Tag Archives: Cylk Cozart

Heaven Is A Playground (1991, directed by Randall Fried)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the projects of Chicago, Byron Harper (Michael Warren) runs a nonprofit basketball farming system and helps black kids, many of whom would have no other prospects other than a live of poverty or crime, to find a home in college basketball programs.  Byron is passionate about what he does but he’s also a stern taskmaster and not quick to forgive.  When one of his best players, Casey (Nigel Miguel), developed a drinking problem, Byron kicked him off his team.  Byron’s main concern is his stepson, Truth (Victor Love).  Truth is a great basketball player but also has an addiction to cocaine and an attitude problem.

For reasons that are never made clear, white lawyer Zack Telander (D.B. Sweeney) shows up on the court and says he wants to play one-on-one with Byron.  Everyone assumes that Zack is a drug dealer and they tell him to get lost.  But when one of the players is shot, Zack is the only person at the court who has a car.  Zack rushes the player to the hospital and he wins Byron’s trust.  Byron needs Zack to look over a professional contract that is being offered to Truth by sleazy sports agent David Racine (Richard Jordan).

For reasons that are again never made clear, Byron tells Zack to coach some of the more troubled players on the court, including Casey.  At first, Zack isn’t much of a coach but eventually, he gets the players to trust him and start playing like a team.  He also tries to get burned-out Matthew Lockhart (Bo Kimble) to start playing the game again.

Heaven Is A Playground is a mess of a movie that doesn’t really seem to be sure what it wants to say about basketball, the projects, or race relations.  The main problem is that a lot of the decisions made by Byron and Zack don’t make any sort of logical sense.  Moments of broad comedy are mixed with moments of high drama and it makes for an unconvincing and overly melodramatic sports movie.

Heaven Is A Playground had a long pre-production phase.  At one point, a young Michael Jordan agreed to play the role of Matthew Lockhart.  By the time the film actually went into production, Jordan was a superstar and had neither the time (nor, probably, the desire) to co-star in a low-budget sports movie.  After the movie flopped, director Randall Fried sued Jordan for breach-of-contract, claiming that he caused the film’s box office failure by refusing to appear in it and, as a result, Fried’s directorial career stalled.  In the suit, Fried claimed that he was on the verge of being “the next Steven Spielberg” until Jordan refused to do his film.  The jury found Jordan not liable and awarded him $50,000.

(Trying to sue Michael Jordan was a terrible idea in 1998 and it’s probably still a terrible idea today.  People love Jordan!)

Personally, I have to say that Mike made the right decision.

Fire Birds (1990, directed by David Green)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The South American drug cartels have been getting too aggressive so the American government decides to take them out with Apache helicopters.  Missions leaders Tommy Lee Jones and Dale Dye know that these helicopters are the ultimate weapons of death and that things could go terribly wrong if they recruit the wrong pilots.

So, of course, they get Nicholas Cage and Sean Young to fly them.

Fire Birds was an attempt to redo Top Gun with helicopters.  It does actually improve on Top Gun in that it gives the pilots an actual villain to fight.  The drug cartels and the German mercenary (Bert Rhine) that they hire are good B-movie villains and an improvement on the faceless and apparently nationless bad guys who showed up at the end of Top Gun.  What Fire Birds cannot improve on are the flying sequences because fighter planes are just more exciting than to watch than helicopters.

The best thing about the movie is that it brought Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones together and their acting styles mesh far better than I think anyone would expect.  Sean Young is about as believable as a helicopter pilot as you would expect her to be, which is to say not at all.  There’s a reason why Young’s best performance was as a robot.

“I.  Am.  The.  Greatest!” Nicolas Cage says in the movie and he sounds convinced.  Fire Birds makes the case that Cage is the greatest when it comes to making something bad watchable.  This movie would be thoroughly forgettable if not for his presence and the same can be said about a lot of other movies as well.  But, Tommy Lee Jones can lay claim to the “Greatest” title as well.   Five years after Fire Birds, Tommy Lee Jones would tell Jim Carrey, “I cannot sanction your buffoonery,” and the passage of time has shown that Jones knew what he was talking about.  Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones should make more movies together.

Conspiracy Theory (1997, directed by Richard Donner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jerry (Mel Gibson) is the taxi driver that most people would dread getting stuck with.  He’s obsessed with conspiracies, ranting and raving as he drives his passengers around New York City.  The moon landing was fake, he says.  The New World Order is real.  Fluoridation in mind control.  Freemasons control the world.  Black helicopters patrol the skies.  Implausibly, Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) enjoys listening to Jerry’s paranoid monologues but she finds them to be a lot less amusing when they turn out to be true.  Soon, she and Jerry are being pursued by Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart), the head of MK-Ultra and the man who bred Jerry to eventually become an assassin.

Conspiracy Theory has a good premise and a great Mel Gibson performance and Patrick Stewart is entertaining as the main bad guy.  Though it really is just a slightly above average 90s action film, Conspiracy Theory is still a movie that seems prophetic.  Many of Jerry’s theories were obscure and not well-known when the movie was first released, nearly 30 years ago.  Today, a lot of them have been popularized by social media and podcasts.  Conspiracies have gone mainstream.  Jerry would love listening to Joe Rogan today.  In fact, Jerry would probably have a podcast of his own.  Because the movie was released in 1997, a lot of the things that Jerry talks about feel quaint and almost old-fashioned when you compare them to what Jerry would be ranting about today.  Compared to today’s anti-vaxxers and 9-11 truthers, Jerry’s fear of the black helicopters seems harmless.  Or, at least, it does until the black helicopters suddenly show up in the middle of a chase scene, nearly invisible in the night sky.

Conspiracy Theory can’t really hold up to Richard Donner’s best films.  There aren’t as many memorable lines as in Lethal Weapon and it never finds the same balance between kitsch and art that Donner was able to find with both The Omen and Superman.  Donner still gets some good moments, like the opening montage where Jerry scares the Hell out of a yuppie passenger played by Alex McArthur.  I wish Conspiracy Theory had followed its premise through to its natural conclusion instead of having Jerry suddenly turn into what was then a typical Mel Gibson action hero.  (Today, of course, it would probably be much easier for audiences to accept the idea of Gibson playing a mentally ill, paranoid conspiracy theorist.)  Overall, though, both the movie and the theories hold your interest.

 

 

Hot Shots! (1991, directed by Jim Abrahams)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are a lot of reasons why it’s hard to take Top Gun seriously but, for me, the biggest problem is that I’ve seen Hot Shots!  Directed by Jim Abrahams, Hot Shots! does for Top Gun what Airplane! did for disaster movies.

Charlie Sheen plays Topper Harley, the hot shot Navy Pilot who is haunted by the death of his father.  (“I’ve even got my father’s eyes,” Topper says before revealing that he carries them around in a cigarette case.)  Topper has left the Navy and is living in a teepee with the Old One.  Command Block (Kevin Dunn) asks Topper to return to the Navy to take part in Operation Sleepy Weasel.  Topper puts on a leather jacket and hops on a motorcycle.  The Old One tells Topper to pick up some batteries for his walkman.

Cary Elwes plays Kent Gregory, who says that Topper is not safe in the air.  Valeria Golino plays Ramada, the psyciatrist who helps Topper deal with his father issues.  Jon Cryer is Washout, who has wall-eyed vision.  Kristy Swanson is Bo, the only female pilot.  William O’Leary is the pilot who has the perfect life and wife but who everyone calls “Dead Meat.”  And finally Lloyd Bridges is Admiral Tug Benson, who has never successfully landed a plane and who has suffered and recovered from almost every war wound imaginable.  Tug is clueless but he loves America and his admiral’s hat.

Hot Shots! is one of the better parody films to come out in the wake of Airplane!  Charlie Sheen’s limitations as a dramatic actor actually made him a good comedic actor and Cary Elwes does a decent Val Kilmer imitation.  Some of the jokes have definitely aged better than others.  In 1991, Valeria Golino singing on a piano automatically brought to mind Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabolous Baker Boys but does anyone remember that film (or that scene) in 2025?  (The 9 1/2 Weeks scene is even more of a distant memory to most but Valeria Golino is so appealing in those scenes that most viewers — well, most male viewers — won’t mind.  In this case, the parody is far more successful than the original.)  Hot Shots! is at its best when imitating Top Gun‘s kinetic, music video-inspired style.  The mix of quick-cut editing and ludicrous dialogue is hard to resist.  After watching Charlie Sheen dance on his motorcycle and Cary Elwes explain what a chafing dish is for, it’s hard to take Top Gun seriously ever again.

October Positivity: The 3 (dir by Chip Rossetti)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You don’t have to be a gun control fanatic to be horrified by the school shootings that seem to be a regular occurrence nowadays.

I mean, the thing with school is that, at a certain age, you’re pretty much forced to be there.  If you skip school, you could potentially get into a lot of trouble and, depending on where you live, your parents could get in a lot of trouble as well.  You’re not really given a choice about going to school so it’s not unreasonable to feel that you should at least be able to go to school without feeling like you’re going to die as a result.  Instead, children are now regularly subjected to active shooter drills and encouraged to snitch on any classmates who seem to be troubled.  Many are expected to start each day stepping through metal detectors while being eyeballed by security guards.  While I support the second amendment, I’m not particularly a huge fan of the idea of teachers being told to come to school armed so they can gun down any potential threats.  (Then again, when we have cops like the cowards in Uvalde, what choice do people have than to arm themselves?)  School shootings are a terrifying thing but what is even more terrifying is that people are starting to get used to type this violence.  It’s no longer an automatic shock to hear that there’s been a shooting at a school.  Often times, the incidents are in and out of the news within days.

2019’s The 3 is a film that deals with the aftermath of a school shooting.  One day, divorced dad Jimmy Collins (Jeff Armstrong) sends his daughter, Brittany (Kate Kilcoyne), out of the house and to school.  He barely even says goodbye to her.  A few hours later, Jimmy gets a call from ex-wife, Susan (Jessica Bell).  Jimmy thinks that Susan is calling to yell at him about a late alimony check but instead, she tells him to turn on the news.  There’s been a shooting at the school and, as we soon learn, Brittany is dead.

After the funeral, Jimmy wants to lock himself away from the world and basically drink himself into unconsciousness.  (He refuses the comfort of the local pastor, despite the fact that the pastor’s wife is played by Tina Wesson, the winner of the second season of Survivor.)  Instead, Jimmy is visited by three spirits.  The first spirit is Jimmy’s Dad (Darryl Worley), who talks about the events that led to him committing suicide and who essentially dares Jimmy to follow the same path.  The third spirit is …. well, he doesn’t give his name but the fact that he’s played by Jefferson Moore, the star of the Perfect Stranger series, should give the audience a clue as to who he is.  And, appearing in between these two, is Brittany.  Brittany talks about her short life and shares memories, both good and bad, with her father.  She also tells her father that he has to let go of her but, of course, neither Jimmy nor Susan can bring themselves to do that.

It’s a well-acted and effective film.  It’s certainly far more sensitive than you might expect from a film directed by the same guy who did Right to Believe.  It’s a film that explores the horror of everyday violence and which makes its theological case without coming across as being overly preachy.  That said, the film cheats a bit at the end, giving Jimmy an opportunity that doesn’t quite seem to go along with the film’s theme.  It allows the film to have a happy ending but it still feels a bit like a cop out.  That said, though, The 3 turned out to be far better than I was expecting.

A Movie A Day #85: Blue Skies Again (1983, directed by Richard Michaels)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

As Lisa said in her review of Night Game, Erin asked for baseball reviews today and there is no way you can turn down Erin.  So, I watched Blue Skies Again on YouTube.

The Denver Devils is a minor league baseball team that is coming off of its worst season ever.  The new owner (Harry Hamlin) is only concerned with making money and does not know anything about baseball.  The veteran coach (Kenneth McMillan) does not have the respect of his players.  Teammates like Ken (Andy Garcia), Calvin (Joseph Gian), and Wall Street (Cylk Cozart) are worried that they could lose their place on the team at any moment.  The only good news is that two sports agents (Mimi Rogers and Dana Elcar) have found the perfect prospect for the Devils.  This player can play second base.  This player can catch a grounder and turn it into a double play.  This player can hit the ball out of the park.  The only problem?  The player’s name is Paula (Robyn Barto) and she’s a girl!

Robyn Barto was asked to audition after a casting director saw her playing softball for her community college.  Blue Skies Again was her first film role.  In the role of a professional baseball player, Barto was a very convincing softball player.  But Barto was likable and had an engaging screen presence so it’s too bad that this movie was not only her first but also her last.  In the publicity leading up to the release of Blue Skies Again, Barto got to throw out the opening pitch at a Dodger game but that was it for her time in the spotlight.  According to one article that I found that was written ten years after the release of Blue Skies Again, Barto never regretted not having a film career and ended up coaching the softball team at her old high school.

Blue Skies Again was not only the debut of Robyn Barto but also the first feature film for both Mimi Rogers and Andy Garcia.  Garcia does not get to do much but Mimi Rogers shows off the sexy and fun screen presence that always makes me wonder why she never really became a big star.

Blue Skies Again is an okay movie but it does not add up to much.  No one wants to play with a girl but then she gets a hit so everyone changes their mind.  It’s the type of movie that, today, would be made for Hallmark or the Family Channel.  It’s a nice baseball movie but it can’t compare to the real thing.