Films I've seen recently

A few days ago, I decided to watch Jerry Maguire. Earlier in the year, I had watched many films that were nominated for the 1996 awards (Fargo, The English Patient, Secrets And Lies, Shine, Sling Blade), but I never got around to watching Jerry Maguire. I thought it was entertaining, but I had several problems with it. First of all, the movie dragged towards the end and I thought there needed to be more explanation (spoiler alert!)about why Jerry and Dorothy split up before they got back together at the end. Another problem I had is that the entertainment weekly critics in their "critics choices" article were saying that this film is some sort of meditation on corporate values. But I don't feel that it does that at all, nor does it aim to do that. The performances were, overall, quite good. Tom Cruise was great and has wonderful chemistry with the excellent Zellweger. Cuba Gooding J.R's performance seems universally hated, but I didn't hate it. I just thought it was sub-par and not oscar worthy. That said, I enjoyed this movie. Another movie that I saw was The Crucible, another 1996 film. At first, I didn't like it and it has some HORRIBLE acting, but it grew on me towards the end. Despite what I said about the acting, I was very impressed by Joan Allen's performance. She was superb as Elizabeth Proctor and was the soul of the film.