What's Cookin'

It takes place in a few hours on Thanksgiving day on one corner in the Fairfax section of L.A. In the four houses reside a Vietnamese family, a black family, a Jewish family, and a Mexican family. All four families have some generational conflicts, all four have their uplifting moments of togetherness, and their moments of friction, blah blah yadda yadda.

DVD info from Amazon.

Widescreen anamorphic, 1.85:1
no significant features except recipes

Mainly, it's just a bunch of politically correct boredom, and I strongly suggest you avoid it unless you want to see lots of good food. (The DVD even includes the recipes from the four families)

If you're like me, you'll have completely forgotten it by the time you take the movie out of your video player. Tomorrow I won't remember the name. By next week, I won't be able to tell you one thing about it. If I see it again in a month, I'll think "haven't I seen this before?". But I won't be sure.

The Critics Vote

General consensus: slightly less than three stars. Ebert 3.5/4, Berardinelli 2/4
Rotten Tomatoes summary. 49% positive overall, 47% from the top critics.

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 7.2.

With their dollars ... did a million in the USA on 50 screens.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C.