The Films of 2024: Scars (dir by Shaun Kosta)

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A young man named Eric (Allen Williamson) enlists as a combat medic and is sent to Afghanistan. Eric truly thinks that he’s going to help to make the world a better place but, what he sees and experiences in Afghanistan, leaves him shaken and haunted by memories of the dead and wounded.

Upon returning home, Eric tries to keep himself busy helping his family’s winery recover from the latest round of California wildfires but he still finds himself tormented by his experiences. Suffering from PTSD, Eric discovers that his country is more than willing to send young men overseas to fight but it’s less willing to provide them with the support that they need when they return. With the help of his mother (Elizabeth Gast), his girlfriend (Cayla Black), and a fellow veteran (Stephen Wesley Green), Eric tries to find his place in the world.

Scars is an undeniably low-budget film. If you’re looking for a war film that is full of epic battle scenes and which will leave you feeling as if you actually are in the middle of Afghanistan, Scars is not the film to go with. Indeed, it took me a while to realize that Eric was in Afghanistan because Afghanistan looked exactly like California. As well, towards the end of the film, there’s a few moments of clumsy melodrama that feel as if they were added solely so that this rather talky film could be sold as a thriller.

But you know what? In the end, those flaws don’t matter. Scars is a heartfelt film, featuring an excellent lead performance from Allen Williamson, playing a man who is burdened by guilt but who never lets go of hope. Scars is a film about the pain that people carry with them and the struggle that men like Eric have when it comes to opening up about that pain. (Not all of the scars in the film are physical.) It’s an indictment of a society that, far too often, pushes the needs of veterans to the side. That’s especially true if that veteran served in an unpopular war, like the ones in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Considering that we still don’t know how many people were left behind when we left Afghanistan, Scars is a film that feels all too relevant.

And yes, Eric Roberts is in Scars. Playing a sympathetic doctor, he has about a minute of screentime towards the end of the film. It’s always a good idea to put your Eric Roberts cameo at the end of your movie, just to make sure that audiences stick around for the entire film.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Lawless Empire (1945, directed by Vernon Keays)

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

For years, outlaws have controlled the frontier town of Dusty Gulch but now their power is threatened by the homesteaders who are moving into the area. Led by the crusading Rev. Tex Harding, the homesteaders are being progress and reform to the frontier.

Duke (Ethan Laidlaw) and his gang have launched a campaign of intimidation against the new arrivals. Luckily, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) rides into town to protect the homesteaders. Duke’s boss, businessman Blaze Howard (John Calvert), decides that the town needs a sheriff to go after the Kid. Blaze offers the job to newcomer Steve Ranson, not realizing that Steve is not only the Durango Kid but also the brother of the former sheriff, who was murdered by Blaze’s men.

Lawless Empire is one of the few Durango Kid films not to feature Smiley Burnette as Durango’s sidekick. Instead, Durango rides into town with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and, while Willis does perform a song or two, there’s still considerable less singing than in the films that featured Burnette. The role of comic relief is provided by Dub Taylor in the role of Cannonball. Cannonball gets a job sweeping up Blaze’s saloon and he feeds whatever information he learns back to Durango. When Blaze figures out what’s going on, he deliberately supplies Cannonball with bad information but it doesn’t make any difference. The Durango Kid is always one step ahead of the bad guys.

Lawless Empire is a little more serious than the other Durango Kid films. Steve is not only trying to clean up the town but he’s also seeking to avenge his brother so there’s not as much room for as much comedy as usual. Lawless Empire does have all of the usual gunfights and horse chases and the film gets off to an exciting start with Durango making his first appearance with his gun already drawn so that he can disarm Duke and his men. Even without Smiley around to help him out, Durango brings law to a lawless empire.

The Films of 2024: He Went That Way (dir by Jeffrey Darling)

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1964. Kennedy is dead and Johnson is president. American troops are in Vietnam but the American public is not yet concerned with that conflict. Instead, it’s the British Invasion that has intrigued the youth of America. People know that times are changing but they have no idea just how much change is waiting for them in the future.

Jim Goodwin (Zachary Quninto) is a meek animal trainer who is driving across the country with his chimpanzee, Spanky. At one time, Spanky was a celebrity. He ice skated with the stars. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone loved Spanky but now, it appears that his time has passed. People are more interested in Beatles than chimps. With Spanky no longer in demand, Jim’s marriage is failing and he’s struggling to pay the bills.

At a Nevada gas station, Jim sees a young man named Bobby Falls (Jacob Elordi) trying to hitch a ride. Assuming that Bobby is a college student and wanting someone to talk to during the long drive to Chicago, Jim offers him a ride. Bobby is reluctant at first and demands to know if Jim has some sort of sinister motive for picking him up. After Jim promises that he doesn’t, Bobby gets in the truck with him.

What Jim doesn’t know, but eventually learns, is that Bobby is a criminal. Using a derringer, Bobby has been robbing gas stations and executing the gas station attendants. Their journey becomes a rather macabre road trip, with Jim and Bobby bonding despite the fact that Jim is scared of Bobby and Bobby always seems to be one step away from snapping. Bobby encourages Jim to stop being such a wimp and Jim encourages Bobby to maybe not be such a violent sociopath. Though Bobby and Jim come from different worlds, they both have one thing in common. They really like the chimpanzee.

I have to admit that I liked the chimpanzee as well. Bobby’s a killer so it’s impossible for me to like him. Jim is a wimp who fails to take advantage of several opportunities to escape so it’s impossible for me to respect him. But Spanky is an innocent animal who likes to eat apples and who sincerely cares about both his owner and the hitchhiker who keeps losing his temper. I watched the film dreading that something bad would happen to Spanky. In fact, the only reason I stuck with the film for its entire running time was because I wanted to make sure Spanky survived.

(SPOILER ALERT: He did. Whatever other flaws this film may have, there is no deliberate animal cruelty.)

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this movie. There was a lot that I didn’t like about the film. I never bought the relationship between the two main characters (though I should also acknowledge that the film is loosely based on a true story and ends with an interview with the real life model for Jim). The performances felt a bit one-note. And, to be honest, I’m a bit bored with movies about people who spend the majority of their time killing other people. At the same time, the film looked great. Visually, it really captured the arid beauty of the American desert. And the film’s final twist was just bizarre enough to make me smile. Tragically, director Jeffrey Darling died shortly after completing production of this film. (It was his feature directorial debut.) And while I didn’t care much for the film, there were moments where I could see the talent of the director peeking through. I would have liked to have seen what Darling’s second film would have been.

As for He Went That Way, it’s not a disastrous film but it’s also not one that I will probably ever feel like rewatching.

Six-Gun Law (1948, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Norris (Charles Starrett) has moved to a new frontier town and is making a good living as a cattle rancher. The sheriff (Ethan Laidlaw) takes a dislike to Steve and even accuses him of being a cattle rustler. Steve is so angered that he plays right into the hands of Decker (Hugh Prosser), a corrupt businessman who secretly puts blanks into Steve’s gun and then tricks Steve into thinking that he has shot and killed the sheriff.

Decker appoints Steve as the new sheriff but demands that Steve do exactly what Decker orders him to do. If Steve actually enforced the law, Decker will turn him in as the first sheriff’s murderer. Steve may not be able to do anything about Decker’s crimes but his alter ego, The Durango Kid, can! As always, working with Steve is his loyal sidekick, Smiley Burnette.

The stand-out set piece of this Durango Kid film is an exciting stagecoach chase, which features the Durango Kid (in the form of legendary stuntman Jock Mahoney) making some thrilling moves. The scene was so exciting and popular that it was used in a dozen other Durango Kid films. These movies were never shy about reusing good scenes, effective stunts, and plot twists. (It’s easy to lose track of how many times Steve has been appointed as sheriff of a town.) This was also neither the first nor the last time that Hugh Prosser and Robert Wilke would play bad guys in a Durango Kid movie. However, this is the only Durango Kid film to feature the Rodeo Rangers providing musical accompaniment to Smiley Burnette’s songs.

Six-Gun Law will be best appreciated by fans of the western genre. Charles Starrett is as tough and authentic a cowboy as always and the storyline has some nice twists and turns. For once, with Steve being blackmailed by Decker, it makes sense that Steve would put on his disguise and solve his problems as the Durango Kid.

The Films of 2024: The Painter (dir by Kimani Ray Smith)

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Painter tells the rather predictable story of Peter.

Orphaned by a terrorist attack when he was a child, Peter (Charlie Webber) was raised by a CIA agent named Byrne (Jon Voight). Realizing that the attack had left Peter with superhearing, Byrne raised Peter to be a CIA assassin. But after a failed mission led to the shooting his pregnant wife, Elena (Rryla McIntosh), an embittered Peter retired from the agency. Now, going by the name of Mark, he paints!

Why do retired CIA agents always end up living in a cabin and obsessively pursuing only one hobby? This feels like the 100th film that I’ve seen about a former assassin living in a cabin. Some retired agents keep bees. Some become bricklayers. Some become painters. Oddly, none of them seem to become both bricklayers and painters.

Anyway, Peter is happy with his isolated life but then, everything is upended when a 17 year-old girl named Sophia (Madison Bailey) follows him to his cabin and claims to be his daughter. She says that Elena has vanished and she needs Peter’s help to find her. Peter insists that his name is Mark until his superhearing picks up the sound of heavily armed men gathering outside of his cabin.

This is another one of those action films where the main character is someone who kills without the slightest hesitation and who has trouble showing his emotions. Naturally, there’s a conspiracy inside the CIA and this leads to several scenes of people saying stuff like, “Copy that.” The only fictional character who ever sounded cool saying, “Copy that,” was Kiefer Sutherland on 24. All the rest of these people are just pretenders.

The Painter is pretty stupid. It won’t take you long to guess who the main villain is going to turn out to be and it also won’t take you long to guess how the final showdown is going to go. The action scenes are so haphazardly edited that it’s difficult to keep track of who is actually fighting who and, even if you did know who was fighting who, you wouldn’t really care because none of these people are particularly compelling.

In general, if your main character is going to be remorseless killer, it’s a good idea to cast a charismatic actor in the lead role. Audiences will forgive a lot as long as their watching someone with a compelling screen presence. Unfortunately, both Charlie Webber and Madison Bailey give rather bland performances and neither Peter nor Sophia are particularly likable characters. In particular, Peter drags one innocent computer store owner into his mess and then doesn’t seem to be particularly upset when the poor guy ends up with a bullet in his brain. It’s one thing to be an assassin. It’s another thing to be a jerk about it.

On the plus side, Jon Voight is enough of an old pro to understand that this is a movie that does not reward subtlety and he gives a performance that is totally over-the-top but which is also more than appropriate for the material with which he’s working. (Voight is still a talented actor and it’s a shame that, due to voting for different candidates than the majority of Hollywood, he’s pretty much going to end his career appearing in movies like this.) As well, Max Montesi gives such a cheerfully bizarre performance as a rival assassin that he actually bring the movie to life whenever he’s on the screen.

Unfortunately, the lunacy of Voight and Montesi is not enough to save The Painter. At one point, someone dismisses Peter’s paintings as being “derivative.” They could have been talking about this film as a whole.

Gunning For Vengeance (1946, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Landry (Charles Starrett) rides into another town and is once again named the new sheriff. Luckily, Steve’s old friend Smiley Burnette is working as the town’s blacksmith. Steve makes Smiley his deputy and then sets about trying to break up a gang of cattle rustlers. When Steve learns that his jurisdiction does not extend beyond the city limits, he dons the disguise of his alter ego, The Durango Kid, to go after the outlaws.

Has Steve met his match in Belle (Phyllis Adair), the saloon owner who is the secret leader of the outlaws? She notices that The Durango Kid’s boot tracks are the same as Steve’s boot tracks. I’m surprised that no one has ever noticed that before. Steve went through a lot of trouble to disguise himself as Durango but he never bothered to change his boots.

This entry in the Durango Kid series features a lot of Smiley Burnette so your enjoyment on the film will depend on how much tolerance you have for Smiley’s songs and his style of humor. Each film featured Smiley being followed around by a different group of musicians. In this one, Smiley is accompanied by The Trailsman. When Smiley accidentally locks himself in a jail cell, the Trailsman stand on the other side of the bars and sing a song about how Smiley can’t get out of the cell. Smiley does eventually get out but, later on, he’s knocked out cold during an attempted jail break. Smiley’s not much of a help in this one.

This has all of the typical Durango Kid elements, including the stock footage of the stampeding cattle that appeared in nearly all of his films. There’s another saloon fight and a gunfight towards the end. Durango rides out of town alone, leaving Smiley behind, but we know they’ll soon be reunited in another adventure.

The Films of 2024: Wanted Man (dir by Dolph Lundgren)

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Johansen (Dolph Lundgren) is a San Diego cop who remains on the force despite the fact that most of his old friends and former partners have retired. When he’s filmed beating up a Mexican man on the highway, he becomes the latest target of the Defund The Police movement. It doesn’t matter that the man was a human trafficker who was driving truck full of kidnapped women. Johansen has become an embarrassment.

Normally, you would think this would lead to Johansen being fired or, at the very least, suspended. Instead, his bosses decide to send him to Mexico to escort two prisoners back to the United States. Rosa (Christina Villa) and Leticia (Daniela Soto-Brenner) are two sex workers who witnessed the murder of a group of DEA agents. Their testimony could be key to identifying the killers. Despite his friend and former partner, Brynner (Kelsey Grammer), telling him that he should just retire rather than allow the police department to continually push him around, Johansen heads down to Mexico.

It turns out that bringing the women back to the United States is not going to be easy. A roadside ambush leaves Leticia dead and Johansen severely wounded. Though Rosa’s initial instinct is to abandon Johansen in the desert, she eventually takes him to the home of her cousin, a police officer named Miguel (Rocko Reyes). As Johansen recovers, he discovers that the people who want Rosa dead are not going to give up and that he cannot trust anyone.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. Dolph Lundgren knows how to direct an efficient B-movie. He has an adequate visual eye, he makes good use of the arid desert setting, and he gets believable performances out of the majority of his cast. Christina Villa especially does a good job as the tough but ultimately kind-hearted Rosa. The movie has a bit more going on underneath the surface than the typical B-action film. Johansen is forced to reconsider his own prejudices while the film’s villains argue that they were forced into their actions by a society that refuses to take care of those who are expected to risk their lives to protect the status quo. It’s not a dumb movie, though it does feature a lot of characters doing rather dumb things and the big twist demands that the viewer accept one too many coincidences.

Lundgren not only directed but co-wrote the script. Apparently, he first came up with the idea of the film in 2006. Interestingly, it’s obvious that the film went into production when Defund The Police was still a strong and powerful political movement and the film itself ultimately suggests that the police should be, if not defunded, at least massively reformed. Of course, by the time the film was released in January, the Defund movement was considerably less powerful and was being blamed for the sharp increase in crime across the nation. Chants of “Defund the police” have been replaced by cries of “Fund the police, for the love of God!” That’s the danger which trying to make a film with a political subtext in an age with a 24-hour news cycle. What was popular when a film goes into production will often be a spent force by the time the film actually gets released.

As for Wanted Man, it’s an efficient B-movie that gets the job done. If nothing else, the sight of Dolph Lundgren and Kelsey Grammer playing best friends is just weird enough to keep things watchable.

The Desert Horseman (1946, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Godfrey (Charles Starrett) is in trouble again. He has been accused of stealing another payroll and the only man who can clear his name has just been murdered. Steve thinks that he is being set up by outlaws who want to take control of the dead man’s ranch, which is now owned by Mary Ann Jarvis (Adele Roberts).

Luckily, Steve’s old friend, Smiley Burnette, is working as a cook at the Jarvis Ranch. When Smiley isn’t singing songs with the Colorado Hillbillies, he tries to help Steve clear his name. He explains that Mary Ann Jarvis won’t listen to Steve but maybe she’ll listen to Steve’s alter ego, The Durango Kid!

Durango rides again in this movie, though, the majority of the hour runtime is made up of Smiley Burnette singing songs and making jokes. Smiley Burnette is not for everyone. I enjoy the broad humor he brought to these films but I can understand why others might not. Whenever Smiley sings a song, it does bring the action to a halt but that’s true of every Durango Kid film. If you’re a fan of the series, you either like Smiley or you can at least tolerate him. Smiley does do more than just sing in this movie. He also throws black pepper in the eyes of one of the bad guys.

Even with all of the attention paid to Smiley, The Desert Horseman delivers all of the expected horse chases and gunfights. The story is a little more interesting than usual. Steve has been framed for not one but two crimes that he didn’t commit and that adds some urgency to the proceedings. Charles Starrett, as always, is a believable western hero and he takes the role seriously.

The Films of 2024: Madame Web (dir by S.J. Clarkson)

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a paramedic in New York City. Haunted by the fact that her mother died while giving birth to her while looking for a special spider in Peru (and I cannot believe that I just wrote that), Cassie struggles with showing her emotions and opening up to people. In fact, her only friend appears to be her fellow paramedic, Ben Parker (Adam Scott). Ben’s sister-in-law is pregnant and Cassie tells him, “You’ll be a great uncle, Ben.”

After a near-death experience, Cassie discovers that she has the ability to see into the future. She also discovers that a strange man named Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) wants to kill three teenage girls, Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), Anya (Isabela Merced), and Julia (Sydney Sweeney). Cassie does what anyone would do. She kidnaps the three girls to keep them safe and then hops on a plane to Peru to find out how Ezekiel is connected to her mother’s death.

Madame Web is the latest entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. Because Sony has the rights to Spider-Man, all of the MCU films featuring Spider-Man have been co-productions with Columbia Pictures and have been distributed by Sony. With Spider-Man emerging as one of the few characters to remain a strong box office draw for Marvel, Columbia has produced a series of Spider-Man-adjacent films that feature characters who have appeared in Spider-Man-related media. While Marvel and Disney have Tom Holland swinging his way through New York, Sony has to settle for Adam Scott and Dakota Johnson in an ambulance.

I always assume that the folks at Marvel and Disney probably groan a little whenever they hear that a new Sony film is coming out. The MCU Spider-Man films have been consistently strong, with all three of them proving popular with both audiences and critics. The Sony Spider-Man films, on the other hand, often seem like throwbacks to the bad old days of the early aughts, when most comic book films were still cheap and kind of embarrassing. Madame Web doesn’t do much to change this perception. In fact, the film is even set in 2003, complete with a Blockbuster Video store prominently featured in one scene, Britney Spears’s Toxic playing in a roadside diner, and a totally random reference to American Idol. (What’s funny is that the jokey reference to American Idol would really only work if the show were no longer on the air but actually, it’s still airing on CBS. No one ever seems to notice anymore but it’s still there. If the movie really had any guts, it would have had Dakota Johnson says that she was going home to watch Paradise Hotel.)

Slow-paced and featuring some of the most awkward line readings this side of a community theater production of Bus Stop, Madame Web is not a particularly engaging film. After a truly abysmal prologue set in Peru, the film spends about half-an-hour giving us a tour of Cassie’s not particularly interesting life as a tough New York paramedic before finally getting started on the main story. And even then, the film leaves the viewer feeling cheated because none of three girls — who we are told are all destined to become super heroes — actually become super powered over the course of the film. The film basically says, “They’re all going to be Spiderwoman …. BUT NOT TODAY!” The problem with that approach is that it’s hard not to feel that the only interesting thing about the three girls is that they’re eventually going to have super powers. Without the powers, they’re just kind of boring. Cassie is the only one who has a super power but being able to see three minutes into the future isn’t that much of a power. Dakota Johnson and the rest of the cast all seem to be bored out of their minds and who can blame them?

The main problem with Madame Web is that it’s just not much fun. The best super hero films are fun to watch. That goes for the Marvel films, the DC films, and even the Sony films. (Admit it, the first Venom was kind of fun.) Even with The Dark Knight films, Christopher Nolan understood that the villains had to be flamboyant to make up for Christian Bale’s rather dour Batman. In this film, we’re never quite sure what Ezekiel wants or even who he is. He’s just a random evil guy and not a particularly memorable one. Madame Web does make some attempts at humor but the sitcom-style jokes are negated by Dakota Johnson’s flat delivery. (Oddly enough, sitcom veteran Adam Scott is stuck playing a serious character.) Overall, there’s an overwhelming blandness to Madame Web. It doesn’t engage,. It doesn’t thrill. It doesn’t make you cheer or even jeer. It’s just kind of there.

The film sets up a sequel but, judging from how the film did at the box office and how not even the film’s cast has pretended to be happy with how the film turned out, I’d expect to see Morbius 2 before another installment of Madame Web.

The Fantastic Four (1994, directed by Oley Sassone)

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

It’s not that bad.

Produced by Roger Corman and made for a budget of only a million dollars, the very first film version of The Fantastic Four is best known for having never been released. Stan Lee always claimed that the film was never meant to be released and that it was only made so that German producer Bernd Eichinger could hold onto the rights for the characters. Eichinger has always said that he wanted to release the flm and it was Avi Arad, the future founder of Marvel Studios, who asked him not to because he felt a low-budget B-movie would damage the Marvel brand. Arad has said that Eichinger is telling the truth and considering the reception that Albert Pyun’s Captain America received, I can understand why Arad was concerned.

Though the film was never officially released, bootleg copies are out there. I’ve seen the movie a few times and I watched it again last night. Watching it, I was reminded that The Fantastic Four is not as bad as people say.

It’s an origin story. Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) flies into space with his girlfriend Sue (Rebecca Staab), her annoying kid brother Johnny (Jay Underwood), and Reed’s best friend Ben (Michael Bailey Smith). Cosmic comet rays lead to them developing super powers. Reed can stretch. Johnny can burst into flame. Sue can turn invisible. Ben turns into a creature with orange, rocky skin. On Earth, they battle both the evil Doctor Doom (Joseph Culp) and the Jeweler (Ian Trigger) for possession of a powerful diamond.

The low budget is obvious and the script isn’t great, with the Jeweler being a truly unimpressive villain. (Unlike Doctor Doom, the Jeweler was created specifically for this movie.) But the movie still has more genuine heart than the future big-budget Fantastic Four films. Alex Hyde-White plays Reed as being brilliant but self-absorbed. Sue is a thankless role but Rebecca Staab does her best. Jay Underwood is annoying as Johnny but Johnny was annoying in the comic books as well. This version of The Fantastic Four is the only movie, so far, to capture and stay true to the spirit of the characters.

This is especially true when it comes Michael Bailey Smith’s performance as Ben Grimm. More than either Jamie Bell or Michael Chiklis, Smith realistically portrays Ben’s bitterness over knowing that he will never be able to return to his former life. Of all the film versions of the Fantastic Four, this is the only one that adequately captures both the look and the personality of The Thing. He become a real person and not just an actor in a rubber suit. This movie is also the only one, so far, to really do a decent job of portraying Dr. Doom’s megalomania. It’s interesting that the film that Marvel didn’t want released is the one that stays true to the original comic book.

The Fantastic Four will be joining the MCU in 2025. Ironically, considering that Marvel Comics started with the Fantastic Four, they’ll be among the last of the major characters to get an MCU film. There’s hope that the new Fantastic Four will reverse the MCU’s declining fortunes. I’ve been skeptical ever since I heard the Silver Surfer was going to be played by Julia Garner but hopefully, I’ll be wrong. Galactus is one of the great Marvel villains and I hope the new Fantastic Four will do him justice. When people are watching the massively hyped, big budget, CGI-heavy version of The Fantastic Four, I hope at least some will remember the low-budget version that could barely afford a single special effect and I hope they’ll remember that it wasn’t that bad.