Weekend Movie Forecast: Precious or The Men Who Stare at Goats

<p>The novel <em>Push</em> by Sapphire, probably one of the more interesting additions to High School reading lists, will be unveiled to the masses via Oprah and Tyler Perry as the movie <em>Precious</em>. The film follows illiterate, 16 year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones, pregnant for the second time by her absent father, as she attempts to somehow escape her abusive mother and transcend her generally nightmarish situation. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/movies/06precious.html?ref=movies"> A.O. Scott at the Times </a> calls it "less the examination of a social problem than the illumination of an individual’s painful and partial self-realization. Inarticulate and emotionally shut down, her massive body at once a prison and a hiding place, Precious is also perceptive and shrewd, possessed of talents visible only to those who bother to look. </p><p></p>"At its plainest and most persuasive, her story is that of a writer discovering a voice. <em>Precious</em> is a hybrid, a mash-up that might have been ungainly, but that manages to be graceful instead. And Ms. Sidibe, perhaps the least-known member of this movie’s unusual cast, is also the glue that holds it together. Nimble and self-assured as Mr. Daniels’s direction may be, he could not make you believe in <em>Precious</em> unless you were able to believe in Precious herself. You will."