Double Nickels (1977)

A low budget and even lower plot car chase marathon but despite everything somehow this is a very good film.

Smokey (Jack Vacek) and Ed (Ed Abrahms) are Californian highway patrolmen who get involved with George (George Cole) and his car repro business to earn a little more dough. However, they discover that the cars they are repossessing are really stolen. George finds that he also has been duped by the Mr Big. The three of them team up to sort things out amid many car chases.

This is a low budget film with basic acting, indeed many of the cast are obviously none-actors but it does give the acting and film in general a genial and natural air. There is no need to worry too much about the acting or basic plot though, most of the film is car chases and sometimes are done very well. 

The film probably won't please everyone but i love low budget and basic films from this era. It works really well and is a very enjoyable film.

Journey to the Center of Time (1967)

Low budget and fairly low quality time travel science fiction fare, some of the ideas are quite interesting though.

Dr Gordon (Abraham Sofaer), Mark (Anthony Eisley) and Karen (Gigi Perreau) are working on a science project to see into the past. Unfortunately they can only see 24 hours into the past. Their backer Stanton (Scott Brady) tells them they need to show some better results or he is pulling the funding. During a last gasp experiment various things go bang and they can see into the far future. In fact they can't just see the future... they are there.

After a short period where they get involved in a short battle between future human barbarians and light blue skinned aliens, they are sent into the far past and get menaced by rather dodgy looking dinosaurs (even though they've only gone back 1 million years)...

This film is nonsense and takes place mostly on one set padded out with a lot of stock footage. The lab does have the necessary amount of dials and flashing lights so you know that SCIENCE is taking place! Various weird events take place and are explained using large amounts of scientific mumbo jumbo, thus this film can be seen as the forerunner of many awful Star Trek episodes. The film isn't very good but is entertaining enough to be able to hold your interest.

Cyber Tracker (1994)

We are in the future (2024 or thereabouts) and justice is dispensed by a cold heartless android killing machine. This is Terminator meets Robocop meets Judge Dread with about one hundredth of the budget.

Don (Don "The Dragon" Wilson) is a secret service agent tasked with protecting a senator (John Aprea) in a future America where the state has merged with a giant corporation. By now policing is done by near invincible androids who also act as judge, jury and executioner (one assumes they are not used to police jaywalking or parking offences). Don protects the senator from a terrorist group who want to stop the cyber police. 

The senator tries to bring Don into their dark secret though he wants to remain a good guy (of course). He is framed for murder and now the cyber cops and the human enforcer in the form of Ross (Richard Norton) are sent after him...

The story isn't up to much and doesn't have much originality. The film does have a lot of action and a lot of violence. Cars don't just crash, they explode. Most characters end up butchered by heavy calibre rounds. The violence does help to make the film watchable though overall the film isn't that great. The hi-tech "future" graphics and computers which look dated even by 1994's standards are funny though.

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

The 1950s were a hazardous time, you couldn't move for some kind of radiation mutated monster. This time its the crabs...

A team of scientists arrive on a remote island to study the effect of nuclear weapon tests on local fauna. However, a scientist who was already supposed to be there has gone missing. Mysterious noises are heard of night and people start to die. The voices of some of those who have died, including the original scientist are heard at night...

To the horror of Dale (Richard Garland) and Martha (Pamela Duncan) the voices are from gigantic killer crabs! The radiation mutated crabs have eaten humans and absorbed their memories, and can even speak like them. The crabs are also impervious to anything fired at them...

Monster movies from this period are usually not the best of films but this one isn't that bad. It has some genuine suspense and builds the terror well. The monster crabs do not appear until well in the film, they arn't really worth the wait but you'll see a lot worse.

Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)

Charlie Chan faces Boris Karloff, what more could you want?!

Years before a famous opera singer called Greville (Karloff) is thought to have died in a fire, but really he has spent his time in an asylum with no memory. That all changes though when he sees his former wife is in town performing at the theatre. He escapes and heads to the opera. 

When the people responsible for the fire (his wife and her lover) are killed at the theatre, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is bought in to investigate. Naturally Greville is suspected but is all that it seems?

The theatre setting and costumes give the film a feeling of the macabre at times and Karloff of course helps with the air of menace he can provide. All the ingredients for a good (if not one of the best) Charlie Chan films are there. The in-joke about Frankenstein is hilarious.