The film finds its purpose most pointedly when it zeroes in on the unambiguous relationship between Holiday and “Strange Fruit.”
Unlike Lucious and their three sons, Cookie emerges from prison uncorrupted by success and the only character strong enough to mount a proper challenge to Lucious’s glitzed-out hypocrisy.
The Butler is likely to crack the Best Picture lineup, even if claiming the big prize is all but impossible.
Steve McQueen doesn’t seem to know the difference between the unflinching and the gratuitous.
This is the first film year in a long while that’s made me want to applaud Harvey Weinstein.
With the film, Lee Daniels quietly pushes his talent for hashing out visceral, violent emotions into unexpected dramatic terrain.
For better or worse, Lee Daniels has managed to deliver one of the year’s most unforgettable movies.
The annual flood of see-them-or-be-left-out titles will pummel your poor movie-buff planning like a surging tsunami.
What this poster truly exudes is heat.
Gee, you think producer Adam Shankman is hedging his bets on his precious Oscarcast (based on the song “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa) turning into ladies’ night?
Visually, morally, Precious is whack, but praise Mo’Nique’s performance ("Fuck a stipend!") and Gabourey Sidibe’s superior one.
Throughout, you get a sense that Precious isn’t living out a recognizably human tragedy, but a condescending drama queen’s notion of one.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mo’Nique as lovers? Now we’ve seen everything.
Shadowboxer is best aborted, and flushed away as one of 2006’s more unpleasant memories.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s In a Year of 13 Moons is the obvious influence for director Oskar Roehler’s mosaic of miserabilism.