What happened to you, Cuba? The Oscar Academy should ask for their Oscar back. Cuba Gooding tries his hardest at physical comedy and shtick, but fails miserably. He often gives these off-key and ridiculous facial expressions, often looking like a fool. When he tries to be sincere, he also comes off as an idiot. The scenery looks so artificial, despite the fact it takes place in Alaska. Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Macguire, Boat Trip) plays Ted Jones a famous Miami dentist who enjoys his commercial wealth and success.
Tag Archives: Family
Stolen Summer (2002)
Set in 1976, young Pete O’Malley (newcomer Adiel Stein) lives in a suburb with his Irish Catholic family. He is told by a nun he will go to hell if he continues his bratty ways. Scared by this comment, he decides to go on a “quest” and convert a Jewish person into a Catholic so they can get to heaven. He then meets Jewish boy Danny Jacobsen, the son of a rabbi who is suffering from Leukemia, and the two go on a “quest” to get Danny into heaven. I was rather curious to see this, due to the amount of attention this received from many. The entire movie relies on the performance of Adiel Stein, who does a pretty good job in the film. He’s charming and wide-eyed with a lot of enthusiasm and does a good job. The best aspects of this movie, though, are the character actors that make this enjoyable.
Signs (2002)
In director M. Night Shyamalan’s third directorial outing in the supernatural genre, he tells the story of Father Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), an ex-preacher whose lost his faith in god and quit the church, living in seclusion with his two kids and brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) raising crops and living a generally quiet life. One fate-filled morning, Graham’s son Cole (Rory Culkin) discovers their crops in which they raise have been lowered into the forms of mysterious signs known as crop circles. What ensues is the psychological and emotional horror that will test Graham’s faith and devotion to god and his family. Are the crop circles signs from god, signals from aliens, or do they signal the coming of the apocalypse?
An American Rhapsody (2001)
The movie is actually very tense in the beginning as we start in black and white bringing the feel of “Schindler’s List” as we watch the young couple attempting to escape the country of Hungary. I love the emphasis on each of the characters; Tony Goldwyn is great and has great chemistry with Nastassja Kinski. We then go to color where we see the two attempting to adjust to fifties American suburban life, and they slowly do. When they get their daughter Suzanne back, it’s all the more interesting, because she not only must adjust to a new country, but to a new life and family she never knew.
The Crocodile Hunter – Collision Course (2002)
I watch the “Crocodile Hunter” television show, and to those of you people who don’t know, Steve Irwin is a professional wildlife explorer who studies vicious wildlife. Don’t be fooled by his name though, he’s more of a Crocodile preserver than hunter. I was rather curious to discover how Hollywood which has the ability to squeeze the life out of a phenomenon would handle this, and I was rather surprised. The good thing about this movie is that they don’t try to make actors out of the two explorers on which the movie focuses on.
Spy Kids (2001)
Two kids discover their supposedly uncool parents are famous secret spies. When the parents get caught by an evil genius, they must band together and rescue their parents. This is such a nice movie. Not for its action or acting, but for its simplicity. It makes so many attempts at being nonviolent even though there is a lot of martial-arts scenes, and no guns. James Bond would be proud of these kids. The two offspring of enemy secret spies turned lovers obtain the elements of being a spy, though they don’t know it yet. Alexa Vega’s character is the oldest sister and contains the physical abilities and ferocity of a spy, and Daryl Sabara’s character obtains the mental and technological abilities it takes to be a spy.
Joe Somebody (2001)
Joe Scheffer is an honest workaday man who loves his daughter. One day while driving to work with his daughter Natalie he gets harshly humiliated by a bigger man in the parking lot. After feeling embarrassed, he decides to prove himself to his daughter and begins taking karate lessons with a washed up action star Chuck Scarett to seek revenge on the bully. But after a while, he begins to wonder if fighting is the best way to solve the problem and if being a man means fighting or just being an honest man to the people that matter in life. Comedies, family comedies especially are very lame if not predictable nowadays, so it was a treat watching an original one like this.


