comment #1

Colin says ...

I suppose that if Spike Lee had directed this and Precious were a lazy pothead who caused the destruction of a neighborhood this movie would be great.

comment #2

Sabina E says ...

"In Precious, Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry have helped serve up a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick," he wrote today. "In it, we glimpse a sweaty, faceless brute of a black man raping the girl while her mother watches from a doorway. Two children are conceived in incest.

Sorry to break it to that dude, but shit like that happens to real people in real life.

I was reading this article today, regarding PRECIOUS:

http://www.racialicious.com/2009/11/18/quoted-malika-saada-saar-on-the-precious-ending-that-should-have-been-shown/

comment #3

Colin says ...

Good link Deaf

I guess this means Malika Saada Saar is a racist. Why don't people admit what this takedown is really about?

These op-eds would mean more if all of the opposition weren't well-off black males who are racist against lower class african americans.

comment #4

Malcolm Johnson says ...

I'm sorry if you disagree Jeffrey, but this is more of a general pushback against these sorts of films than of Precious itself.

African-American culture is far more varied than urban tragedies, hip-hop and street-whatever. Yet, time after time, we are told...and told by Hollywood Executives...that "black films don't sell"...

Well, that's bullshit, in that...they will sell them, provided they're showing us killing each other, making a mess of our lives, being saved by angelic white folks (see: Blind Side -- which I saw and thought was crap), or making you laugh...

Serious middle class or upper middle class Black folks in film? Sorry, they won't sell.

Well, now you're getting a bunch of middle class black writers, authors saying enough! We've had it with the minstrel show. You're seeing pushback, and I think its about damn time.

comment #5

kingofnails says ...

I haven't seen PRECIOUS yet -- plan to, and I anticipate having, um, mixed feelings at best about it -- but the notion that PRECIOUS is somehow worthless because it doesn't deliver some message of simplistic uplift at the end is, frankly, pretty dumb. That's like saying: "Oh, if only that little fat girl got her GED and learned to love herself and married Wayne Brady and turned her life into a Tyler Perry movie, then this would have been a good movie! I'm okay with the rough stuff as long as the characters learn something at the end and transcend their circumstances, blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit...."

comment #6

VictorLazlo says ...

Calling bullshit. Those kinds of black films don't sell anymore. The highest grossing "black movies" this decade were, wait for it:

DREAMGIRLS and RAY.

Behind them are the Tyler Perry church movies. Unless you count Will Smith movies, which further blow your statement to hell. So like I said Malcolm, bullshit.

comment #7

VictorLazlo says ...

"they will sell them, provided they're showing us killing each other, making a mess of our lives, being saved by angelic white folks (see: Blind Side -- which I saw and thought was crap), or making you laugh..."

Calling bullshit. Those kinds of black films don't sell anymore. The highest grossing "black movies" this decade were, wait for it:

DREAMGIRLS and RAY.

Behind them are the Tyler Perry church movies. Unless you count Will Smith movies, which further blow your statement to hell. So like I said Malcolm, bullshit.

comment #8

VictorLazlo says ...

This may be Jeff's waterloo. Trawling the internet, ignoring the dozens of positive reviews, looking for any black guy to back you up to assuage your guilt and make it look like your reasons for hating Precious are not because of your bigotry.

Not even racial bigotry, even though I wonder about that a lot, but your hatred of fat people and "lower-class" people. You have a right to that opinion. Just stand on it. Saying "SEE? Black people hate it too!" Makes you look worse.

For the record, I just saw it this weekend, and it is an ok film. Not great but just as good as most of the Oscar winners this decade. Way better than the wrongheaded and simplistic CRASH, a movie that somehow sees decades of institutional racism and loud mouth black bigots as equal sides of the coin. You loved Crash, of course.

Now I'm actively rooting for Precious to win best picture just to see your head explode.

comment #9

George Prager says ...

Apparently there is an alternate ending for PRECIOUS that will be on the DVD. She gets her face ripped off by a neighbor's chimpanzee and then appears on Oprah.

comment #10

slithis says ...

Jeff, I seem to remember that at one time, not so long ago, you were quite a fan of Precious. While I will have to go back to find your exact posts, after Sundance you discussed how powerful the film was, how it moved you, how you respected its integrity, etc. I'm certain I am not wrong on this one. But here we go -- we can always count on you for a selective takedown campaign of your own at Oscar time, which becomes relentless. It didn't work with Chicago, and it likely won't work with precious either. A few African-American wingnuts complaining about sterotypes isn't going to change the fact that nearly everyone who views this film has a strong, positive reaction to it --which is why it's won the audience awards at both Sundance and Toronto.

So continue on this dead horse beating if you will, and thanks at least for laying off the Carey Mulligan PR blitz of late -- much appreciated.

comment #11

slithis says ...

JEFF'S FORMER POST:

"I'm too whipped to review Lee Daniels' Precious (the Taking Woodstock piece did me in) but it's an immensely sad, fully felt and deeply compassionate film with solid performances up and down, especially from Mariah Carey (much better than I expected, her best performance ever) as a welfare worker and Mo'Nique as the all-time champion mom-from-hell. I attended a Precious luncheon today from 12:40 to 1:50 pm; took this right before the press conference part began."

Gee, something doesn't seem right. Praising a film as "immensely sad, deeply compassionate and with....solid performance.. from Monique."

Have we missed something or did Jeff just turn on a time in the last few weeks?

comment #12

THE MovieBob says ...

I get that the pushback from black columnists like Milloy are more about being fed-up with movies about black depravity being the only "serious" movies Hollywood wants to make about black people who aren't famous musicians... but is it REALLY fair to make an apparently pretty-good movie suffer for the sins of all the bad ones before it?

comment #13

Jeffrey Wells says ...

The immense sadness and especially the deep compassion kicks in somewhere after the halfway mark when Precious starts to get help, but more precisely during the last third. I've never said this film doesn't exude caring and warmth toward the last third or so. Mo'Nique is solid, but she's playing an absolute demonic monster, and th emore I thought about it the more repelled I became. I began in my Precious journey by admitting to and praising its strengths -- I really worship Mariah Carey's work in it -- but also telling myself that I really don't want to see it a second time because of the foul ugliness in the home. It's probably going to be one of nominated ten, as I've acknowledged. I just don't feel all one way about it...sorry. Your reactions to a film don't have to be all one color or tone. You can feel this but also that. Really. You can wear a red T-shirt but your jeans can be blue or black. And you can wear brown leather shoes or flip flops.

comment #14

Jeffrey Wells says ...

I'm not really trying to attempt an all-out shake-the-rafters takedown of Precious like I did with Eddie Murphy's Dreamgirls nomination. Precious has its strengths and currents and okay-nesses. It is what it is. A lot of people love it, and that's fine. But it's fair and vigilant, I think, to take note of those African American voices that have slammed it.

comment #15

great scott says ...

Saw where Roger Ebert loved it and gave it four stars. Didn't see THAT coming. Next thing you know he'll put it at #1 on his Ten Best List.

comment #16

great scott says ...

Jeff's right. The fact that some African-Americans are appalled by this movie is definitely an interesting angle.

comment #17

LexG says ...

I'm less bothered by the socio-implications of PRECIOUS than the fact that Lee Daniels included HUMPIN' AROUND (BEST SONG EVER) in a movie set in 1987.

For the record, I liked the movie, but "all my black friends" thought it was pretty bogus/manipulative.

Since Lee Daniels is the man behind Cuba Gooding giving Helen Mirren a lapdance, and behind a BIG FAT POOR BLACK KID GETTING HIT BY A CAR triggering a 10-minute monologue about his fatness by Halle Berry, I wasn't really surprised by the lack of subtlety.

comment #18

slithis says ...

Jeff, points well taken. However, a thought about Mo'Nique's "demonic monster" as you put it -- you didn't feel, in the final monologue during which even Carey's social worker is visibly moved, that the mother character was at least, if not sympathetic, a victim of circumstances and ignorance and anger herself? I sure did. And while I can't say I felt really sorry for her, I do think that she recognizes her terrible mistakes but is not equipped to change them.

comment #19

LexG says ...

On the chance some people chiming in haven't actually seen the movie yet, guess I'll give a

SPOILER WARNING...

...Do we think the movie's possible *most disturbing moment* -- "Come in here and take care of Mommy" (which I understand is from the book) is going too far in terms of monsterizing Mo'Nique's character and making the whole home scenario just too outlandishly miserable? I'm no expert at all, but while I have no trouble believing that abusive, deadbeat fathers molest their kids with alarming frequency... the idea that the MOM also calls them in for oral sex seems so remote it feels like total manipulation. At that point Mo'Nique's character might as well have been putting her in snuff films or trading her on the black market while twirling a moustache for good measure.

comment #20

Malcolm Johnson says ...

Victor,

Dreamgirls and Ray: Two films keeping black folks in their pre-conceived, comfortable roles as Singers and/or Dancers. Yay. And these are two films directed by white guys. (I'm sorry, non-African Americans reading this, but who's behind the camera makes a difference in the telling of the story) So, tell me again how my statement's blown to hell??

Hollywood has decided that they can't sell films with African-American subjects unless its the areas I've described before. The one I forgot was singing and dancing, and thank you for reminding me of that.

This overall has not been a terrible year, Law Abiding Citizen was a piece of junk, but at least it tried. Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 is another example. Neither film is something I wanted to see, but I respect the effort of the filmmakers trying to push past stereotypical depictions. But where those films are a net positive, Blind Side and Precious put the Stereotype meter right back to zero. And worse, its starting to feel like the Academy might reward them for it.

Listen, my argument is, and remains...there is a place for the Preciouses of the world, provided there is a place for films that push past the pre-conceived and the familiar. If Hollywood can sell one to an audience, it can sell the other. It just doesn't want to.

comment #21

Chicago48 says ...

With the discovery of Shaniya Davis' body and the accusations that her mother pimped her (human traffick) anything is possible with black people these days. People have joined the Dahmers and mass murderers on the American landscape.

comment #22

Colin says ...

Malcolm, you're ignoring a large portion of films with African-Americans in positive roles: Secret Life of Bees, Seven(Morgan Freeman really sold that film), Glory, Lean on Me, Antwone Fisher, Seven Pounds, and I could go on.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

Where's the Black RUSHMORE? Anyway, with his most recent post, Chicago48 has convinced me that he was the crazy old lady in front of me on line at the D'Agostino's this afternoon, buying a single banana and a box of plastic martini glasses.

comment #24

VictorLazlo says ...

Malcolm,

Ok, then, we have THE GREAT DEBATERS, KING ARTHYR (directed by a black man), FANTASTIC FOUR 1 & 2 (directed by a black man), The Inside Man, Miracle at St. Anna, Something New, the upcoming PRINCESS AND THE FROG, throw in all of Will Smith's movies, and so on.

Where's your counter list?

I agree, there's not enough black films being made. But taking down a noble, pretty good film like PRECIOUS is wrong-headed. We are not going to get a BRAVEHEART style action film about the life of NAT TURNER anytime soon so I'm just happy to see quality movies.

And nowadays, movies like PRECIOUS and THE WIRE are hardly made, but Baltimore, Detroit, DC and New Orleans still exist. I don't want to ever tell a filmmaker of any color not to make "that" kind of film

We need the Lee Daniels' of the world to make hit, critically acclaimed films. That's the only shot we've got at getting the freedom to do the kinds of films you want to see. Precious is not a masterpiece but the positive reaction its getting is a good thing for black filmmakers.

comment #25

62Lincoln says ...

Chicago48: "With the discovery of Shaniya Davis' body and the accusations that her mother pimped her (human traffick) anything is possible ..."

Chicago48, truer word were never written. Everyone should google this sweet little girl's name, read the horrible story for yourself, and say a prayer (or whatever you think to be appropriate) for her.

comment #26

Sabina E says ...

With the discovery of Shaniya Davis' body and the accusations that her mother pimped her (human traffick) anything is possible with black people these days. People have joined the Dahmers and mass murderers on the American landscape.

That was such an ignorant comment. Race has nothing to do with it. In MY state, the police have just arrested a religious WHITE CHRISTIAN family who have sexually molested children, forced their family dog to have sex with kids, have murdered a few children, and buried their bodies in the backyard.

Fucking sick shit.

comment #27

thatmovieguy says ...

Where were all these "deeply concerned" columnists back in the early 1990s when nearly every film about urban life featured gun-toting gang members, crackheads, pothead rappers and alleged heroes who were either fresh out of prison or a heartbeat away from going back? And the female characters were typically junkie-hookers, materialistic tramps or demanding baby-mamas who could serve as comic relief when they got slapped around by the hero? Look back at all the junk that attempted to copy the success of "New Jack City" and "Boyz N the Hood"; those films presented images and attitudes far more offensive and nihilistic than anything in "Precious." Yeah, let's talk about "prurient interest," Courtland. I spent seven years in Detroit in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and I met young women whose stories were not far removed from Precious': girls who had had multiple abortions by the time they were 17; who were ridiculed for wanting to finish high school because "school is a waste of time"; who were sexually assaulted by their mothers' boyfriends and then branded as whores by their mothers because they "must have been asking for it," etc. Perhaps such things don't happen in Mr. Milloy's world, but I assure you they do occur -- and not just because Oprah or Tyler Perry or Sapphire dream them up. Hope you don't get saddle sores from riding that high horse, Courtland, although it does make it so much easier to look down on the people who pay to see "Precious," doesn't it?