One of my favorite films of all time is Monster’s Ball. It’s full of bleak, despairing truth, as well as hope and life. It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. It’s no surprise to me that Precious, a film about an illiterate, obese teenager living in Harlem in the late  1980s, is directed by Lee Daniels, as he was one of the producers of Monster’s Ball. In fact, the novelist behind Precious (the novel is actually called Push), a woman named Sapphire, optioned her book to Daniels because of his work with Monster’s Ball. As Daniels said about Sapphire, “[she] did not want to see her book as a film. She’s truly an auteur. An intellectual. She did not care for and was unimpressed with Hollywood.”

Precious currently sits at 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.com and is gliding into awards season with a lot of positive buzz, especially around Mariah Carey (yes, the singer) and comedian Mo’Nique for their roles as a social worker and Precious’ abusive mother, respectively. I think you’ll get the same goosebumps I did from watching the trailer and start counting the days for when this inspirational movie makes its way to theaters in Cache Valley. However, if you can’t wait until – oh, I don’t know, June – you can hit up the Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City on November 13th.