There's a movie called PRECIOUS coming out

it has Mariah Carey in it -- she looks great.

Lady knows how to be in a movie with an amazing title!

I kept hoping that girl would eventually pull out a semiautomatic weapon and mow down her oppressors but I guess that's asking a lot from a tyler perry/oprah winfrey joint

Is this the movie that Mo'Nique win a bunch of awards at Sundance for?

Yes, it was called Push but they changed the name because of that stupid Dakota Fanning and what his face from the Fantastic Four movie.

sick79 (22 minutes ago)
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I gotta watch this movie... precious movie

Yes, it was called Push but they changed the name because of that stupid Dakota Fanning and what his face from the Fantastic Four movie.

― Hatfail of Hollow (Nicole), Wednesday, May 13, 2009 6:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is based on a book by a woman named Sapphire. The book is excellent. When I was in college I helped bring Sapphire to campus for a reading. We hosted a dinner with her prior to the talk and I got to hang out with her. She was fierce and awesome. I highly recommend the book. It's an easy but disturbingly beautiful read.

wow that's cool. i'm really excited.

this preview has made me cry twice already. look, i never said i wasn't a sap.

The whole story is completely heartbreaking.

I'm just glad it's no longer called Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, cuz that shit's dumber than Bram Stoker's Dracula.

this preview has made me cry twice already. look, i never said i wasn't a sap.
2x

I am afraid to even watch the preview, that's how much of a sap I am.

I haven't watched it because having read the book at least 5 times I can only imagine what the preview would be like. This is not to say I won't see it. I will someday when I can watch it at home alone and in the dark with a big box of tissues by my side.

A few months ago a clip of the scene with Precious and her teacher (?) where Precious was crying was released and it was so fucking heartbreaking. I barely cry at movies, let alone clips of movies on Youtube. Despite the involvement of Tyler Perry (although I'm guessing it's one of those "Tyler Perry Presents" marketing bullshit things) it looks quite good.

I wish you hadn't mentioned that TP is involved.

Yeah, she's a teacher (reading/writing iirc). The whole story is based on people Sapphire met/experiences she had while taught in Harlem.

while "she" taught at schools/community centers in Harlem, rather

A few months ago a clip of the scene with Precious and her teacher (?) where Precious was crying was released and it was so fucking heartbreaking. I barely cry at movies, let alone clips of movies on Youtube. Despite the involvement of Tyler Perry (although I'm guessing it's one of those "Tyler Perry Presents" marketing bullshit things) it looks quite good.

― lil waynes babymama (musically), Thursday, 14 May 2009 20:38 (33 minutes ago) Permalink

the crying just seemed so honest, that it really shook me

http://www.pomeranianplace.com/images/pom-pubdomain-lg.jpg

did this get re-shot since TP & big O jumped on board? idk i recall seeing scenes around the time of sundance and getting the vibe there was no uplifting/redeeming ending & it was going to be a v hard commercial sell

I am anticipating this movie!! Don't want to wait til November

kgridep (3 weeks ago)

I SMELL OSCAR!

what does it smell like

wowgold

what does it smell like

― permanent response lopp (harbl), Sunday, August 9, 2009 11:24 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

please nobody go there

heh

Lee Daniels’s film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” about an abused teenage girl in Harlem, won the Cadillac People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival on Saturday. The film had already taken home a grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January. “Precious,” which counts Oprah Winfrey among its executive producers, will be shown at the New York Film Festival next month and is scheduled to open in theaters in November.

i know i'm so excited

atlbych (2 minutes ago) Show Hide 0 Marked as spam Reply

OMG THiS MOViE GONE MAKE ALOT OF MONEY iCNT WAiT TiLL THiS MOViE RELEASE (NOV.6th] iTS GONE BE SO GOOD.

“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,”

I thought they got rid of this godawful title.

i hate that title too

Yeah, it sucks. I'm still so excited for this btw.

this will be one of those good movies i never see because it seems massively depressing

I don't care how bad/good this movie is. I just want Mo'Nique to win the Oscar. Let's start a campaign now. Who's with me?

s1ock did you get to see this? I didn't.

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2006_Shadowboxer/2006_shadowboxer_002.jpg

shadowboxer is ridiculous ~

doh - http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2006_Shadowboxer/2006_shadowboxer_002.jpg

ok swear to god that is cuba gooding and ellen degeneres

haha 1/2

cuba is basically naked the entire movie w/ 1 expression on his face~
stephen dorff is some kind of ganster who shoots ppl cuz they are talking 2 loudly while he is boning girls on his pool table~

doesn't look like my kind of movie but i still wanna see it? precious, that is

really want to see it.

listened to fresh air interview, v intrigued now.

The NY Times Mag profile of the director -- a shilling douchebag but with the socially aware middlebrow-gay agenda in his quiver -- made me glad Tyler Perry is staying in the closet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25precious-t.html

The book is a really quick read and worth it for those planning on seeing this imo.

yeah i think i will read first.

this is a great movie, bar one kinda cringey "nice white lady" scene - as draining and harrowing as you've read but what makes it for me is how great the much-needed scenes of levity are - the wisecracking banter of the girls in precious's class. i feel too much of the press so far has focused on the bleakness rather than the hope and humour.

how's Mariah?

http://www.pomeranianplace.com/images/pom-pubdomain-lg.jpg

played by John Travolta in drag

robin williams as "the case worker"

he's already done teacher, nanny, and psychologist, now it's time to branch out into social work

has anyone read the novel?

― jØrdån (omar little), Monday, 30 November 2009 19:46 (1 hour ago) Permalink

ENBB did

― harbl, Monday, 30 November 2009 19:47 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Yeah but, like I said yesterday, this was probably the year or the year after the book came out. I loved it at the time but I was also 18 or 19. I was working for my favorite professor at the time and helped organize a reading with the author and got to have dinner with her. She was pretty interesting. I could be wrong but I believe it was the first book she wrote.

The Precious slam should be annotated with this one: http://www.nypress.com/article-20604-the-blind-side.html

haha armond ownes

armond you psycho

Related to:oprahpreciousblacktylerperrywinfreyleedanielsitsmoniquelennykravitzrapedmolestedbeatensexfried chickenpigs feetbirthnationkkkku klux klanhalleberrymonstersballincestmariahcareypedophilia

I'm all for a reevaluation of Sandra Bullock, but calling The Thing Called Love "superb" and While You Were Sleeping and Crash examples of "movies that could be better" suggests that Armmond wants to score more political points at Precious' expense.

Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious

armond going for broke

when someone makes the claim that todd solondz has a much more subtle and sensitive examination of taboos you are deep in it

palindromes was pretty bad

Crash is a movie that could be better because it certainly could not be worse.

At work so haven't read whole thread but just saw this:

i wonder how many people watching this movie think its based on a true story? i know i thought that for a long time when i heard about it coming out.

― scott seward, Monday, November 30, 2009 3:25 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

iirc it's not a true story but the events/characters were based on the people (and their stories) who Sapphire met while teaching reading and writing in NYC.

Still have not seen btw.

this movie looks fucking ridiculous. my students liked it.

kind of get the feeling it's the sort of movie i walk out on

Yeah I thought it was one of those 'Child Called It' true-story type memoirs until just reading Erica's comment now.

I can't argue against people walking out of this one. It is pretty ridic and I think most of the reasons I like it aren't exactly socially responsible reasons.

what were we supposed to think as she ambles down the sidewalk with abdul and "mongo" -- that yaaaay the sun is shining? that things are gonna be ok? they're not gonna be ok unless she is willing to accept a lot more help. and i wondered if stealing the folder was an indication of her rejection of that help. i dunno.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Monday, November 30, 2009 1:51 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I didn't come away with any feeling that things were destined to be OK at all. The movie as a whole could have been more ambiguous and nuanced (e.g., the "Nice White Light-Skinned Lady" teacher) but I found the end on the optimistic side of open-ended. This impression is due to my thinking that after all she's been through, there's no way things are ever going to be anything even remotely resembling "OK" for Precious.

Yeah, you'd have to have walked in during the last minute only to think the movie's ending was a happy one or that things won't continue to get worse for Precious until she dies.

I imagine that she doesn't necessarily die on the street afflicted with advanced dementia at age 20. But the best I imagine is her working and poor, struggling to raise her kids. I guess it sucks that I find that somehow an uplifting possibility.

At least she didn't wind up being part of a human centipede, which is really all any of us have the right to wish for in this life.

haha, um...

So a group at the youth center I work at is going to be reading the book and then seeing the movie and I'm going to be one of the facilitators. Most of these girls come from backgrounds full of poverty and violence and are extremely disengaged. I'm really interested in hearing what they think of the book and movie. Should be pretty interesting.

ooh, that sounds like an intense experience.

Right? I was sort of surprised that they're doing this with this particular group but am interested in seeing how it goes.

"Kevin Bacon titillated pedophilia "

I didn't loathe much of this, but it kind of melted away after a half-hour. The details were unpersuasive. (I did like the "insect/incest"-type exchanges.)

i dunno if this has been mentioned but the new paperback is confusing; it appears to be called "Precious:based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire" by Sapphire now

Ishmael Reed is upset:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05reed.html

Have you read the paper's letters page in the last few days? The exchange between readers and Reed has been...heated. Even Lee Daniels responded.

Among black men and women, there is widespread revulsion and anger over the Oscar-nominated film about an illiterate, obese black teenager who has two children by her father.

FWIW i don't think this is true. It may be true of the correspondence from those who are NYT readers, which is what this new paragraph leads on from. There are a number of questionable leaps like this in Reed's article (for instance using Daniels' common sense statement that the oscar nom would "bring even more “middle-class white Americans” to his film" as evidence that that is who the film is for).

Even a lot of ppl who found this film incredibly moving are simultaneously pretty fed-up in general at seemingly constant portrayals of victimization or "black pathology", as Reed says. So it's true to say it's controversial, and I have some sympathy with his position on this.

I haven't seen Precious yet, but i understand that is no prerequisite for comment around here.

widespread revulsion

Dr. Zvookius

so is this one of those movies that makes you feel like a puppy being housetrained, like there's some effluvia over there and now I'm gonna rub your face in it until you feel bad about yourself?

think I'll go see 'Air Doll' instead

so is this one of those movies that makes you feel like a puppy being housetrained, like there's some effluvia over there and now I'm gonna rub your face in it until you feel bad about yourself?

It rubs KFC original recipe thighs in your face.

I really like this movie. But god damn I had a hard time understanding her mumbling. I didn't have any subtitling so had to resort to spoken dialogue all the time. But anyway this was heartbreaking.

Was that really Lenny Kravitz? Didn't recognize him at all. Only knew from watching the credits afterwards.

Watching Precious now....the rape scene is filmed like a Michael Jackson film.

name one.

Captain EO.

This was terrible -- Gabourney herself could have done a better job behind the camera. Very surprised that Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz gave the two most credible performances.

You honestly believe those two gave better performances than Mo'nique? That's insane to me. Her statue was about the only thing the Oscar voters have gotten right in a number of years.

In that they're in the movie the least, I can see how they'd come out looking the best, given.

gabby was very good. i liked this movie, a lot, given that it wasn't as sappy as it could've been, and overall, smartly put-together.

You honestly believe those two gave better performances than Mo'nique?

Yep. I didn't believe a word of Mo'nique's until her final monologue. The masturbation scene was good.

the Pennies From Heaven-type interpolations SO clumsy.

OK I just watched this and it wasn't very good (no real surprise) but my god Mo'nique was amazing. I believed her throughout but she was phenomenal in the final scene. Also I kept thinking the male nurse looked familiar but couldn't place him. Didn't realize it was Kravitz until just now.

this was pretty unbearable. like an incredibly nihilistic Dangerous Minds.

So, unbearable in an interesting way and not in a poorly-done way?

the Pennies from Heaven/Walter Mitty stuff + classroom scenes felt really poorly done and ridiculous. everything else seemed to be designed to be as harrowing as possible but I didn't find that particularly interesting (my wife was kinda traumatized by all the infant mistreatment). Ishmael Reed otm upthread overall, I think.

Mariah trying hard to make everyone forget about Glitter was interesting.