Mummy set had a comedic element that basically made it watchable. The Scorpion King did not use humor as much and was more difficult for me to get through. The whole series disregarded historical accuracy completely. I doubt that British people in the 1930s used modern dialect and figures of speech. I know that this was not the case multiple thousands of years BC. It was the case for these movies, however. And then there were ninjas. For those who don't know, shinobi come from Japan, a country that had little to no contact with the rest of the world until the mid 1800s. I highly doubt that there would have been any ninjas available in ancient Sumeria, but there they are. Editing was terrible. My film professor at school labeled the technique "enhanced continuity editing" when we see 3 shots for 1 punch or 4 for a character jumping over a table. I would argue that it should be called "decreased continuity editing" and I hope that it will go out of style soon. The first 2 Mummy films set up a running gag of domino-effect knock overs, using bookshelves and then pillars. I would have liked to at least see it finished in the 3rd Mummy film, but it did not happen. Overall, I rate this tolerable. If you're REALLY bored and need a set of 8 movies to watch, go for it. Otherwise, stay away.

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

An Irish British American animated musical directed by Don Bluth, starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise.
A German Shepherd and his Dachshund friend break out of the pound and return to the life of gambling that they had left behind. A Bulldog is now running the casino and has a human girl hidden in the back room who talks to rats and determines winners in their races. The escaped convicts rescue the girl and proceed to exploit her animal communication skills in exactly the same manner as the Bulldog.
Bad music! Don Bluth directed The Secret of NIMH, which was not a musical and was much better. I think the songs only hurt this film. He also directed Pete's Dragon with good music. Ralph Burns did the music for ADGTH and Irwin Kostal did the music for PD, so that explains the difference. Much of the music problem was in audio mixing, with the vocals too loud and instruments too quiet. On an interesting note, the girl star of this film, Judith Barsi, was abused and eventually murdered by her father before he shot himself. Wikipedia reports that she had begun plucking her eyelashes and her cat's whiskers because of the trauma. I thought the plot of this film reminded me of a combination of Oliver Twist and Paper Moon. The innocent child is thrown into a life of crime and her "guardian" is not qualified to take care of her. I think I saw this in the theater when it was originally released. I rate it o.k., but it would have gotten a much better rating without the songs.

The Hobbit (2012 - 2014)

A New Zealand American fantasy written by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Peter Jackson.
In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. He goes on an adventure with a wizard and 13 dwarves to reclaim a dwarven kingdom from a dragon.
If this had a different title, I would have liked it more because this story was NOT The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I won't go into my standard stuff about how microphones in Rivendell were being used to record whispering at Lonely Mountain, but I will try to communicate what I liked and disliked about these films. Obviously, the starting point for this is that they were about as accurate as a blind man playing darts. Given this fact, most of what I liked was when said blind man hit the bullseye by accident. The Bilbo meets Gollum scene was pretty accurate, down to the individual riddles. There were only 2 mistakes in the wording and Gollum's acting was top notch. He was just as expressive as I came to expect from the Lord of the Rings series. The battle of 5 armies (talking about the war, not the film as a whole) was pretty cool. There were lots of creative weapons, riding animals and orc/troll monsters. I have to say, it's 1 of the 2 battle scenes that I have liked from the whole LOTR set. The other is Legolas and Gimli fighting the oliphants in Return of the King. Smaug looked alright, but was nothing special. Now this blind dart player analogy goes further. He's got his 3 darts and they are good. It's all he needs, but dude starts pulling ninja stars and blowguns out of his pockets. Why are Legolas, Saruman, Galadriel, Radagast, Azog, etc... all in this? What are these extra plots doing here? Why is Tauriel running on walls like the Prince of Persia or Trinity from The Matrix? My point is that what started out as a classic story that any director would give body parts to have his name on a film of turned into this giant monstrosity that was clearly all there just to make money. It was about 90% rewrites and additions, with 10% of the original left so the name could be capitalized on. Apparently, Tolkien's writing is not good enough for Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. I think my point is clear. I rate this adequate. It would have gotten a better rating with a different title.