Archive for the ‘A "Precious" Reaction’ Category

Burn Hollywood Burn: part deux

Twenty years ago, hip hop pioneers Public Enemy decried the perpetuation of decades of exploitive cinema in their now classic, Burn Hollywood Burn! Though many things have changed over the years, current events in the world of cinematic arts prove that many others remain the same. Today, Oscar buzz abounds...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

Oprah & Tyler Perry should be applauded

After seeing the movie with the same title, I will never think of Chante Moore’s chart topping 1990’s song, “Precious,” quite the same, ever again. The movie Precious left me feeling deeply wounded, confused and horrified that there are actually fellow citizens among us who live lives similar...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

Forgotten truths about the rawness of survival

I always take a good look around me before any movie starts. The night I went to see Precious, I saw friends, lovers, mother-daughter looking duos. I saw a lot of women – maybe 50% women of color, of those mostly Black, and several there alone like me. When the previews finally ended and the...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

On “Precious,” the Ending

Seriously, where to begin? If by the end of the movie the “Precious” character seems to have wrested a measure of triumph in the face of hideous abuse that has degraded the entire course of her short life; a positive HIV diagnosis; two little kids she must find a way to care for, one with Down Syndrome;...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

Keeping Up with the Joneses: A Precious Moment of Confrontation

Here in the small college town where I live and work, we had to wait several weeks for the movie Precious to make its appearance at our local theater. Perhaps, there was some felicity in timing, because it has taken me many years to find the courage to read Sapphire’s Push, a novel I first encountered...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

A precious story of mental illness

Since the novel Push became Precious and hit the film festival circuit earlier this year, there were nothing but rave reviews for the film, especially the performances given by comedienne Mo’Nique, singer Mariah Carey, and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. But once the film hit theater screens across the country,...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction | Read More

Precious… Really?

Is Precious, precious? Now that the movie reviews have been written, the buttered popcorn eaten, the diet cola guzzled, the debates concerning its merit defended and scorned; how are you feeling about it? What did you witness? Got butterflies? Courtesy of Lionsgate It’s been said that the African American...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More

Controversy outshine performance

In setting out to adapt Push by Sapphire, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher had a challenge. Push was told in the first-person and in the unique voice of an illiterate protagonist as she struggled to tell her story. Film does not do first-person well or naturally. It is an objectifying medium, one that...

December 4th, 2009 | A "Precious" Reaction, Featured | Read More