Troy Beyer

Marshall Uzzle's 2002 direct-to-video horror picture A Light in the Darkness concerns Taylor Melnick (Matt Terzian), a former mental patient who is discharged after four years in a sanitarium. He returns to his hometown and runs head-first into his own psychoses, then decides to seek violent revenge against the town for the treatment he received, axe-in-hand. Geoffrey Lewis, Troy Beyer and the legendary Karen Black co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Troy Beyer wrote, directed and stars in this Miami-based comedy-drama about advice columnist Jazz (Beyer) who plans a TV show, has a week to pull together a pilot, and enlists her best friends Michelle (Paget Brewster) and Lena (Randi Ingerman). With the basic premise of women discussing relationships, the trio intends to "find out what makes girls tick," a device for both sexual discussion and bedroom re-enactments. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a basketball fan figures she could be a better coach than the guy getting paid millions to do the job -- and then gets the chance to prove it. Edwina "Eddie" Franklin (Whoopi Goldberg) is a limousine dispatcher and sometime driver who is a passionate New York Knicks fan; she loyally follows their every move, attending as many home games as possible from the cheap seats and radioing game updates to her drivers when they play during her working hours. The Knicks are purchased by eccentric Southern millionaire Wild Bill Burgess (Frank Langella) in the middle of a long losing streak; when Wild Bill calls for a limo, Eddie arranges to drive him herself, and gives him a piece of her mind about the sad state of the team. Impressed, Wild Bill makes Eddie an honorary coach for the night, and her spitfire attitude and encouragement of the players impresses her. However, Wild Bill thinks putting on a show to boost attendance is more important than having a winning team, and eventually Knicks coach Bailey (Dennis Farina) quits in disgust. Wild Bill gets the bright idea of hiring Eddie as the team's new head coach; she considers it an honor, and at only $50,000 a year, he considers it a bargain. While Eddie is hardly an experienced leader, she soon learns how to motivate her team, and against all odds she helps pull the Knicks out of their losing streak -- but now has to face Wild Bill, who is losing interest in the team and wants to sell. Several real-life NBA stars make cameo appearances, including Dennis Rodman, John Salley, Rick Fox, and Mark Jackson, while prominent New Yorkers David Letterman and Donald Trump play themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When they discover that their deceased boss had stashed away two million illegally embezzled dollars in a Caribbean safe deposit box, two co-workers decide to claim the cash. To do so, however, they must convince everyone the boss is actually alive -- a situation which seems oddly familiar to them both. This sequel to the popular 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie's promises more of the same: slapstick with an amazingly lifelike corpse at the center. Whatever freshness the premise may have once had has vanished, however, and the occasionally clever set pieces become lost under the weight of a number of cluttered subplots. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Loosely based on the life and times of several R&B artists (The Dells, The Temptations, Frankie Lymon, Sam Cooke and others) The Five Heartbeats traces the rise and fall of a popular African-American 1950s singing aggregation. The story is told from the point of view of one of the "Heartbeats," played by Robert Townsend (who also co-produced, directed and co-wrote the script with Keenan Ivory Waynans). The film is an amalgam of anecdotes drawn from real-life experiences: the long struggle upward, the first rush of success, the dishonest record-company executives, the hard-nosed but nurturing managers, the sex, the drugs, the isolation and the precipitous downward slide. The film begins and ends in the 1990s, as the middle-aged "Duck" (Townsend) ruminates on the past and makes the best of the present. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in the Manhattan street milieu that served him well in West Side Story, Robert Wise’s Rooftops tells the story of T, a quiet, soft-spoken teen-ager who has left his broken home and is living in a makeshift shelter in an old water tower on top of an abandoned tenement building. There are other kids like him, including Squeak, a talented graffiti artist who joins T after an altercation involving his mother’s boy friend. T and Squeak manage to scrape together what little money they need through minor sins (stripping cars, etc.), and at night all these street inhabitants get together in a vacant lot to “combat” dance, in which they use a combination of karate and dancing to force an opponent off of a platform. Into this mix comes Lobo, a drug dealer who moves into T’s building and turns it into a crack house. Lobo’s beautiful cousin Elana serves as his lookout – not because she wants to, but because her father’s heart attack has left her family in dire financial straits. T and Elana become interested in each other, but T and Lobo are at odds with each other – which fact leads to a showdown in which T must put his “combat” skills to good use. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Though devastated by the news that her parents are divorcing, Whitley (Jasmine Guy) tries to make the best of things as she prepares to spend Christmas with her father Mercer (Conroy Gedeon). But the Holiday may be over before it begins when she comes face to face with her dad's very-much-younger girlfriend Monica (Troy Beyer). Meanwhile, Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison) tries to impress Denise (Lisa Bonet) by passing his pal Ron (Darryl M. Bell) off as his personal servant; and the rest of the gang faces embarrassment after complaining about some "surprise" gifts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide