When was above the rim made

Shawn Michael Howard Bobby as Bobby. Iris Little Thomas Waitress as Waitress. Michael Rispoli Richie as Richie. Eric Nies Montrose as Montrose. James Williams Speedy as Speedy. Tyrone Batista Tyrone as Tyrone. Jeff Pollack. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Story of Kyle-Lee Watson, a promising high school basketball star, and his relationships with Birdie, a powerful drug dealer, and Birdie's brother, Thomas 'Shep' Sheppard, himself once a promising high school star at Kyle's school, now employed as a security guard.

Crime Drama Sport Thriller. Rated R for pervasive strong language, and for violence. Did you know Edit. Trivia Tonya Pinkins played Duane Martin 's mother, although in real life Tonya is only three years his senior.

Goofs In the movie's first scene Shepard and Nutso are playing ball on a rooftop with a huge wall and glass window behind the basketball hoop.

When Nutso falls off of the roof the wall completely disappears. Quotes Shep : You think I came back here to work for you? Connections Featured in Al B.

User reviews 38 Review. But also in , Shakur was charged with felonious assault at a concert at Michigan State University. In November , he was charged with shooting two off-duty suburban Atlanta policemen. Those charges were eventually dropped. But shortly before Thanksgiving, Shakur, along with two associates, was charged with sexual assault of a woman in a New York City Parker Meridien hotel room.

The case remains an indelible stain on his career, and Shakur, until the day he died less than three years later, maintained his innocence, even as he served much of in prison for the crime.

In a landmark VIBE prison interview , Tupac talked about hanging around with hardened street players who showed him the baller life that New York City had to offer. Sometimes the thing that is your superpower is also your flaw. Pinkins only had one day of working with Shakur, but his confidence impressed her. He was funny too. Someone who made you think he was already at that level of international phenomenon. Shakur rarely got much sleep while filming Above the Rim.

His smile could light up a room, and his rage could clear one. Wayans can still hear his own mother warning him. I can see the talent in him. But you be careful of the elements around him. Justin Tinsley is a culture and sports writer for The Undefeated. Leon was great as the brooding and mysterious Thomas Sheppard, as was Wood Harris as the menacing Motaw.

I told them hands down, Allen Payne. I was disappointed that Al wasn't cast, but Duane Martin was amazing as Kyle.

Jeff Pollack directed some of the greatest basketball action sequences of all time. The camera movement on the court at the Rucker, and the symbiosis between the players, the crowd, and the court itself, was stunning. Like, forever. It's not a scene that I wrote—or even thought of, for that matter. Very strange.

Even as a kid, it seemed like some weird rite-of-passage, to show how tough you are. I got a call from one of my agents at William Morris, who said Tupac wanted to meet me. It was the day the film was to wrap, the day of the shoot-out tournament at the Rucker. David Bailey, who played Coach Rollins, walked over and introduced himself.

David and I caught the 10 bus in front of the Polo Grounds Houses across the street, and rode it all the way to Columbus Circle. At each stop in Harlem, the elderly black ladies gushed when they saw him. David told me he thought Tupac was one of the greatest actors he had ever worked with. Like Brando. I have never seen anything like it.

Not many young black men get chance to do that. This is a tough business. You did something great, and I am proud of you. As I think of that time 20 years ago, David Bailey's words take on a deeper meaning. He was 54 years young. Greater than usual. Blockbuster or indie, rom-com or action thriller, there was something indelible about so many of them. Throughout , Grantland will look back at some of the most memorable, beloved, and baffling releases of that magical time around their 20th anniversaries.

Hold a streetball tournament outside our office that ends with the losing team trying to shoot the winning team? Storm the L.

SportsCenter set wearing bandannas, point guns at Neil Everett and Stan Verrett, and force them to show highlights of Duane Martin dunking on 9-foot rims? Were you OK with this moment from a realism standpoint? Experimenting with ways to help players get better and improve the on-court product? Why not let each franchise decide what kind of death trap it would like to install in the area directly behind the baskets?

It could 1 be an effective tanking deterrent, and 2 eventually lead to some much-needed contraction when the entire Orlando Magic team goes the way of Nutso. But the Nutso subplot makes a good 40 percent of this movie completely insane, so every time stone-faced Shep pops up for the first hour, I end up laughing out loud.

And then by the final 30 minutes and the Uptown Shootout, I forget how insane it is, get hooked anyway, and start rooting for Shep to conquer his demons. So Nutso absolutely HAD to be a lunatic. And yet, Tommy Sheppard mourned Nutso as if he were an assassinated religious figure or something. RAFE: And what was that backboard made of? Would that have saved him from a life of working on spin moves with no ball in the middle of the night while wearing his long underwear?

So thank you, Tommy Sheppard. Thank you. I downloaded the ATR soundtrack as part of a larger pirating exercise, where I downloaded every album and bootleg Tupac ever made, and Above the Rim eventually became my favorite thing from the whole set.

The music here makes the movie percent better. If you ever find yourself wondering whether any soundtrack ranks no. Does it have Coolio greeting Earthlings? Does it have a track with Barry White and Chris Rock singing about basketball?

Or Bugs Bunny rapping about basketball on a track that was ghostwritten by Jay-Z? Is there still time? Can we CGI it? Everybody wants to roll with Birdie. I still say Popovich. My personal Tupac Movie Character power rankings:. Birdie, Above the Rim : He changed bandanna fashion forever.