Olivia Cole

Gospel-minded playwright David E. Talbert produces, writes, and directs this urban crime comedy concerning a pair of criminals who take a group of church parishioners hostage while attempting to rob the holy house, only to find their captives slowly convincing them to repent and give up their lawless lifestyles. Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan) are two best friends with a special knack for petty crime. Upset at discovering that his ex-girlfriend is planning to move out of state with the couple's young son, Durell knows that the only way to keep his fractured family in close proximity to one another is to raise the 17,000 dollars needed to pay off her growing debt. In order to get the money before his ex decides to make the big move, the desperate Durell enlists the aid of his scheming best buddy to rob their neighborhood church. But someone has beaten Durell and LeeJohn to the punch, and if they ever hope to get their hands on that quick cash, this bumbling pair will first have to spend an entire night in the presence of not just the almighty lord, but some of his most fervent followers as well. Katt Williams, Keith David, Regina Hall, and Chi Mcbride co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

In New Orleans, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) attends the funeral of a legendary jazz musician. She also gets involved in a murder investigation--this one twenty years old, stemming from the unsolved slaying of the late musician's sweetheart. Evidently the reopening of this case also opens a few old wounds, as proven when the musician's favorite bass player also turns up dead. This episode boasts a strong cast of top African American character actors, among them Beah Richards and Julius Harris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Fig Tree was the opening installment of the 1987-88 season of PBS' Wonderworks series. Set in 1903 Texas, the story concerns Miranda (Karron Graves), an 8-year-old whose mother died when she was very young. Like the most of the rest of her family, Miranda has never come to terms with her mother's death. Only great-aunt Eliza (Doris Roberts), an erstwhile naturalist, seems willing or able to help Miranda on the road to emotional maturity. Based on a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, The Fig Tree premiered October 10, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The setting is New Orleans, where a prominent jazz musician is killed onstage in full view of a nightclub audience. It turns out that the victim was done in by a rare South American poison. So what does all this have to do with Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury? Well, it seems that a similar murder with the same weapon occurred in one of Jessica's mystery novels--a most embarrassing turn of events, especially since Jessica was in the audience at the time of the real murder! B-picture icons Robert Clarke and Jackie Joseph show up in supporting roles in this episode, which also boasts an unusually strong (for 1985!) cast of prominent African American actors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this poignant adaptation of James Baldwin's novel about a few generations in the life of an Afro-American family, a young boy's efforts to gain some approval from his Bible-thumping, disciplinarian father takes center stage, and the family's background is told in a series of flashbacks. The story begins in 1935 with young Southerner Gabriel Grimes (Paul Winfield) as he runs away from home and takes on the identity of a Baptist lay preacher. Childless by his timid first wife, Gabriel has an illegitimate son by Esther (Alfre Woodard), an irresistible temptress. Unfortunately, the son comes to no good, forcing an embittered Gabriel to move to Harlem and start over with another wife, and eventually, two more sons. But the man has by this time gone over the edge and is filled with a rage against the vicissitudes of his life (he cannot get ahead in the church and is forced to work as a day laborer just to keep food on the table). He takes out his anger on his family and is so single-mindedly fanatical about religion that he forces his sons to join regular home Bible study to the exclusion of all other activities -- especially those promoted by the white-dominated society outside of Harlem. When his timid but intelligent son John (James Bond III) wins a writing honor, Gabriel makes him give it back -- and in general, his fanaticism and anger turn life into intermittent misery for the talented and sensitive son who loves writing. John's desire to please his father is all the more touching when the impossibility of pleasing him is so obvious. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Richard Pryor gives a compelling performance in Some Kind of Hero, playing a Vietnam veteran who tries to readjust to civilian life. Pryor plays Eddie Keller, who has just spent five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. Most of the time there, Eddie was able to hold his own against his captors, but he eventually was forced to sign a statement denouncing United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Eddie decided to sign the document in order to insure that his friend Vinnie (Ray Sharkey) would be given proper medical treatment. Because of this denunciation, when Eddie returns home from the war he is denied his back pay. He also discovers that his wife has left him for another man, his business has fallen apart, and his mother has been sent to an asylum. Eddie falls into a deep depression and hits rock bottom. But he meets a friendly prostitute, Toni (Margot Kidder), who helps him straighten out his life. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV Fly Away Home was intended as the pilot for a weekly series. Bruce Boxleitner stars as Carl Danton, a combat photographer assigned to Vietnam. This time around, Danton is compelled to cover the Tet Offensive--and to battle with bureaucratic red tape in order to maintain his journalistic integrity. A subplot concerns internal corruption involving an otherwise respectable Vietnamese family. Featured in the cast as Denton's Vietnamese lady friend Mai is Tiana Alexandra, the wife of the film's producer/screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Fly Away Home first aired September 18, 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ernest J. Gaines' short story The Sky is Gray was adapted for television by Charles Fuller. James Bond III plays the son of black sharecropper Olivia Cole in this haunting period piece. Young Bond takes a trip to the city with his mother, where he experiences at close quarters the hatred and prejudice that his mother has tried to shield him from. Both mother and son manage to emerge from the experience with strengthened pride. The 46-minute The Sky is Gray was first telecast April 7, 1980 on PBS' American Short Stories anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hal Ashby's 1978 melodrama examines the impact of the Vietnam War on the "war at home" among the men who fought it and the women in their lives. Left alone in Los Angeles when her gung-ho Marine husband Bob (Bruce Dern) heads to Vietnam in 1968, proper wife Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) decides to volunteer at the V.A. hospital where her new friend Vi (Penelope Milford) works. There she meets Luke Martin (Jon Voight), a former high-school classmate and Marine who has returned from 'Nam a bitter paraplegic. As their relationship grows, Sally sees the effect of the war on the soldiers after they come back, inspiring her to rethink her priorities; Luke's spirits begin to lift, and a hospital tragedy helps focus his anger toward meaningful protest. After a Hong Kong visit with her increasingly withdrawn husband, Sally finds a love and companionship with Luke that she had never known with her husband. Once Bob comes home with his own injury, however, the three must find a way to deal with a changing world and with a system that betrayed the men fighting for it. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide