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Friday, November 6
Precious: Based on the
Novel Push by Sapphire
The Anonymous B.I.G.
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
In the past couple of decades, African-American dramas have been dominated by Spike Lee's joints, Tyler Perry's disjoints, blackstoric epics told by white men (Color Purple, Glory) and one and done eye/thigh-openers (Singleton's Boyz 'N the Hood and the Hughes Bros' Menace II Society), so when an imaginative film that's equally as crushing as it is uplifting, like Lee Daniels Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (almos a curious a title as The Men Who Stare At Goats) is, comes along, you have to consider it to be one of the best of that bunch. However, when you take it out of that genre, it's still a sight to be seen, but we wouldn't exactly say that this elevated after school special is the most special and precious thang that one has seen in ages, as the hype machine been sayin ever since it's debut at Sundance
Precious (Gabourey Sidibe, in an unforgettable career-defining, career-ending performance... seriously, where does she go from here besides Nikki Blonskyland?) is an obese, illiterate school girl with one mentally challenged daughter and another kid on the way thanks to some rapage by her momma's baby momma. Said momma aint no role model neither, as she's the nightmareiest of nightmare mothers (Mo'Nique, one bark away from 'NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!!!!'), and finds every which way to welch welfare checks and mentally and physically abuse her once precious Precious at the same time. There's nowhere to go but down, but since this is a movie, ya juss know that things will slowly start to turn around. Precious escapes hell through fantasy (seen numerous times, which sometimes feels a little out of place and pace), and eventually escapes her horrid public school by being transferred to an alternative one where teachers (namely the luscious, soulful Paula Patton, see below) actually care and her classmates have better things to do than tease her, like being her friend, something she's in dire need of. Yeah, the story is a tad predictable, yet it doesn't completely head down the cliched alley that it seems like it's heading directly towards
Precious delivers roundly (pun intended) on the talents of its cast (with unlikely solid turns from a no-make-uped/mustachioed Mariah Carey, replacing Helen Mirren???, and a sunglassesless Lenny Kravitz) and a starkly muted mise-en-scène that captures a rundown NYC in the 80s to a T. One of the more revealing kudos that the film has earned is the lending of Tyler Perry(and Oprah)'s own name to the credits to ensure a wider audience, hispecially when his chitlin' circuitry works lean more toward a ForUsByUs nature. Yes, Precious is black, but her tale of rising above a stack of shitty circumstances will hit home with anyone, regardless of skin color. Don't know if the same can be said about Madea, who belongs in cinema hell right next to Ernest
Patton Pending: why is Precious the first we've ever heard or seen of the gooooorgeous Paula Patton????? oh yeah, maybe cause we skipped out on Hitch, Idlewild, Deja Vu, Swing Vote and Mirrors. did we miss much with any of those? thinks snot, unless she totally had a shower scene in all of them. oh wait, she DOES have a shower scene in Deja Vu! and whaaaaat, she's married to Alan Thicke's son, WTF?!!@@@!
Verdictgo: Breast In Show
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Mind Over Does It Matter?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
Apparently there was a unit within the US army that specialized in implementing really odd mind tricks in fighting our enemies. Some of them were used in the war on terror and yes, one of them tactics involved staring at goats. Strange! but true!! it muss be cause Jon Ronson wrote a book about it!!! Fascination abound!!!! but the movie (directed by Goodnightgoodlucker Grant Heslov) made from that book is more foolish (not a bad thing at all) than hard factual (can we handle the truth?), and while we laffed and laffed and laffed sum mo, ultimately wees was like, well, what's the point of all this sensenon? So go in not expecting a point and come out experiencing the closest thing we'll get to a Lebowski sequel... til The Big Lebowski II happens, which it won't and shouldn't, but why shouldn't it? Doesn't Tara Reid need a job? Dude, are we serious? Dude, where's your car? Dude, anytime Jeff Bridges is playing a hairy stoner and forces George Clooney to dance like a jackass, and Clooney in turn has to explain to Ewan McGregor what a Jedi is and Kevin Spacey has a super gay mustache AND isn't super annoying, it has got to count for something over nothing, is wees right? Of course wees is, cause ours mums said wees was always right, eggcept when wees was left!!!
Escape Goats: a majority of the book/film is based off of The First Earth Battalion Operations Manual [peep the whole thing in pdf form], pieced together by Lieutenant Colonel crackpot Jim Channon, the basis for the Lebowski II character
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
That Evening Sun
Tennessee Ill-ones
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
Hal Holbrook, zero Oscar wins. His That Evening Sun co-star Ray McKinnon, one Oscar win (it was for a short film). Is there justice in this world? No, except DAVID JUSTICE! And that fact aint gonna stop Hal, who has always chipped in credible incredible work as an actor's actor (usually playing Abe Lincoln or Twain), from trying. He mcnabbed his very first Academy nod recently in Into The Wild and aints stopping there, not going gentle into that not goodnight. Scott Teems adaptation of William Gay's short story is short on story (and reeked of upyo AND An Unfinished Life), but Hal's work as a grumpy old man refusing to let go of his farm and home to a white trash family (McKinnon + Carrie Preston & Mia Wasikowska) is as good as it gets in terms of performances, and as father time clicks on Holbrook's book (see Peter O'Toole in Venus), it's a memorable late chapter even it's not exactly a page turner, or a Tina Turner neither, or Ted, Michael, Bachman Overdrive, et al
Not So Whistlin' Dixie: Holbrook's real life wife Dixie Carter plays his real dead wife in the film. she speaks no words. her last movie that she probably had a line of dialog in was back in 2001. Poor Dix. and what, they couldn't give a part to Meshach Taylor whiles theys waz add it?
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
Goats goes baaah most everywheres, while Precious & Sun rise in limited release
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed...
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