My Mac seems to not want to update

I have a small amount of updates to install (Jave for Mac OSX 10.6 Update 16, MacBook SMC Firmware Update, Secutity Update 2013-003, Apple Software Installer Update, Safari). However, when the computer restarts, it goes to the 'space screen,' and no progress bar starts to indicate that any software is installing. Furthermore, I do not hear any hard drive sounds that would indicate any installing activity. I can force shutdown and restart, and the computer works fine, but no updates are done. Also, I tried installing only the first three items, and the last two items separately to see if one of them were hanging up the install, but neither worked. Any ideas?