Cleavant Derricks Movies

Following up on his acclaimed debut The Myth of Fingerprints, Bart Freundlich spins this drama that poses the question "what would it be like to run away from your life?" The film centers on a restless thirtysomething New Yorker named Cal (Billy Crudup) who one day drives off into the open road, leaving his wife and infant son behind. A series of flashbacks describe Cal's domestic malaise and disillusionment with his life. On the road, Cal encounters a number of unusual characters who are similarly tethered and drifting. One is named Dulcie (Julianne Moore), an emotionally fragile woman looking for her lost son. Through his interaction with Dulcie, Cal reflects on his own family and soon finds himself heading to his boyhood home where his father lives. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Although she has turned her back on the poor, violence-ridden East Saint Louis ghetto of her birth, Brianna (Suzanne Douglas) is reluctantly drawn back to the old neighborhood for her annual Yuletide visit with LaBelle (Ruby Dee), the mother of her husband Robert (Cleavant Derricks). Brianna is clearly unhappy about visiting LaBelle, and even more so when the old woman generously opens her doors to an seedy derelict named Gabe (Ossie Davis). The situation takes a tragic turn when Robert is killed in a carjacking, whereupon LaBelle offers to help Brianna out until she can get back on her financial feet. But Brianna is too proud, and too stubborn, to accept such an offer, and it takes Monica (Roma Downey) to lead Brianna down the path to salvation--with a little help from Gabe, who blows a mean trumpet (yes, he's THAT "Gabe"!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Season Two of the Fox sci-fi-fantasy series Sliders finds college student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell) and his friends Wade (Sabrina Lloyd), Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), and Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) using the timing device he has invented to hopscotch around dozens of alternate versions of his native San Francisco, as the foursome desperately seek a way to return to their own world. In the season opener "Into the Mystic", the sliders pop up in a contemporary San Francisco ruled by magicians, whereupon Quinn becomes a hunted man when he refuses to pay his witch doctor's bill. Other typical episodes this season include "The Good, the Bad, and the Wealthy", in which San Francisco is part of the Nation of Texas; "Obsession", depicting a bizarro Frisco controlled by evil psychics; and "Greatfellas", in which the foursome emerge in a modern world where Prohibition has never ended, with San Francisco in thrall of old-fashioned gangsters. And foreshadowing of season three, wherein Quinn and company move beyond San Francisco and slide throughout the world and the universe, our heroines (and heroine) meet a band of fellow sliders from another planet in "Invasion." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Originally telecast on the Fox network, season one of Slidersopens as college student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell) develops a device resembling a TV remote-control which enables him to open a portal to what seems to be a different universe. Entering the portal, he is disappointed to find that he is right back where he started, in the San Francisco of 1995. And yet, there are subtle differences: Elvis Presley still lives, the colors of traffic lights are reversed (green now means stop), and so on. Clearly he has stepped into some sort of parallel San Francisco, and upon this discovery, Quinn summons his grumpy psychic professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) and his computer-store co-worker (and erstwhile girlfriend) Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd) to test out the device again. Inadvertently swept into the trio's next foray into an alternate world is Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), a has-been pop singer en route to a gig that might have enabled him to make a comeback. In rapid succession, the four sliders end up in a contemporary San Francisco still mired in the Ice Age, then emerge in the same city at the same time -- only now San Francisco is a satellite of the old Soviet Union! For the rest of the series' first season, the protagonists hopscotch through a variety of alternate worlds in their efforts to return to their own world. In the process, they foment a second American Revolution (seems the British won the first one back in 1776); they save a parallel San Francisco from destruction by an asteroid; they enter a realm in which the '60s hippie movement is still alive and well; they show up in a Frisco where women hold all the big jobs and men are subservient; and, in the series finale, Wade is targeted for extermination when, in a utopian San Francisco, she draws a winning lottery ticket that doubles as her death warrant (shades of Shirley Jackson!). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dan gets jealous when he believes his work buddy Arnie has kissed Roseanne. This is the first appearance of the reoccurring character Arnie, as played by Tom Arnold, the actor who would later marry the real-life Roseanne in 1990. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Now that he knows Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) is pregnant, David (Bruce Willis) is pressured to do the "right thing" by Maddie's overprotective father Alexander (Robert Webber). Meanwhile, our harried hero must also deal with the increasingly disgruntled employees of the Blue Moon Detective Agency. It is clear by this point that David and Maddie love each other--and also that they may very well allow false pride to impede their future happiness. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this charming comedy that lives up to its title, Judge Reinhold stars as Joe Gower, a librarian's assistant posing as a police officer and trying to win the heart of a beautiful police officer, Rachel Wareham (Meg Tilly). A complex chain of events is put in place when Joe agrees to help out a good friend who's a policeman by taking his place at an audition for the cop's annual benefit show. Once at the auditions, Joe falls for Rachel, who will be dancing in the benefit. Joe starts hanging out with the choreographer in order to spend more time with Rachel. Unfortunately, this gets him into his borrowed police uniform more than he would like, and soon he's carrying out the duties of a beat cop while wearing his disguise. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Robin Williams stars as Vladimir Ivanoff, a Russian sax player working in a circus whose home life with his warm and colorful family does not compensate for his feelings of repression and lost opportunity in his native land. When the circus comes to New York, Williams goes on a shopping trip to Bloomingdale's -- where he suddenly announces his intention to defect. Befriended and given a place to stay by security guard Lionel Witherspoon (Cleavant Derricks), Vladimir makes the slow and sometimes painful transition from Russian to American citizen, helped along by his lady love (and fellow immigrant), Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso), and immigration attorney (and onetime Cuban refugee) Orlando Ramirez (Alejandro Rey). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paul Newman stars as an essentially decent cop patrolling that decimated, drug-and-gang-ridden borough known on the city maps as the Bronx, but known to its denizens as "Fort Apache". While Newman tries to hold on to his basic humanity and to treat even the sorriest of the people on his beat with dignity, he can't do much to convince his superiors that blind brutality is not the answer to social blight. When he witnesses fellow-cop Danny Aiello cold-bloodedly murdering a crime suspect, Newman is advised to sweep the whole incident under the rug. He refuses to do so, and as a result becomes "persona non grata" to his former friends on the force. Ed Asner co-stars as the beleaguered captain who has given up trying to treat his job as anything but a necessary evil, while Rachel Ticotin is Newman's love interest. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi