Charlie Sheen

Movie star Charlie Sheen is angry with me.He has been in Baltimore filming "Major League II" and he read a column of mine he did not like.So he sent me a letter. It is handwritten mostly in capital letters. I have bleeped out the swear words:"ROGER -- READ YOUR 'COMMENTARY' REGARDING THE SOUTHLAND FIRES OF LAST WEEK. HOW 'BOUT 'F--- YOU!' HOW'S IT FEEL TO BE SO EMPTY & JEALOUS? HOW'S IT FEEL TO WEAR FAKE HAIR ON YOUR HEAD? HOW'S IT FEEL TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND KNOW THAT'S THE ONLY HAND YOU WERE DELT [sic]

Care to make a magic memory? Give your favorite baseball fanatic the gift of a lifetime: a minuscule part in a baseball movie. Yes, you can be a star! Light up the firmament, glow in the company of Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. (Would you settle for Charlie Sheen?)It turns out that a portion of "Major League II," a Hollywood production, will be filmed in Oriole Park at Camden Yards next month. The producers need lots of warm bodies to flesh out the crowds for a celluloid Cleveland Indians game.

The Baysox may take a detour to Hollywood before they reach Bowie.Team owner Peter Kirk met this week with executives of Morgan Creek Productions to discuss plans for the filming of the sequel to "Major League" at Memorial Stadium and said, "It looks real good."We've made a proposal to them and if they accept, filming would begin in August. I'd say it's 95 percent certain this will happen.""Major League II" would be shot on location around Baltimore and executives have explored Frederick and Hagerstown as possible settings for scenes.

Time was when the number of good baseball movies numbered in the, oh, ones: "Pride of the Yankees," maybe another. These days they tumble out of Hollywood and #i elsewhere in pairs and threes, a fact attested to by an American Movie Classics tribute entitled "Diamonds on the Silver Screen," scheduled for showing on the eve of the World Series, Oct. 15.From the opening scene, wherein Tracy says to Hepburn, "I'd like to take you to a baseball game," in...

CADENCE'Republic Pictures Home Video$92.98"Cadence," consistently enjoyable in its mix of drama and comedy, is the antithesis of blockbuster. It's a small-budget project, set primarily in an Army stockade, and care is paid to elements like character development and believable story line -- instead of battle scenes and bombing runs.The setting is Europe, during the early days of the Vietnam War. Charlie Sheen plays a no-good American teen named Bean, who finds himself in the Army, though he seems more destined for jail.

What the Parthenon was to the architecture of classical pTCGreece, what "War and Peace" was to the historical novel and what Beethoven's Ninth was to symphonic form, "Hot Shots" is to truly tasteless movies."

THE KRAYS(RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, $89.95, May 23. Directed by Peter Medak. Featuring Martin Kemp and Gary Kemp.)There were so many gangster-crime dramas released last year, it was inevitable that some good ones would be overlooked by audiences. "Miller's Crossing" was one. "The Krays" was another. This film, from director Peter Medak, and based on the ** true story of '60s London's most famous and feared crime lords, is brutal and astonishing and quite powerful.Like Martin Scorsese, Mr. Medak uses violence not for shock value and not to titillate -- the blood spilled here (and there is a lot of it)

''Cadence'' is a small, sketchy little movie, with more faults than you can count. Despite its shortcomings, however, the new film is most effective, even moving at times.Charlie Sheen stars. His father, Martin Sheen, co-stars and served as director. Sheen was to direct from the start, then took over the co-starring role when Gary Busey had to withdraw from the cast.The film brings many others to mind, among them, ''A Soldier's Story,'' ''From Here to Eternity,'' ''The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,'' ''Bridge on the River Kwai'' and the more recent ''Full Metal Jacket.

'Cadence'Starring Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen.Directed by Martin Sheen.Released by Republic Pictures.Rated PG-13.... ** If "Cadence" weren't so entertaining, it would be a lot easier dismiss.Fundamentally, it's the kind of naive-liberal pipe dream of the '50s, a sort of politically correct combination of "Billy Budd" and "The Defiant Ones" that, however well-intentioned, ends up telling us that the point of unjustly imprisoned black people is to improve young white people. Charlie Sheen plays a young soldier stationed in West Germany in 1965.

'The Rookie'Starring Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen.Directed by Clint Eastwood.Released by Warner Bros.Rated R.**The guns are back in town.Clint Eastwood's Uzi-crazy, loony, ramshackle buddy picture "The Rookie" might just as well have been titled "On the Road to Beirut." Whenever the plot gets boring, everybody pulls out their heat and begins Swiss-cheesing the world. It's a $30-million Fearless Fosdick cartoon.Seeing it is like visiting a shooting range without ear protection. If you can overcome your flinch, you'll discover that it's pretty silly stuff, but not without some energy and entertainment value -- at least until it turns quite ugly at the end.Once again Eastwood insists on directing himself.