Jerry McGuire and Monster's Ball

An Unlikely pairing, Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. star in the next file that add to the series of reveiws where African American actors took home the coveted Academy Acting Award. In, Jerry Maguire, a professional sports agent, Jerry Maguire, whose leap of ne found faith leads him to write a statement that promotes better service, fewer clients, and less focus on the bottom line. After he sends out the mission statement to his cohorts, Jerry is fired from his job. 

He decides to go out on his own and to form his own agency, but is only able to convince one of his clients, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., to stay with him, and another one of his former employees to join his new company. It was in this role that Cuba Gooding Jr. won the Academt Award for Acting for his role as Rod Tidwell, a cocky professional football player. 

It keeps getting better and better. We only have to wait a few more years, isntead of a few decades, before we see another African American win the Academy Award for acting. This is when Monster’s ball is released. The movie follows Hank Grotowski, played by Billy Bob Thorton, a widower, who works as a prison guard. Hank’s son, Sonny, played by Heath Ledger works with him at the prison. They both reside with Hank's ailing father, Buck, played by Peter Boyle who happens to be a racist who drove his own wife to suicide. Hank hates his father because of how Buck's hate has now become his own, in so far as how he treats Sonny as well as black members of his neighboring community. 

Hank and Sonny help in the execution of Lawrence Musgrove, played by Sean “P.Diddy” Combs, the husband of Leticia, played by Halle Berry, who went on to receive the Academy Award for acting for her role. Leticia’s son is shown to have taken on his father’s murderous traits.