The Eric Roberts Collection: Assault on Wall Street (dir by Uwe Boll)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2013’s Assault on Wall Street tells the story of Jim Braxford (Dominic Purcell), a security guard who loses all of his money due to some bad investments that he had no control over and whose wife, Rosie (Erin Karpluk), kills herself rather than continue her expensive medical treatments. Jim snaps and, after listening to a bunch of angry people on MSNBC, he decides to take violent vengeance on Wall Street, targeting brokers and CEOs and ultimately launching an all-out assault on a firm owned by the cartoonishly evil Jeremy Stancroft (John Heard).

Full of anti-capitalist rhetoric and heavy-handed plot developments, Assault on Wall Street finds director Uwe Boll in a political mood. Because the film deals with economic anxiety to which everyone can relate, this film is slightly more effective than Boll’s usual films but that still doesn’t mean that it’s particularly good. It’s one of those films that takes forever to get where it’s going and the film also suffers due to Boll’s confounding decision to cast Dominic Purcell in the lead role. The blank-eyed, flat-voice Purcell gives such a spectacularly dull performance that one wonders if he was constructed out of charisma anti-matter. It doesn’t help that Purcell’s three best friends are played Edward Furlong, Michael Pare, and Keith David, all of whom come across like they would have been a better pick for the lead role.

The film ends with a spate of violence that I remember that I found to be a bit shocking when I first saw the film on cable in 2013. Of course, today, such violence has been normalized and is often celebrated on social media. I imagine that members of the creepy Luigi death cult would probably claim that Jim Braxford didn’t go far enough in his murder spree.

Two of my favorites, Eric Roberts and Lochlyn Munro, have supporting roles in this film. Munro is Jim’s broker, who makes the mistake of complaining about how he had to cancel his planned vacation to Barbados as a result of the economic meltdown. Roberts plays the lawyer who agrees to help Jim get justice but who ultimately proves to be no help at all. Both of them are memorable in their small roles, which once again leaves us to wonder why, with all the talent available, Uwe Boll apparently decided to make Dominic Purcell his muse. That was a bad investment.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Zombie King (2013, directed by Aidan Belizaire)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Embittered by the death of his wife, Samuel Peters (Edward Furlong) turns to voodoo in an attempt to bring her back to life. Kalfu (Corey Feldman), the lord of the underworld, agrees to close the gates of Hell and allow the dead to roam the Earth with Peters as the immortal zombie king.

Edward Furlong selling his soul to Corey Feldman might sound like the premise of an entertainingly bad movie but, unfortunately, nether Furlong nor Feldman have much screen time. As hard as it is believe, The Zombie King may be one of the first recent films that would have benefitted from more Corey Feldman and Edward Furlong. Instead, the two of them are basically just special guest stars with limited screen time.

Instead, the majority of the movie is about a group of humans trying to survive in a village that’s been invaded by zombies and quarantined by the government. The movie tries to balance horror with British humor in a style that tries way too hard to duplicate Simon Pegg’s success with Shaun of the Dead, right down to casting a Nick Frost look-alike as a quirky milkman named Munch.

Much ends up in a group led by a stoic mailman named Ed Wallace (George McCluskey), who says that delivering the mail in Northgate was just as dangerous as being a member of the SAS. The movie mixes scenes of zombie mayhem with scenes of Ed, Mulch, and the other survivors having very British arguments about how best to deal with the situation and whether it’s safer to head to a church or a pub. There are some amusing moments but there’s even more jokes that fall flat and Munch is never as funny as a character as the film seems to think he is.

Even with Edward Furlong welcoming the recently dead to “Hell on Earth” and Corey Feldman giving a surprisingly energetic performance as the lord of the underworld, The Zombie King never escapes the shadow of all the zombie comedies that came before it.

Music Video of the Day: Livin’ On The Edge by Aerosmith (1993, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Written during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Livin’ On The Edge was the first single off of Aerosmith’s 11th studio album, Get A Grip. It’s still one of their most commercially successful songs to date, spending nine weeks at the number one spot on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart.

The video features Edward Furlong, living a life almost as dangerous as the life lived by the delinquents in the video for Skid Row’s 18 and Life. Furlong, fortunately, manages to survive his time living on the edge. Furlong did this video shortly after starring in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The video also features Joe Perry playing a guitar solo in front of an incoming train. This scene was filmed on Lake Britton Bridge in Shasta County, California. The same bridge also appears in Stand By Me. If I remember correctly, at the same time that this video came out, there was also a PSA about the dangers of walking on railroad tracks that used to show up on television constantly. The spot featured two kids walking across a bridge, much like the one featured in this video when a train starts bearing down on them. At the end of the PSA, one of the kids manages to get off the bridge and then has to watch as the train runs over his slower friend. Whenever I see this video or hear this song, that’s what I think of.

This video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed the majority of Aerosmith’s videos.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The Unnamed Feeling by Metallica (2004, directed by the Malloys)

Posted on April 5, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Are you suffering from anxiety?

Don’t worry, James Hetfield has got your back. In fact, he wrote an entire song about the moments right before someone starts to panic. The song calls it The Unnamed Feeling and this is probably the rare Metallica song to which everyone can relate. St. Anger will probably always be a controversial album but I think it’s aging well. Hetfield was obviously dealing with some serious things during the recording, You don’t need to watch Some Kind of Monster to know that. You just have to listen to the songs. Personally, I like knowing that even a pioneer of thrash metal can sometimes get nervous. That means there’s hope for the rest of us.

The video features the band playing in a room in which the walls are slowly closing in. In between scenes of the band, we watch people dealing with that unnamed feeling. Keep an eye out for Edward Furlong, who previously lived on the edge for Aerosmith.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #284: Brainscan (1994, directed by John Flynn)

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Michael Bower (Edward Furlong) is a 15 year-old loser who walks with a limp and still has nightmares about the night his mother was killed in a car wreck. Brainscan is the new PC game that Michael makes the mistake of playing. In the game, Michael is encouraged by The Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) to kill both his friends and complete strangers. When Michael starts finding body parts around his house, he realizes that whenever he kills someone in the game, he kills them in real life too.

Though it may be forgotten now, Brainscan was heavily promoted when it was first released. I think the producers were hoping to turn The Trickster into the new Freddy and get a new horror franchise out of it. Like most films from the 90s that dealt with computers and gamers, Brainscan is now as dated as dial-up internet. T. Ryder Smith does ok as the Trickster but it is difficult to take him seriously because he has a big red mohawk skullet and he dresses like the keyboard player in every new wave band that has ever synthesized. As for Furlong, he had apparently already entered the I-no-longer-give-a-shit phase of his career when he made Brainscan. Add to that one of the worst endings that I have ever seen in a horror movie and Brainscan is one film that is easy to forget.

It is easy to say what Brainscan is lacking: suspense, gore, and horror. It is less easy to say what would have made it better. Considering its suburban setting, I think Brainscan would have been improved by cameos from the stars of Shattered If Your Kid’s On Drugs.

With Burt Reynolds and Judd Nelson around to serve as mentors, Eddie Furlong never would have gotten addicted to playing video games in the first place.

Right, Burt?

A Movie A Day #67: Animal Factory (2000, directed by Steve Buscemi)

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Edward Furlong is Ron Decker, a spoiled 18 year-old from a rich family who is arrested and sent to prison when he’s caught with a small amount of marijuana. Being younger and smaller than the other prisoners, Ron is soon being targeted by everyone from the prison’s Puerto Rican gang to the sadistic Buck Rowan (Tom Arnold). Fortunately, for Ron, prison veteran Earl Copen (Williem DaFoe) takes him under his wing and provides him with protection. Earl is the philosopher-king of the prison. As he likes to put it, “This is my prison, after all.” If he can stay out of trouble, Ron has a chance to get out early but, with Buck stalking him, that’s not going to be easy.

Based on a novel by ex-con Edward Bunker, Animal Factory was the second film to be directed by Bunker’s Reservoir Dogs co-stars, Steve Buscemi. Though it was overlooked at the time, Animal Factory is a minor masterpiece. Taking a low key approach, Buscemi emphasizes the monotony of prison life just as much as the sudden bursts of violence and shows why someone like Ron Decker can go into prison as an innocent and come out as an animal. DaFoe and Furlong give two of their best performances as Earl and Ron while a cast of familiar faces — Danny Trejo, Mickey Rourke, Chris Bauer, Mark Boone Junior — make up the prison’s population. Most surprising of all is Tom Arnold, giving Animal Factory‘s best performance as the prison’s most dangerous predator.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: Arachnoquake (dir. by Griff Furst)

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Spoilers below.)

Last night, I watched yet another “original” movie on the SyFy network. This one was called Arachnoquake.

Why Was I Watching It?

First off, how do you not watch something called Arachnoquake? The title itself is just pure genius in that it not only tells you that the film is about spiders and earthquakes but it also lets you know ahead of time that this is a movie to have fun with.

Also, I was watching because I still have good memories of watching Jersey Shore Shark Attack earlier this month.

What’s It About?

So basically, there’s an earthquake in New Orleans and a bunch of gigantic, extremely venomous albino spiders are released out into the city and the bayou. However, these aren’t just your typical giant albino spiders. No, these are giant albino spiders that can breathe fire and walk on water. It’s kinda like Treme, just with more spiders and less Steve Zahn.

In fact, there’s no Steve Zahn in this film at all! However, there is Edward Furlong, playing a greasy-haired guy who is stuck driving a school bus with a bunch of female softball players on it. Meanwhile, Furlong’s asthmatic wife (Tracey Gold) is stuck on a trolley that’s being driven by a guy played by Bug Hall. And, best of all, there’s also a really badly tempered old guy named Gramps on the trolley as well. Gramps, sad to say, doesn’t stick around for too long but for the first 30 minutes of the film, he was all that we could talk about on twitter…

What Worked?

Listen, if you’re going to bitch and whine about narrative logic, cheap special effects, and silly dialogue while watching a movie like Arachnoquake, you’re kinda missing the whole point of the film. This is a movie that was made to inspire people to talk back to the TV. Arachnoquake doesn’t take itself all that seriously and neither should you. I mean, yes, the spiders looked faintly ludicrous when they showed up in the bayou, chasing after a motorboat. But I suspect that was kind of the point.

Arachnoquake is a film that was made to be viewed as part of a communal experience. I understand that they actually had viewing parties down in New Orleans and I would have loved to have been at one of them! (And I think I could have gotten all sorts of beads tossed at me as well…) However, I settled for live tweeting the film on twitter and that was so much fun! I got to talk to other people who were watching and enjoying the film and even better, the film’s director and some of the performers (especially Megan Adelle) joined in on the live tweet and actually responded to those of us who were talking about their film. Not all of the comments were positive (at one point, director Griff Furst responded to one online critic with, “Blow me.”) but it was still a lot of fun and, if anything, it showed that the filmmakers knew and appreciated their audience. Both the film and the whole communal viewing experience were a lot of fun!

Finally, I think just about everyone on twitter agreed that the highlight of the film was the character of Gramps (played by Grant James). SyFy films are full of cantankerous old men but few are quite as cantankerous as Gramps. We were all a little bit sad to see Gramps die about 30 minutes into the film. Personally, I’m hoping that he returns in a sequel and gets to utter the line, “When you get to Hell, tell ’em Gramps sent you…”

I also hope that the sequel is set during Mardi Gras.

What Did Not Work?

(Spoiler Alert. Seriously, no joke — massive spoiler ahead)

The character played by Tracy Gold spend almost the entire film having an asthma attack and, finally, during the final 15 minutes of the film, she dies as a result. I have to admit that bothered me a lot, both because I actually have asthma but also, and more importantly, because it just felt jarringly out-of-place in what had been, up to that point, a really fun B-movie.

Don’t get me wrong — it wouldn’t have bothered me if Gold had been killed as the result of being wrapped up in a spider web or something. That would have worked well with the tone of the rest of the film. But having her die as a result of not having her inhaler — it just hit too close to home for me and it was just so different in tone from the rest of the film that it briefly made it difficult for me to get back into the right B-movie mindset that’s necessary to truly enjoy a film like Arachnoquake.

“OH MY GOD! Just like me!” Moments

Well, obviously, I related to poor Tracey Gold and her asthma attack. But, beyond that, I could also relate to all the characters in the film because I hate the thought of being in an earthquake and I don’t care much for spider. Especially gigantic albino ones that breathe fire…

Lessons Learned

I will always double-check to make sure I have my inhaler before I leave the house. Also, if I ever find myself stranded in the country with a gigantic albino spider coming towards me, I hope some greasy-haired guy is there to beat it to death with a softball bat while screaming, “Now that’s how you make jambalaya!”