October Positivity: One Nation Under God (dir by Lisa Arnold)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2o2o’s One Nation Under God, David Gutierrez (Isaak Presley) is a new student at an exclusive private school. (He was selected via a lottery of intelligent but economically disadvantaged kids.) On the first day of school, David makes a point of saying “One nation under God,” while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. His classmate, Gordon (Thomas Kasp), corners him outside of class and tells him that he’s not allowed to say that in school. Since Gordon’s father happens to Headmaster Kingsley (Casper Van Dien), David’s first day is not off to a good start.

However, the debate coach, Mr. Truman (Kevin Sorbo), hears about what David said and decides that David should definitely be on the debate team. The topic for the semester is whether or not “God should be in schools.” Gordon is already prepared to argue the negative. Can David argue the positive?

But first, presidential candidate Sen. Viera (Antonio Sabato, Jr.) stops by the school for an assembly. He’s a graduate from the school and it’s felt that appearing there will be a good PR move for him. He’s accompanied by one of his strongest supporters, former football player and U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker. When David stands up and asks Viera about his own beliefs, Viera stumbles over the question and his aides quickly end the assembly.

Stunned by David’s question and ashamed of his own inability to answer it, Sen. Viera decides to make his religious faith the center of his campaign. His wife is happy but his campaign aides are freaking out. They’ve got a big debate coming up with Governor Palabra (Summer Selby) and they just know that she’s going to accuse Viera of wanting to legislate morality.

Meanwhile, David has his own debate to prepare for. Fearful that Gordon will lose the debate and also whatever chance he may have to attend an Ivy League college, the Headmaster plans to bribe David to lose. David’s single mother could really use the money. Will David sell out or will he stick to his beliefs?

As you can see, there’s a lot going on in this movie but, ultimately, every subplot serves the same purpose, which is to tick off any liberal who happens to watch it. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about the importance of faith and also the importance of freedom of speech but the main purpose of this movie is to upset liberal viewers. Judging from some of the reviews of this film that were posted on Letterboxd, the film appears to have accomplished that. My personal opinion is that, if you spend more than an hour composing an angry review about a relatively obscure film starring Kevin Sorbo, you’ve already lost the war. I always find the frenzied reaction to these type of films to be a bit amusing because they’re really not any more heavy-handed or one-sided than the typical mainstream film. It’s just they’re attacking from the right instead of the left.

And make no mistake, One Nation Under God is heavy-handed and one-sided. Nothing about its portrayal of the inner workings of a major presidential campaign feels authentic and quite a few of its subplots fall flat. That said, I actually liked some of the songs on the soundtrack and the film itself looked like a real movie, which definitely set this film apart from a lot of other faith-based films. Kevin Sorbo is properly authoritative as the debate coach. Casper van Dien is properly villainous as the evil Headmaster. In the end, though, the main purpose of the film is to annoy liberals and it accomplishes that goal.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 3.9 “Pipe Dreams”

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Zack loses his favorite duck.

Episode 3.9 “Pipe Dreams”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 26th, 1991)

Oil’s been discovered on Bayside’s football field! Smarmy Dan Grayson (Gary Lahti) offers Bayside a lot of money for the right to drill on the field. Almost all of the students fantasize about going to rich school despite the fact that, with the exception of Kelly, it’s been established that they’re all already rich and that Bayside has been a rich school for a while. I’m not sure why the students think that they would be getting any of the money. And why is it up to the principal to decide whether or not to allow drilling. It seems like that should be up to the county supervisors.

But what about the never before mentioned pond behind the football field!? When the inevitable oil spill happens, Zack’s favorite duck Becky is killed. “She’s where the oil can’t hurt her anymore,” Screech says. It looks like it’s time for Zack to crash Mr. Grayson’s presentation and spray oil on him. “I’m covered in oil!” Mr. Grayson shouts. It’s easy to make your point when your opponent is cartoonishly evil.

You probably already guessed that this is not my favorite episode. It’s just so cartoonishly heavy-handed and the idea that Zack’s simplistic presentation was enough to convince everyone not to drill for oil was borderline insulting. If there’s oil underneath the football field and money to be made by drilling for it, someone’s going to do it. No one is going to care whether Zack approves or not.

My favorite moment is when Slater calls out Jessie for wearing clothing and accessories that aren’t environmentally-friendly. Seriously, Jessie is always a little bit too self-righteous for me. Personally, I would have agreed to let the company drill for the oil but only after they found a new pond for all of the turtles and ducks.

Poor Becky.

Patrick Muldoon, RIP

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This morning, I was saddened to read about the passing of actor Patrick Muldoon. He died of a heart attack yesterday. He was 57 years old.

Patrick Muldoon will always be remembered by many for playing Jeff, the “frat boy babe stealer” from Saved By The Bell. Personally, I thought Jeff and Kelly made for a cute couple and it always bothered me that the show’s writers suddenly changed Jeff from being a nice guy to being a cheater just so Kelly and Zack could (eventually) get back together. Supposedly, years after the show aired, Muldoon still had strangers yelling at him on the street for breaking up Kelly and Zack. I felt bad for him reading that. The man was an actor and he did a good job.

Muldoon went on to play an important supporting role in Starship Troopers, making him the second Saved By The Bell actor to appear in a Paul Verhoeven film. (Unlike Elizabeth Berkley, Muldoon at least seemed to understand that he was appearing in a satire.) He also appeared in a countless number of Lifetime films, occasionally sharing the screen with Starship Troopers co-star, Casper Van Dien. Muldoon was also the first actor to play Austin Reed on Days of Our Lives.

Here he is in Starship Troopers, getting into a memorable fight with Casper Van Dien.

Holidays On The Lens: Christmas Twister (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on December 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2012 film Christmas Twister tells the story of what happens when several twisters hit North Texas on Christmas Day. For a film taking place in the DFW area (a region that is called the flatlands for a reason), there’s a surprisingly large amount of mountains around.

I mean check out the road leading to Fort Worth:

Check out the town of Gransbury!

Guess which movie was definitely not filmed in Texas!

That said, Casper Van Dien manfully drives across the city, saving his children from the tornado and encouraging folks to stay inside. Plus, the film features a perfect shot that shows that the filmmakers did understand at least one thing about Texas:

Hell yeah! The flag of Texas and some other country!

Enjoy Christmas Twister:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Red Prophecies (dir by Rodney James Hewitt and Christopher Gosch)

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was going to take a short break from reviewing the many films of Eric Roberts but then I came across 2021’s Red Prophecies on Tubi.

Actually, did I just say 2021? Coming up with a date for this film is actually a little bit more complicated than that. This film was apparently actually filmed in 2014 but it sat on the shelf for a while. The version that was released has a prologue and an epilogue that were obviously filmed in 2020. Russian actor Alexander Nevsky appears in both scenes, talking about his plans for manipulating the upcoming U.S. elections. It’s one of those scenes that is meant to be chilling but instead just reminds the viewer of how ludicrously melodramatic and performative most political discourse has been since 2017.

The majority of the film features Eric Roberts as John Payne, an American reporter who moves to Russia and becomes famous for his ability to predict what’s going to happen in Russian politics. For instance, Payne writes that an opposition leader is going to be arrested and he is! Payne gets his information from “The Oracle,” an anonymous source who sends him emails that John, who is supposed to be a veteran reporter, types up without question. Casper Van Dien, who is playing some sort of Russian intelligence agent, tries to figure out where Payne is getting his information from. Stephen Baldwin shows up as a shady Russian politician. Michael Madsen plays a UN official who Payne suspects is actually corrupt. (A corrupt UN official is probably the most plausible of the film’s plot points.) It’s all a part of a huge plot to destabilize both Russia and the United States. How it all links together is anyone’s guess. The story is not easy to follow, which is probably why the film sat on a shelf for seven years until someone realized that there was a market for international conspiracy films in the United States.

There’s a lot of familiar faces in this movie. We don’t actually hear their voices in the film because apparently, it would have cost too much money to have them come back to do ADR. So, instead, we get one person trying to sound like a dozen different people. Eric Roberts, Stephen Baldwin, and Michael Madsen all have very distinctive voices so when they all sound like a 20-something using autotune, you’re going to notice.

This was a messy film. I’m not really sure if it was mean to be pro-Russian or anti-Russian. The film takes place in Russia and it deals with people being oppressed and opposition leaders being murdered by the government but one name this is never mentioned is the name of Vladimer Putin. Is this movie supposed to be taking place in the real world or an alternate world? I was never quite sure. Several of the characters could have easily been cut from the film and again, buying the film’s story means accepting that a famously hard-boiled reporter would automatically trust an email sent to him by someone calling themselves The Oracle. It’s nice to see the cream of the B-movie, straight-to-video crop all in one film together but otherwise, Red Prophecies doesn’t add up to much.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

STARSHIP TROOPERS and Hell’s Half Acre – Taking my love of the movies on down the road (Part 4)!

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Bradley Crain

2022 was a big year for my wife Sierra and I when it comes to “movie tourism.” I’ve already discussed our trips to Pennsylvania and Colorado to celebrate my healthy obsession with the late, great action movie icon Charles Bronson. In that same year, we spent some time in the beautiful city of Casper, Wyoming. About 40 miles from Casper is a place called “Hell’s Half Acre.” Sierra lived in Casper for 18 years, and she told me that the movie STARSHIP TROOPERS was filmed there. I had no idea. I had watched the movie way back in late 90’s because it was directed by Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director who had made a star out of Rutger Hauer before coming to America and directing films like ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, and BASIC INSTINCT. I remember it being graphically violent, but I honestly didn’t remember much about it. The fact that it was filmed out in the middle of nowhere outside of Casper piqued my interest, and I was determined to know more.

In a nutshell, STARSHIP TROOPERS stars Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico, a young man who joins the military after graduation to become a citizen, and because of his love for his high school sweetheart Carmen (Denise Richards). As part of his service, he finds himself in a war against the bug aliens of Klendathu. Every day is a battle for survival as the soldiers try to save the human race. Aside from Van Dien and Richards, director Verhoeven has assembled an excellent supporting cast that includes veterans like Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, and even Rue McClanahan. Maybe it’s because I visited the location, but I enjoyed the movie much more now, than I remember enjoying it back in the 90’s.

Hell’s Half Acre stood in for the alien planet of Klendathu in STARSHIP TROOPERS. It’s an interesting looking area that reminds me of the look of the Grand Canyon when viewed from afar. It turned out to be the perfect place for an alien planet, even if there was always a chance that the cast and crew might run into a rattlesnake or two. Here’s a picture I took of the sign on the premises that tells you a little more about Hell’s Half Acre.

The picture at the top of the article shows how Hell’s Half Acre is used in the movie to represent the alien planet of Klendathu. Here’s an image of the movie’s star, Casper Van Dien, on location. I met several people in Casper who remember when the actors and the crew were staying in Casper during filming, and they all spoke very positively of Van Dien. I also find it interesting that Casper Van Dien is filming this movie just outside of Casper, Wyoming. What are the chances?

Here are few of the pictures we took on our visit. I sent the picture below to my son while we were out of town and asked him if he knew where we were. His guess was The Grand Canyon!

Making movies is one hell of a business, and visiting Hell’s Half Acre was a great reminder of the imagination it takes to create movie magic. It was also a fun way to spend part of day, especially for a movie lover like me!

So, I Watched Kill Shot (1995, Dir. by Nelson McCormick)

Posted on October 13, 2024 by Dazzling Erin

A group of college students all live in a California apartment complex that’s owned by Jake Mondello (Gianni Russo), who also owns a restaurant and sponsors a beach volleyball team. From the description that I read of the movie’s plot, I thought there would be a lot more beach volleyball and, from the title, I thought there would be a lot more thrills. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.

It’s pretty obvious that this was a pilot for a tv show that was inspired by Melrose Place. A lot of characters are introduced and they’re all shallow but pretty. Just like with Melrose Place, everyone has a drama and everyone has someone that they like but who they can’t tell about their feelings. Casper Van Dein is the most recognizable person in the cast. He plays a rich boy who likes to play volleyball and who falls for a poor girl. Other characters include Jacqueline Collen as a former volleyball star who is going back to college and who is being stalked by her ex (Jack Scalia), Catherine Lazo as the med student who loses her scholarship, and Ria Pavia as an abrasive science student who falls in love with her new roommate (Mushond Lee), even though he’s gay. Ernie Reyes, Jr. plays Koji, who is a computer nerd who says stuff like, “I just got a new CD-rom game.” He’s so good with computers that the police turn to him to help track phone calls and match finger prints. Denise Richards appears for two seconds and smiles at Casper. Gianni Russo is the worst actor in the movie but everyone loves Jake because Russo also wrote the script.

This was largely plotless and pointless. Casper was nice to look at but I didn’t care about any of the characters. There is a big beach volleyball game at the end but it only lasts for a few minutes and it was impossible to tell who was winning. One important character is taken out by a kill shot but no one notices. Watching the movie made me hate both the beach and volleyball.

Holiday Film Review: Christmas Twister (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2012 film, Christmas Twister, is about an outbreak of tornadoes that hit Fort Worth two days before Christmas. We’re told that, normally, there aren’t any tornadoes in December but that’s been changing due to …. wait for it …. climate change! Now, with tornado after tornado hitting Granbury, Fort Worth, Lake Worth, Stephenville, Dublin, and a lot of towns in Texas, Casper Van Dein is on a mission to save his family and make sure that everyone knows that the threat of tornadoes is real!

Because, you know, if there’s anything that Texas is famous for, it’s for blowing off the threat of tornadoes….

There’s an actual scene in Christmas Twister in which Victoria Pratt, playing a TV newswoman who is married to Van Dien, tries to convince her station manager to allow her to interrupt regular programming to announce that there might be a tornado on the way. That station manager says that interrupting programming could cause a panic and, since there’s already been three tornadoes that day, people are probably tired of hearing about them. As a result, no one leaves the mall when the tornadoes hit.

Of course, anyone who lives in North Texas knows that there’s little that our local stations enjoy more than interrupting regular programming to talk about the weather. Seriously, our meteorologists live for the chance to get on TV, talk about the storm systems that they’re watching, and tell everyone that, “You don’t need to be out in this, folks.” Our local stations would happily interrupt the President himself if a wall cloud appeared anywhere near I-35.

Biden: “I was wearing an onion on my belt, as was the style at the time….”

Dallas anchorman Steve Eagar: “Folks, we’re interrupting the State of the Union address to keep you informed about a storm system that we’ve been watching….”

It doesn’t even have to be a tornado for our newspeople to interrupt regularly scheduled programming. It can just be hail. It could just a hint of snow. You know that King of the Hill episode where it barely snows and Hank announces, “Texas isn’t ready for this!” Well, that’s pretty close to reality….

And, to be honest, I imagine that’s the way it is in the rest of country as well. The only that changes is the type of weather even that everyone worries about. The idea of Texas newspeople not reporting on a tornado threat would be like a Fort Worth weatherman refusing to talk about a hurricane or maybe a New York meteorologist deciding that it would be best not to report on a blizzard. Imagine a California station manager saying, “People don’t want to hear about the earthquake.” It just wouldn’t happen.

The other thing that I noticed about Christmas Twister is that, for a film that was supposedly taking place in North Texas, there sure were a lot of mountains around. As far as DFW is concerned, we don’t have mountains. I guess if you really went out and searched, you might find a very small hill somewhere but I can guarantee you it would be a manmade hill. This region is called the flatlands for a reason. North Texas is flat. That’s actually one of our trademarks. The land seems to stretch on forever.

However, in Christmas Twister, this is what the area outside of Forth Worth looks like:

This is what Granbury looks like right before the tornado hits:

This is what Granbury looks immediately after the tornado hits:

Yes, the film is not entirely accurate. But, on the plus side, Casper Van Dien manfully drives across the city, saving his children from the tornado and encouraging folks to stay inside. Plus, the film features a perfect shot that shows that the filmmakers did understand at least one thing about Texas:

Yep, the flag of Texas and the flag of some other country. Not even a tornado could take it down!

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Mask of the Ninja and Black Rain!

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, SweetEmmyCat is hosting 2008’s Mask of the Ninja, starring TSL favorite Casper Van Dien! It’s available on YouTube!

Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. Tonight’s movie, starting at 10 pm et, will be 1989’s Black Rain, starring Michael Douglas! The film is available on Prime!

It should make for a night of intense viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto twitter, start Mask of the Ninja at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to prime, start Black Rain and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy. And reviews of these films will probably end up on this site at some point over the next few weeks.

The Films of 2020: Roped (dir by Shaun Piccinino)

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, the rodeo.

Though they’re not quite as ever-present as people up north seem to assume, rodeos are still a pretty big deal down here in the Southwest. Now, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the rodeo, largely due to the fact that I spent the early part of my life constantly moving from the city to the country to the city and then back to the country again. The city girl side of me looks at the rodeo and says, “That’s a silly tradition that’s dangerous to both the animals and the participants and there’s no way that I would ever let any future child of mine have anything to do with it.” However, the country girl side of me hears the words “rodeo,” and shouts, “Hell yeah!” Seriously, there’s nothing more exciting than watching a handsome cowboy try to ride a bull without getting killed.

And believe me, rodeos can be dangerous. There’s an episode of King of the Hill in which Hank and Peggy take Bobby to the rodeo and Peggy mentions that one of her relatives was sent home from Vietnam because he was having rodeo nightmares. I could believe it. Rodeos are not petting zoos, despite what some people may think. Bulls and broncos can be dangerous when they’re angry and a rodeo clown can only provide so much protection. In fact, there’s some towns that have actually considered baning the rodeo.

Roped takes place in one such town. City councilman Robert Peterson (Casper Van Dien) doesn’t want the rodeo coming anywhere near his home. He argues that the rodeo is unfair to animals and that it corrupts the youth. It’s kind of like Footloose, except instead of banning dancing, the councilman wants to ban a rather foul-smelling carnival in which people are occasionally killed.

Of course, what the councilman doesn’t know is that his own teenage daughter, Tracy (played by Lorynn York) is falling in love with a rodeo cowboy! Colton Burtenshaw (Josh Swickard) is a up-and-coming star on the rodeo circuit and it’s pretty much love at first sight as soon as he and Tracy meet. Of course, this means that Tracy is going to have to defy her father and Colton’s going to have to prove that the rodeo isn’t as bad as everyone thinks that it is. It’s time for laughs, tragedy, love, and sheep. Yes, you read that right.

Anyway, you can probably guess everything that happens in Roped. This is a low-budget movie that’s designed for the “I wish they still made movies like they used to do” crowd and, for what it is, it’s not that bad. It’s hardly a great or even a memorable film but it gets the job done and it’ll appeal to people who have nostalgic memories of the rodeo. There’s not an edgy moment to be found in the film but people looking for edgy movies probably won’t be watching Roped in the first place. It’s a nice-looking film and Lorynn York and Josh Swickard make for a cute couple, in both the film and real life. (York and Scwickard married shortly after making this movie.) Plus — hey, Casper Van Dien’s in the movie! Van Dien’s always fun to watch, especially when he’s playing a well-meaning but misguided authority figure.

As I wrap up this review, one final word about the rodeo: it’s pronounced “roe-dee-oh.” Don’t come down here and say you want to see a “ro-day-oh.” Those clowns can turn on you quickly.