Salon.com > Precious http://www.salon.com Wed, 22 May 2013 18:23:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 “The Paperboy”: Nicole Kidman’s oversexed Southern gothic http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/the_paperboy_nicole_kidmans_oversexed_southern_gothic/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/the_paperboy_nicole_kidmans_oversexed_southern_gothic/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:36:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13029660 There are all kinds of things to say about “The Paperboy,” a sweat-drenched Southern-gothic period melodrama of exactly the sort that four decades ago people would have pretended to find serious, and not just an excuse to look at Paul Newman’s muscles and some buxom lady in a bouffant and a halter-strap dress. No such pretense is necessary here; this adaptation of a Pete Dexter crime novel revels in its own let's-boogie trashiness, maybe a bit too much so. Larger philosophical agendas may be checked at the door along with firearms, though you’ll have more need of the latter.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/the_paperboy_nicole_kidmans_oversexed_southern_gothic/feed/ 8 Mo’Nique shaves her legs! The media rejoices! http://www.salon.com/2011/01/26/mo_nique_shaves_her_legs/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/26/mo_nique_shaves_her_legs/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2011/01/26/mo_nique_shaves_her_legs When last year's supporting actress winner Mo'Nique revealed the 2011 Academy Awards nominations early Tuesday, there was really only one shocking surprise of the morning. On a day when everybody knew Colin Firth, Natalie Portman and "The Social Network" would be getting their due, the real headline grabber turned out to be the announcer herself. Film critic Michael Sragow broke the news: "Apparently Mo'Nique has gone back on a long-held personal policy and shaved her legs." And the Daily Mail breathed an editorial sigh of relief that Mo'Nique had "finally ... upped her grooming regime and proudly paraded her hair-free legs." Our long national nightmare is over!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/26/mo_nique_shaves_her_legs/feed/ 29 Is Gabourey Sidibe’s film career over? http://www.salon.com/2010/03/12/gabourey_sidibe_howard_stern_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/12/gabourey_sidibe_howard_stern_open2010/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/03/12/gabourey_sidibe_howard_stern_open2010 Earlier this week Howard Stern got into quite a bit of trouble for saying on air that Gabourey Sidibe, the Oscar-nominated star of "Precious," will never work again. I think it was distasteful (if typical) that he made comments about her weight. That said, I think he was absolutely right.

This girl has peaked.

Not because she's not talented, but because she's an overweight African-American girl in Hollywood. I think we all know the odds there. E! Online mentioned that Sidibe is already working on a Showtime drama starring Laura Linney, but if anyone's wondering when her next big movie role is, I think you're going to be waiting for a long time.

People are attacking Stern for his comments, but they're not bringing up the elephant in the room -- the truth. Normally, when a woman is nominated for best lead actress for her film debut, she's stepping over offers left and right.

Now, it's possible that Sidibe is working on her television show and so hasn't been able to commit to another project yet ... but let's be honest, I think that's doubtful.

She's had to dodge questions about future movies on countless television shows.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/12/gabourey_sidibe_howard_stern_open2010/feed/ 175 In defense of Mo’Nique’s Oscar speech http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/monique_oscar_speech/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/monique_oscar_speech/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:09:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2010/03/08/monique_oscar_speech Unlike Salon TV critic Heather Havrilesky, I cheered when Mo'Nique began her acceptance speech for the best supporting actress Oscar with, "I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics." I don't think she meant to slight her fellow nominees, nor do I think they took it that way -- Vera Farmiga and Maggie Gyllenhaal were two of the first on their feet, looking delighted, as Mo'Nique took the stage. I think that for the most part, Mo'Nique only meant to acknowledge a couple of plain facts: 1) Just about everyone known for making accurate Oscar predictions figured she was a lock, and 2) The only reason anyone thought she might not be was that she refused to campaign for it. Few thought she had any real competition in the category -- which has much more to do with the lack of strong roles for women than with Gyllenhaal, Farmiga, Anna Kendrick or Penelope Cruz being seen as inferior talents -- but many faulted Mo'Nique for not playing the game better and wondered if Academy voters would punish her for her lack of schmoozing and self-promotion.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/monique_oscar_speech/feed/ 47 How top Oscar Winners fared at the box office http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:49:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/oscars/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1 Domestic box-office totals through February for the most-honored films at the 82nd annual Academy Awards:

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MOVIE: "The Hurt Locker," Summit Entertainment.

OSCARS: Six, including best picture and director.

RELEASED: June.

BOX OFFICE: $12.7 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Avatar," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Three, including best art direction and visual effects.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $706 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Crazy Heart," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Two, including best actor and original song.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $25 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Lionsgate.

OSCARS: Two, including best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay.

RELEASED: November.

BOX OFFICE: $47 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Up," The Walt Disney Co.

OSCARS: Two, including best animated feature and original score.

RELEASED: May.

BOX OFFICE: $293 million so far.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/us_oscars_scorecard_1/feed/ 0 Best Oscar night ever? http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/heather_havrilesky/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness How did they do it? As crazy as it sounds, this year's Oscar festivities were dynamic, funny and moved along at a good clip. Hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were hilarious, there were great jokes by everyone from Tina Fey to Ben Stiller, and the speeches were less long and dull than they've been in years. For once, no one rambled on forever and agents were rarely thanked. Not only that, but the usual endless tributes that serve no purpose whatsoever were gone, cut down to a great John Hughes segment and an entertaining horror-movie montage. Best of all, the best original songs were not performed, which means we weren't forced to sit through two more blandly upbeat tunes with those old familiar Randy Newman melodies you've heard on every Oscar night for decades now. And I think we can all agree that an Oscar night without a Disney ballad performed or a long, rambling Lifetime Achievement acceptance speech is a winner in anyone's book.

Here are a few of the highs and lows of the night:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/08/oscar_night_madness/feed/ 91 Gabourey Sidibe’s Oscar dress mess http://www.salon.com/2010/03/07/gabourey_sidibe_oscars_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/07/gabourey_sidibe_oscars_open2010/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2010/03/07/gabourey_sidibe_oscars_open2010 So last week I read this widely reblogged USA Today article in which Gabourey Sidibe's stylist, Linda Medvene (who?), proclaimed that "everyone" wanted to dress Gabby for the Oscars and then went on to name some lesser known designers like Kevan Hall.

Now if you had read this on USA Today's site and not on another blog that was linking to it, you would have noted, as I did, that they felt the need to put "full-sized" in quotes -- "Designers vie to dress 'full-sized' Gabourey Sidibe" --  like it's such a derogatory thing to say about a woman that they needed to soften the blow with ... well, kinda.

She IS full-sized, mofos. She's not ashamed of it. Stop trying to be ashamed for her! DAMN.

But this Linda Medvene stylist person did also proclaim that they had decided to go with Marchesa, a house known for the fab dresses they do for all the A-list actresses.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/07/gabourey_sidibe_oscars_open2010/feed/ 99 Gabourey Sidibe: Playing the victim http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/gabourey_sidibe/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/gabourey_sidibe/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2010/02/23/gabourey_sidibe Mo'Nique's performance in "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," as an abusive mother who, among other acts of cruelty, tries to keep her daughter from getting an education so she can stay on welfare, has earned a great deal of praise since the movie's release last November. The performance has been short-listed, by those who obsess about such things, as the surefire winner of the best supporting actress Academy Award.

But of the two most attention-grabbing performances in "Precious," the one that goes deeper, and ultimately has more resonance, is Gabourey Sidibe's turn as Precious, the Harlem teenager whose life is essentially a catalog of the horrors that can befall a young black woman in the inner city.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/gabourey_sidibe/feed/ 13 Oscar reactions: Who was burned or spurned? http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_nomination_reactions/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_nomination_reactions/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/02/02/oscar_nomination_reactions Like a faithful dog walking behind the heels of its owner, following the recently announced Oscar nominations come critiques from fans and critics alike. Here's what's happening around the Web:

Vadim Rizov of the Independent Eye  has a list of foreign films that would have been given the nod if nominations were based on a film's box-office success in its home country.

Where's Julianne Moore? Some, like Erik Childress of Cinematical, are wondering why Moore's performance in "A Single Man" for best supporting actress seems to have been replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal's in "Crazy Heart." Also, Childress speculates that the makeup category has something against the aliens in "District 9."

In equal confusion with Childress over the Gyllenhaal-over-Moore decision, Peter Knegt of indieWIRE has a list of 10 Oscar surprises, including "The Blind Side" even being in the running for best picture.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_nomination_reactions/feed/ 2 The Oscar nominations: Trying to please everyone http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/02/02/oscar_noms So what was the inflated Academy Awards best-picture category, expanded this year from five to 10 nominees, going to bring us? More populism or more existentialism? Was it going to open the door to animated films, to fantasy and science fiction, to foreign flicks and low-budget indies -- or just to middle-of-the-road Hollywood sentimentality, calibrated to draw in heartland viewers who've increasingly tuned out the whole Oscar spectacle?

Given the Academy's catholic desire to please all its contradictory and overlapping constituencies, it shouldn't have surprised anyone that the answer was all of the above. And yet, somehow, it did. I think of the five extra nomination slots as the "Dark Knight" apology awards, but this year offered no exact TDK-cognate, i.e., no commercial-critical behemoth likely to be snubbed by the Academy members' peculiar blend of middlebrow snobbery. (Just to be clear: I didn't like "The Dark Knight" much, personally. But that's irrelevant when it comes to the Oscars. Given its alleged seriousness, cultural impact and box-office firepower, a best-picture nom should have been automatic.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/feed/ 37 The 10 greatest Golden Globes moments http://www.salon.com/2010/01/18/golden_globes/ http://www.salon.com/2010/01/18/golden_globes/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:18:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2010/01/18/golden_globes The Golden Globes is supposed to be the fun awards show, the Hollywood Foreign Press's loose, sexy and possibly drunk cousin to our stiff, self-congratulatory Oscars. The evening celebrates our twin obsessions of television and movies and does away with all those boring prizes for sound editing and whatnot. And this year, for the first time in 15 years, it even had a host, the wry Ricky Gervais.

But as if to prove that anything NBC touches these days is sprinkled with FAIL dust, this year's show did not delight. An air of despair hung over the proceedings, as entertainers in designer clothes paused from time to time to evoke (in their solemn, frozen, Botox-faced way) the recent devastation in Haiti. As proved by Ellen DeGeneres, who pulled off the impossible feat of hosting the Emmys with grace and warmth following the tragedies of 9/11 in 2001 and Katrina in 2005, it's possible to still dress up and entertain the world even on the heels of inconceivable sadness. It's necessary, even. But instead the Globes floundered awkwardly, unsure how to behave. And compounding the weird vibe was NBC's recent and highly public embarrassments. After a very gentle joke from Gervais about moving along before the network replaced him with Jay Leno, the show mostly steered well clear of the topic, the way your family does about Uncle Joe's DUI at Thanksgiving.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/01/18/golden_globes/feed/ 25 Body image revolution postponed http://www.salon.com/2010/01/08/gabby_sidibe/ http://www.salon.com/2010/01/08/gabby_sidibe/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:53:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2010/01/08/gabby_sidibe Lately, the media would have us believe that women loving their bodies just as they are is a trend that's about to start sweeping the world as fast as pink eye spreads through a preschool classroom or a salacious rumor through junior high. Glamour's finally started using plus-size models in response to reader demand! Crystal Renn can pull off the same high-fashion looks as a slightly smaller woman! Miss Universe 2004 dares to go un-Photoshopped on a magazine cover! Just look at how real we're getting, all of a sudden. It's a body image revolution, ladies.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/01/08/gabby_sidibe/feed/ 80 Films of the decade: “Up the Yangtze” http://www.salon.com/2009/12/28/kenner/ http://www.salon.com/2009/12/28/kenner/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2009/12/28/kenner A few of my favorite films of the 2000s are "Precious," "Sin Nombre," "City of God" and "Maria Full of Grace." All of these films took me to worlds I knew little about. And in each of these films, I felt the hand of a director guiding the experience.

I also loved "Michael Clayton," a wonderful thriller that exposes the greed and short-sightedness of a giant agrochemical firm. It certainly fed my paranoia while making "Food, Inc."

On the documentary front, I loved a film by the Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang called "Up the Yangtze." It is the story of a valley in China being flooded to create a dam. I wasn't sure if I was watching actors or real people. It turned out to be all real people who felt very comfortable letting the camera into their lives. It had a very theatrical feel. It is a beautiful film.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/12/28/kenner/feed/ 6 “Precious” in the age of Obama http://www.salon.com/2009/11/10/precious_feature/ http://www.salon.com/2009/11/10/precious_feature/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2009/11/09/precious_feature As a black woman, I had one overwhelming reaction to the trailer for "Precious": horror. Watching the unflattering images pile up in the space of a minute -- hugely overweight teen, crazy welfare mother, illegitimate babies, an especially bleak-looking Harlem -- my political alarms went crazy. I glanced uneasily around the almost exclusively white West L.A. theater and thought: Boy, they've done it this time. Noble "Precious" looked to be one more brick in the wall for black folks, something that would bury ever deeper a more nuanced reality that never makes it to the big screen.

And I was right about one thing: They have done it this time. But not at all in the way I imagined. Far from being some exploitative spectacle for whites, the hard-hitting tale of "Precious" is a film for blacks and a challenge to drop our own emotional armor and embrace a real-life story we have been minimizing for a long time -- that of a big, black, sullen-faced, illiterate girl who lives in the depths of the ghetto and in all likelihood will stay there. She is the bogeywoman not just of white society but of black society, too, especially for a middle class that's been trying for years to rescue its "negative" racial image from the likes of Precious. But while we in the real world preach community ad nauseam, it's girls -- and boys -- like her who remain at the bottom of the well. In making the bottom dweller eminently human, the movie forces blacks to assess their own humanity. And I found myself squirming in the seat more than once.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/11/10/precious_feature/feed/ 62 “Precious” mettle http://www.salon.com/2009/11/05/precious/ http://www.salon.com/2009/11/05/precious/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2009/11/04/precious How much bad stuff can possibly happen to one protagonist? In that contest, Precious -- the Harlem teenager at the heart of "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire" -- ranks right up there with any Thomas Hardy heroine. Sixteen-year-old Clareece "Precious" Jones, played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, is pregnant with her second child -- she gave birth to the first, a girl with Down syndrome, at age 12. The father of both children is her own father, who has been sexually abusing her since she was a toddler. Her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), resents her, considering her a rival for her man's sexual attention, and abuses her physically, sexually, verbally and emotionally. She also tries to keep Precious -- who is obese and unable to read -- out of school, asserting that she's stupid and will never amount to anything.

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