Forget the praise given to Tarantino for rebooting and reaffirming the careers of Bruce Willis, Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson and others. Give that crown to Lee Daniels, for stripping away the stardust personas of Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Mo’Nique to reveal believable and very real working class New Yorkers in Precious, the tour-de-force film adaptation of the novel Push.
Daniels not only showcases the talent of a most unlikely ensemble cast, he succeeds in pushing these actors to the forefront of the Awards season competition. They’ve gone from being the biggest long shots for dramatic roles to possible award contenders, which makes the vision and talent of Lee Daniels’ direction one to watch during award season as well.
Newcomer Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe, a Harlem raised 26-year-old has already won a New Hollywood Award on Monday in Los Angeles and Daniels received the Breakthrough Director Award.
Paula Patton turns out a performance Blindie always knew she was capable of giving if ever the right script came along. She plays her role with such delicacy and care that we can’t help but see the forming stages of the motherly adoption we all hoped would eventually develop between her and Precious.
The tension in Lee Daniels’ film Precious is as gripping as any Hollywood Thriller. There are no chase scenes, no explosive helicopters and no espionage wordplay. There is however the poetic hard-edge slang of the late eighties, brought to you in hues of grey and dark-brown depictions of Harlem circa 1987, when crack cocaine was in full-effect.
Clairece “Precious” Jones chooses to live in her head. In her dreams she’s locking lips with her curly-haired light skinned boyfriend, and posing for the flashing bulbs of fashion photographers. Already, Daniels’ showing us that this girl dreams big, even if she dreams to drown out the onslaught of abuse from her mother, played to perfection by Mo’Nique, in the year’s most head-spinning drama boot-camp makeover.
Precious opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, and if Oprah’s endorsement of Halle Berry’s performance in “Monster’s Ball” was any indication, her late addition to the film as one of the executive producers alongside Tyler Perry, is definitely serving as a marketing goad, pushing Precious to the top of both the critics list and (fingers-crossed) the Oscar nom list. O! The power of Oprah.
Blindie will be watching and reporting on the trajectory of Precious.
The trailer for Precious which made waves at Sundance is creating Oscar buzz for Mo’Nique in her first dramatic role.
The film, which is an adaptation of Sapphire’s beloved novel Push, changed its title to avoid conflict with the Dakota Fanning sci-fi flick. The drama is about a teen girl (played by Gabourey Sidibe) wrestling with pregnancy, poverty, and an abusive mother (Mo’Nique).
We can’t wait for the flick (which also stars Mariah Carey and Paula Patton) to hit theaters!
The heart-wrenching drama Push about a 16-year-old overweight and illiterate pregnant girl based on the bestselling novel by Sapphire won top honors at this year’s Sundance film festival -snagging the grand jury award, audience award, and a special jury prize for comedianne Mo’Nique who plays an abusive mother.
Produced and directed by Lee Daniels, Push stars newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in the lead role and a handful of well-known music and film stars in unexpected roles, including Mariah Carey as a social worker, Lenny Kravitz as a male nurse, and Paula Patton as a teacher.
Lee Daniels was overwhelmed with the film’s performance at the festival and gushed, “We don’t have no money. We got $2 to make some s— happen. We’re doing this story about this fat black girl who doesn’t have a voice. They’re all in it for the craft.”
The film has yet to be picked up for distribution but Daniels is hopeful. “I think [this win] means there’s hope for people of color. Just because Obama’s president doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to translate down to our world of cinema. And I think what it does is reiterate and strengthen this power of, Get yourself a freakin’ video camera. And you go out and tell your truth. That’s what I started doing as a kid, and I think inevitably, it led to this. It’s just so much hope.”
Sense About Scienceannually reports on celebrities “misleading claims” about science and has listed Mariah Carey as one of this year’s offenders in the mathematics category.
The 2008 Science report calls out Carey for ignoring basic algebra and translating her latest album title E=MC2, which is borrowed from Einstein’s most famous scientific formula for mass-energy equivalence, as “emancipation equals Mariah Carey times two,” instead of squared.
The number two in the equation acts as an exponent to the C variable, meaning the C would be multiplied by itself -another C, and not multiplied by the number two as Carey has mistakenly said.
But since Carey squared is exponentially better than Carey multiplied by two, we think Mimi’s new math deserves an A plus!
A few other celebrities busted for their lack of science sense: Tom Cruise for pooh poohing psychiatry, Demi Moore for endorsing the detox benefits of leeches, and TV cook Delia Smith for claiming the nation’s obesity could be cured ” if we cut down sugar addiction.”
MTV’s Total Request Live, a relic in boy-band and pop tart history, is going off the air in November after ten years.
The show, which made household names out of Carson Daly and Vanessa Minnillo, is a standing pillar of our youth.
Blindie can’t help but to love this teen-crazed series for showing us that Mariah Carey was looney when she stripped down in 2001 to some gold short shorts and handed out Popsicles to the audience while host Daly looked dumbfounded.
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