Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Woodyanders Done on a spare change budget of twenty bucks tops, this cheapie thirteen minute short cheerfully parodies George Lucas' legendary '77 sci-fi blockbuster "Star Wars" in the most infectiously dumb way imaginable. Writer/director Ernie Fosselius delivers a winning and often gut-busting blend of ludicrous sound effects, ineptly staged action scenes, cruddy (far from) special effects (you just gotta love the cheesy scratched-on-film lasers, tinfoil asteroids, and household appliances ... eer, I mean spaceships being swung around on obvious wires), badly dubbed in dialogue, shamelessly hammy acting, and Richard Wagner's rousing piece of classical music "Ride of the Valkyries." The characters are presented in suitably broad strokes; my favorites are whiny wimp Fluke Starbucker, venerable Jedi knight Auggie "Ben" Doggie, and hateful arch villain Darph Nader (who spouts nothing but incomprehensible gibberish). Moreover, 4-Q-3 is clearly based on the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz" while Artie Deco is definitely a cheap vacuum cleaner. This film's true masterstroke is casting legendary voice actor supreme Paul Frees as the narrator; Frees' deliciously rich and plummy histrionic tones add immensely to the considerable silly, yet sidesplitting tongue-in-cheek merriment (choice lines: "You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss three bucks goodbye!"). A total hoot.

Tommy Nelson Out of all the parodies of Star Wars I've seen, this is probably the funniest. Not because of the premise, Star Wars with simple electronics instead of spaceships, but because of how poorly acted it is. This is purposely overacted, and it makes it hilarious, and since everyone knows its purposely overacted, no one complains. The special effects were also purposely as awful as can be, and include a toaster on a visible string that shoots toast, and an egg beater on a string. This short is funny for any fan of Star Wars (which I'm not), or anyone that has 15 minutes to kill. Great short!! My rating: *** out of ****. 13 mins. Not rated.

zardoz12 The latter part of the 1970's seemed to breed spoofs (many of them cheap) and "Hardware Wars" was the best, despite being 15 minutes long and having a budget of $1.98. Presented as a movie trailer, "Hardware Wars" recounts about 80% of Lucas' film using cardboard sets, the director's garage, and every concievable household appliance as ray guns, spaceships, light sabres, the nameless "Death Star" waffle iron, even the Imperial stormtroopers and sand people! It's obvious that this film influenced the set design of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", down to the visible wires holding up the spaceships. A great short, and one that needs to be seen by every film student.

underpants_alert Fourteen of the funniest minutes on celluloid. This short parody is at least as much a part of the Star Wars saga as Phantom Menace, and far more entertaining, if you ask me. Hardware Wars was the first in a long line of SW spoofs which form their own subgenre these days. I hate to describe it too much-it's so short that the premise is just about the whole thing. Suffice it to say that many of the most popular and familiar aspects of Star Wars have fun poked at them. Household appliances such as toasters and vacuum cleaners portray spaceships and robots, the Princess Anne-Droid character wears actual bread rolls on her head instead of the famous coils of braided hair, and Fluke Starbucker is even more of a dork than his original, if that's possible. Ernie Fosselius is one crazy son-of-a-buck-he's also the source of Porklips Now, the Apocalypse Now spoof.