The Eric Roberts Collection: Bed & Breakfast (dir by Marcio Garcia)

Posted on April 6, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2010’s Bed & Breakfast is one of those Hallmark-y films that takes place at a B&B in a quaint little town.

Having recently been left by his actress wife, Jake (Dean Cain) is trying to open up a bed and breakfast, using a house that was left to him by a former employer. Helping Jake out is his brother, Peter (Jake Engvall), a member of law enforcement who not only enjoys drinking beer but also enjoys talking about beer as well. Juliana Paes plays Ana, the niece of the original owner of the house. Ana is from Brazil and she wants to sell the house because her brother is in debt to some local mobsters. But then Ana meets the handsome and single Jake and …. well, you already know what’s going to happen. This is one of those films where the familiarity is the point. You watch it because you know that Jake and Ana are going to fall in love and you know exactly how long it’s going to take for that to happen. Dean Cain is rugged. Juliana Paes is pretty. The town is lovely. It’s a sweet little film that you’ll forget about a few minutes after it ends.

Of course, these films always require a cameo or two. John Savage and Julia Duffy show up as a couple who stay at the B&B and who share a dance at the end of the film. Ted Lange is the judge who settles the issue of who actually owns the house. Eric Roberts shows up as a reviewer who stays at the B&B and decides that it’s a wonderful place that more than deserves a good review. Yay! I will say that it’s always interesting to see Roberts playing someone who is just a nice, polite guy. He doesn’t get to do it all that often. Eric Roberts doesn’t have much screentime in this film but he gets to be pleasant the entire time. It’s a nice change of pace.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

October Positivity: Catching Faith 2: The Homecoming (dir by John K.D. Graham)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Taylor family returns in 2019’s Catching Faith 2!

It’s been four years since Alexa (Lorena Segura York) and John Taylor (Dariush Moslemi) forced their son to confess to drinking two beers at a high school party. As a result of his confession, Beau Taylor (Garrett Westton) was suspended from playing during the regular season and was briefly the most unpopular guy at his high school. However, it appears that did not keep Beau from getting into a good college and eventually make it to the NFL.

Meanwhile, Ravyn Taylor (Bethany Peterson) has also moved out of the house, presumably to attend MIT. As we saw in the previous movie, she was so moved by Beau’s decision to confess that she decided not to cheat on her Latin midterm. Apparently, that decision paid off because Ravyn still became the class valedictorian.

Alexa and John now live in their huge house with only Alexa’s mother, Loretta (Sandra Flagstad). Loretta is suffering from Alzheimer’s and she is often confused and angry. Alexa has been offered a job with an up-and-coming design firm but she’s not sure how she can balance working and taking care of her mom.

When he’s injured in a game, Beau is informed that his football career is over. Using crutches and struggling to find the strength to even bend his knee, Beau returns home and takes a job as an assistant to his old football coach (played by Bill Engvall). While Beau is learning how to coach and coming to terms with the loss of his dreams, Ravyn is preparing for her wedding!

Alexa is excited that Ravyn has gotten married because Alexa has spent the last 20 years planning Ravyn’s wedding. However, she’s a bit less excited when she learns that Ravyn’s husband is in the army and is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan and that he’s Nathan Adams (Shane McCamant). Nathan is a good and responsible guy but he’s also the son of Jezi Adams (Alexandra Boylan), who was once Alexa’s best friend until they had a falling out over Alexa forcing her son to confess to drinking beer. Jezi felt that, by forcing Beau to confess, Alexa put the future of the entire team (including her son, who was the quarterback) at risk. Jezi and Alexa immediately start to argue, in their own passive aggressive way, over their conflicting visions of what the wedding should be like. Of course, neither one ever bother to ask Ravyn what she wants.

Changing Faith 2 is better than the first one, largely because the characters are all now adults and there’s nothing in the film as ridiculous as Alexa and John forcing their son to put his entire future at risk just because he had a beer at a high school party. As opposed to the first film, there are only a few scenes — mostly featuring Alexa talking to her bible study group about how difficult it is to balance all of her responsibilites — that indicate that this is meant to be a religious movie. I also liked the fact that the sequel spent more time focusing on Alexa’s heritage, which was something the first film barely acknowledged.

That said, with the possible exception of Ravyn, none of the Taylors were particularly sympathetic characters and the film features a “shocking” death that, because you’ll see coming from a mile away, ultimately feels a bit manipulative. The scenes at Alexa’s new job (where everyone is a flakey millennial) feels like some sort of boomer fever dream of what young people are like and Jezi is portrayed in such a cartoonish fashion that the ultimate reconciliation between her and Alexa never quite carries the emotional punch that it should. Catching Faith 2 is an improvement on the first film but it’s still weighted down by its own heavy-handedness.

October Positivity: Catching Faith (dir by John K.D. Graham)

Posted on October 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2015 film, Catching Faith, presents us with the following scenario.

You are the mother of a 17 year-old football star. Your son is the reason why his school’s team is going to make the playoffs. As a result, he’s the most popular kid in school. In fact, he’s the most popular kid in the state. Everyone loves him and you know what? He’s actually handling it all pretty well. He still works hard. He still goes to practice. He looks after his sister. He treats you and your husband with respect. Are his grades great? Not really but is he passing and he’s certainly doing well enough that he’ll probably be able to get a football scholarship.

But then, you find out that your 17 year-old son went to a party after a game. And he had a few beers, just as everyone else on the team did. The police showed up but your son was allowed to leave. In other words, he didn’t get caught. He was also smart enough not to try to drive himself home in his intoxicated condition. When, after a good deal of hesitation on your part, you ask him if he was drinking that night, he doesn’t lie to you. He admits that he was drinking, as was everyone else on the team.

Do you sit down and have a talk with him, one in which you encourage him not to drink (especially since he’s not 21) while also making it clear that he can still call you if he ever does find himself in a situation where he has had too much? Do you maybe ground him for a week or two, just so he understands that there are consequences for breaking the rules?

Or….

Do you whip out the rules and regulations book that he was given at the start of the semester and announce that if he doesn’t turn himself into the coach, you’ll do it yourself? Keep in mind that, by doing this, you’ll be guaranteeing that your son doesn’t play in another regular game for the rest of the season. You’ll be ruining his chance to impress the college scouts. The football team will lose its best player and probably won’t win anymore games, which means that the other members of the team will probably lose whatever chance they had to get a football scholarship. And, of course, your son will become a pariah at the time in his life when it’s really important to have friends?

If you are Alexa (Lorena Seguara York) and John Taylor (Dariush Moslemi), you go with the second option. You explain that, as Christians, you’re not allowed to lie and you force your son, Beau (Garrett Westton), to confess to his coach (comedian Bill Engvall) that he had one or two beers at a party. And then, of course, if your Alexa and John, you spend the rest of the school year wondering the entire town now hates you.

Of course, Beau is not the only member of the Taylor family who has to make a choice about being honest. Alexa is torn over whether or not to tell John that she exchanged the necklace that he gave her for a better one. Meanwhile, daughter Ravyn (Bethany Peterson) has to decide whether or not to cheat on her Latin exam so that she can be valedictorian and go to MIT.

Seriously, this is a dilemma? Look, the world’s not going to end if you cheat on a Latin exam. Who would pick their integrity over attending MIT? And, for that matter, men are clueless when it comes to jewelry. I kind of doubt John would have ever noticed that Alexa’s necklace was different from the one that he gave her.

I guess my point here is that this family is obsessed with creating drama where there really doesn’t need to be any. Just be glad that your son didn’t go to jail and that he’s going to get a football scholarship. (Seriously, do you want to pay for his college?) And be happy your daughter is going to MIT. And be happy with the pretty new necklace!

I wasn’t surprised to discover that it was set in Wisconsin because I can tell you right now that none of this would have ever happened in Texas. A high school football player getting caught drinking? That’s just a typical weeknight down here. This was a deeply silly movie. Parents, please don’t humiliate your 17 year-olds like this.

Let’s Talk About Sharknado 3!

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(This review contains spoilers because it’s impossible for me to imagine that you somehow have not already seen Sharknado 3.)

Last night, I watched and live tweeted Sharknado 3 and I’m still recovering. After the first hundred, I lost track of how many tweets I devoted to Sharknado 3. Of course, I wasn’t alone in that. Last night, it seemed like the entire nation was tweeting about Sharknado 3 and it was a wonderful thing. At its best, twitter can be the great equalizer, giving everyone an equal voice and last night was one of those moments.

I hoping for a #Sharknado3 spin-off called Kittennado. "The world is ending! And it's adorable!" #meow

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) July 23, 2015

In fact, I was tempted to just devote this review to posting the best Sharknado 3 tweets from last night. However, if I did that, 90% of those tweets would be from me. Out of the millions of Sharknado 3 related tweets last night, mine were definitely the best.

Over the past three years, the premiere of the latest Sharknado film has almost become an unofficial national holiday, a summer version of the Super Bowl. On twitter, Sharknado 3 was trending for days before the film even premiered. And, once Sharknado 3 did start, it seemed as if everyone in the country was watching and taking bets on which celebrity guest star would be the next to die. (I’m very proud to say that I correctly predicted the bloody and prolonged death of Frankie Muniz.) Even the majority of the commercials were specifically meant to tie in with the Sharknado franchise.

Fans of the first Sharknado will be happy to know that Nova returns!

But what’s amazing and admirable is that, even though the franchise has now become an international phenomena, Sharknado 3 stayed true to its SyFy roots. Ignore all the hype and you’ll see that Sharknado 3 tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who has ever watched any SyFy original movie. The world is threatened by a flamboyant threat, in this case a bunch of tornadoes that happens to be full of sharks. Only one man (Ian Ziering as Finn) can save the world but first, he has to deal with skeptical military jackasses. As always seems to happen in these films, he’s separated from his wife (Tara Reid playing the role of April and sporting a truly badass robotic hand). Meanwhile, their teenage daughter (Ryan Newman as Claudia) has gone off on her own and finds herself right in the center of the disaster. It’s a plot that has been used in thousands of SyFy and Asylum films but director Anthony C. Ferrante directs with a lot of energy and writer Thunder Levin provides so many clever one liners that it doesn’t matter if the storyline is familiar. Ignore all the hype and you’ll discover that Sharknado 3 is still a wonderfully fun film that features everything that we love about SyFy movies.

Of course, one thing that distinguishes Sharknado 3 from other Asylum film is that it is full of celebrity cameos. Usually, I am weary of excessive celebrity cameos because they’re distracting and the celebs often turn out to be terrible actors. But the celebs in Sharknado 3 all do a wonderful job. (Add to that, the majority of them get eaten, as well.) Then again, the same could be said for the entire cast. Regardless of what they’re asked to do or say, Ian Ziering and Tara Reid both full commit to their performances. Casting director Gerald Webb is indeed one of the unsung heroes of the entire Sharknado phenomena.

The film opens with a shark attack on Washington D.C. and it’s during this time that we meet President Mark Cuban and Vice President Ann Coulter. And, oh my God, how certain heads on twitter exploded when Ann Coulter showed up. But you know what? After seeing Sharknado 3, I would totally vote for a Cuban/Coulter ticket. I don’t care what their platform is, they know how to fight sharks and they seemed far more believable than anyone who is currently running for President. At first, I assumed that Mark Cuban was supposed to be playing himself and I thought that Sharknado 3 had somehow managed to predict the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. However, I then checked with the imdb and I discovered that Cuban was playing President Marcus Robbins.

The same people on twitter who were bitching about Ann Coulter weren’t much happier when Michele Bachman showed up, playing herself. (For a few minutes, I was hoping that the movie would be full of cameos from former Presidential candidates.) However, the political cameos in Sharknado 3 are bipartisan. When the action moves down to Orlando, noted Democrat Jerry Springer shows up as a tourist and promptly gets eaten. And then Carlos Danger himself, Anthony Weiner, shows up as a heroic NASA guy. Eventually, for those of us who lean towards the libertarian side of the political spectrum, Penn Jilette and Teller eventually show up. Personally, I suspect that Teller knew how to stop the sharks but, of course, he wasn’t going to say anything.

As for the cameos from various media personalities, Sharknado 3 never manages to top the moment from Sharknado 2 where Kelly Ripa stomped a shark with her high heels. But no matter — it’s still fun to watch Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda get drunk while sharks fall around them. And then Matt Lauer gets eaten by a shark so yay for that!

(Incidentally, whether intentional or not, the film was full of former contestants from The Celebrity Apprentice, with Ian, Penn, and Lou Ferrigno all showing up. Personally, I would have enjoyed seeing Piers Morgan get eaten by a shark.)

However, of all the celebrity cameos in Sharknado 3, nobody could top the Hoff. When David Hasselhoff first showed up as Finn’s father, it felt like a funny but obvious joke. Of course, Finn’s father would be David Hasselhoff. But you know what? Give credit where credit is due. The Hoff actually gave a pretty good performance and, during the film’s interstellar climax, he managed to do a pretty good impersonation of George Clooney as he looked out into space and said, “It’s a beautiful view.”

And yes, Sharknado 3 does go into space. How could it not? The film may have started out as an homage to the classic weather disaster films but, by the end of the movie, it turned into a delirious combination of Jaws, Gravity and Interstellar. By the time Finn was exploring the stomach of a shark while it floated through the starry sky, Sharknado 3 had achieved a definite state of grace.

Incidentally, the film ended with a cliffhanger and we were asked to vote whether or not April would live. At first, I voted to kill April because, quite frankly, I thought it would be fun to see a vengeance-obsessed Finn. But then Tara Reid tweeted the following and made me feel totally guilty:

This is it show me your love and support I need you! You are the fans that made this movie keep it going! #AprilLives

— Tara Reid (@TaraReid) July 23, 2015

So, I’m changing my vote! APRIL LIVES!

Of course, all this means that there will be Sharknado 4 and I can hardly wait!

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #67: Split Image (dir by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Unlike Desperate Lives, the 1982 melodrama Split Image is available to be viewed on YouTube. In fact, you can watch it below and I suggest that you do so. It’s a pretty good film and, apparently, it’s never been released on DVD or Blu-ray and it’ll probably never be available on Netflix either. So, if you’ve ever wanted to see Peter Fonda play a cult leader, your best bet is to watch the video below.

But before you watch the video, here’s a little information on Split Image, one of the best films that you’ve never heard of.

Essentially, the film follows the same plot as the Canadian film Ticket To Heaven. A college athlete (played by Michael O’Keefe) starts dating a girl (Karen Allen) who is a member of a sinister religious cult. Soon, O’Keefe is a brainwashed member of the cult and only answering to the name of Joshua. (The head of the cult is played, in an appropriately spaced-out manner, by Peter Fonda.) His parents (Brian Dennehy and Elizabeth Ashley) hire a cult deprogrammer (James Woods) to kidnap their son and break Fonda’s hold on him. However, it turns out that Woods’ methods are almost as psychologically destructive as Fonda’s manipulation.

Even if it’s not quite as memorably creepy as Ticket To Heaven, Split Image is still a well-made film, featuring excellent performances from Dennehy, Woods, O’Keefe, and Fonda. However, for me, the most interesting thing about Split Image is that it was largely filmed and set down here in Dallas. Just watch the scene where Woods and his men attempt to kidnap Michael O’Keefe. It was shot on the campus of Richland Community College, which is one of the places where I regularly go to run.