Moive-Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Saffire

This movie was nominated for several Academy Awards. It won one for Mo'Nique as best supporting actress.

OK, let me just start by saying the title of the movie is ridiculous. Just dumb! So I will just refer to it as Precious from here on out.

As terrible as the title is, the movie Precious is a tour d' force for all involved. But it is not in any way, shape or form a feel good movie. It is dark and deals with many people most of us would rather not know at all.

Gabourey Sidibe stars as Precious (2009), a girl who lives with her terribly abusive mother (Mo'Nique), and lives a life that is harrowing in the extreme. At 16 she has a baby of her own, who is being raised by her grandmother, and child with Down Syndrome. She lives in a dark place, both literally and psychically.

She gets a small chance, as she is encouraged to attend an alternative school in the inner city. Though she seems barely literate, she has never had a chance to be anything more. The school is a release for her, but the horror in her life goes on, and we learn how she became pregnant and got to where she is now.

Both Sidibe and Mo'Nique are amazing. But there are many other roles that bear attention, including a Mariah Carey role that is pivotal to one of the most heart wrenching, ugly scenes that I have ever seen in a movie.

Mo'Nique's role is one of the darkest I have seen, and it is one that you will not forget, even while you may wish to. This person is really one of the most disgusting people EVER on screen. And yet, and yet, you see for a moment, as a mere glimpse into her soul, how she became that. It does not make you think she is any less disgusting, but makes you feel even more people are.

Precious is a movie that sticks with you for a long time. It takes no easy outs, and gives us no easy fulfillment or reward. It makes us earn every bit of respect we have for the cast and filmmakers. A gut wrenching success of a movie.

Movie-Jarhead

Made in 2005, Jarhead seems to me a pre-cursor for the Academy Award winning The Hurt Locker.

While Jarhead deals with a different Iraqi war, there are great similarities between the two films, both dealing with the internal fight that goes on in a soldier, as much as the external fight he is involved in.

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx, among others, the film redefined Gyllenhaal as a hunk. And it also boasted his dramatic prowess, as he plays a Marine sniper, Anthony Swofford, going to the Middle East to push back Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. His mental state, from utter boredom to utter terror are played very well by Gyllenhaal. And his reaction, as well as those of the men around him, illustrate a toll not often accounted for in wars, the toll on the minds and souls of those who participate in the killing and destruction.

It is a movie about war, sure, but more about what happens to the soldiers in the war. The tension at times is unbearable, and not just in the few times the movie depicts fighting. But the tension of the boredom and loneliness and being out of normal society.

The Hurt Locker got it even better, and I think it owes a debt of gratitude to jarhead for that. But Jarhead tells a story as compelling and maybe a mite more personal. It is a very good movie, and Gyllenhaal was very good in it.