Seriously. Chill Factor is playing on late night TV right now and, good lord, is this ever a bad movie. And it's not like it's his only offense. Cuba's filmography features WAY more dogs than anything even approaching respectability and yet the guy's got four more films in various stages of production right now. Does he have embarrassing nude photos of a host of studio executives or is Hollywood really that desperate for inoffensive, blandly marketable black talent? Any world where Cuba Gooding Jr works more and is paid better than Don Cheadle is, arguably, a world not worth living in. Enough already.
I guess family oriented comedies are the way to go in order to have a estable career in hollywood, specially if you are already 50+, Tim Allen has made his whole career out of that stuff, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy are doing the same. They are pointless films that neverless will always mean a safe check.
Martin and Murphy have some legitimate classics to their names, though. Gooding, not so much. Even Allen's capable of doing some good work from time to time ...
To be honest, Todd. Just because someone has a number of bad films, doesn't mean he can't earn a living. You could say the same for Nic Cage, and who could live without Nic Cage.
Ooh that's harsh but I agree. This man needs a new agent pronto. Gooding is one of the proofs of the Oscar curse.
Are we so hard-pressed for news around here that we're resorting to bitchy condecensions? Sheesh. Gooding may not be the best actor in the world and his Jerry McGuire win might have been a timely fluke, but, the man's still working, even if he is selling underwear with Michael Jordan. In a business where audiences are so fickle they're lethal (Twitch now being a case in point), you have to at least give him credit for that.
Working the Gooding speedbag, are we? He's pretty good in AMERICAN GANGSTER, I must say. In the right role, the man can impress. In BOAT TRIP... not so much.
I thought he was alright in MEN OF HONOUR although the film was a bit cliched.
As an actor I'll give him BOYZ N THE HOOD with no qualms at all. Beyond that, his choice in material has been more or less awful. He's really far more interested in getting his kids to hockey practice and making sure they're financially taken care of than he is in being the big-time movie star that his BOYZ performance hinted at (in my opinion, at least). For contractual reasons I shouldn't say more about how I know this, as it relates to a non-fiction project I had been involved with that fell apart, and remains a great big contractual grey area, whose non-disclosure clauses are to be taken quite seriously.
Point being, I gotta cut him a little slack. It doesn't excuse CHILL FACTOR, but I can't bash the guy.
His choice in material has been dictated by Hollywood. We've all seen HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, haven't we? Given that he's not going to get roles that Denzel W or perhaps even Boris Kodjoe are up for, his choices are fairly limited, Oscar notwithstanding. It's probably in his best interest to start looking at TV for work in good roles . . . if that's what he's looking for.
Don't think one has to have insider info to know he's worried about his family's security as much as he is about great reviews.