Abject poverty exists.

Incest, violence, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse exist.

What did you want this movie to be? What did you expect? How could it have been any better for you and still retained the blunt reality of inner city poverty and abuse?

I think you are uncomfortable by these scenes because you pretend they don't exist when they aren't on the screen, the reality "shoved" in your face, as you say.

Overdetermined tawdriness? These are not exaggerated caricatures; you obviously don't understand there are parents out there, situations out there, that are JUST LIKE THIS.

And I don't think they are "offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation" but rather for their recognition.

I admit I could be totally off base, but your review seems inadequately hindered by your lack of experience with or knowledge of the subject matter.

For a large section of the populace, real life IS tawdry. Real life IS bluntly shoved in your face. Real life makes people far more uncomfortable than this movie made you. Unfortunately.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen this film, and probably won't until it winds up on cable, nor have I read the book. I've only read a lot about the film and the book.

Here's the thing, though: Things can be true to life and still not work in a film. Yes, there are people who live like Precious. It's very possible to know this, even to have had experience with it, and still find it to be too much at once in the movie.

The review made it sound like her objections were not just finding it to be too much at once in the movie, but rather that it wasn't even believable to her. Maybe I read it wrong, but I believe she mentions the violence, the bad parents, the dream sequences as all being over the top. Well, maybe they are uncomfortable and over the top for her, and that's okay. But in that case she needs to write the review more clearly. Is an aushwitz film "too much" or unbelievable? I don't mind it being "too much" for her, and I don't mind critique on directing and editing, but to imply it wasn't believable is just so naively offensive to people who live or have lived that way. I mean seriously, calling it poverty porn? That's where my gasket was finally blown.

I think what the reviewer meant was not that the situation was not believable, it was the presentation that was over the top and unbelievable. It's one thing to present a sketch of reality in a movie, but it's another thing to beat you over the head with it. At a certain point when you have you fiftieth blatant symbolism in a film it becomes to much and you just shut down all belief in the film.

We've seen this before in war films, race films, and rape films. The direct/writer tries to squeeze in every bit they can think of to hammer the message home. Unfortunately this can go to far and turn off the viewer's empathy.

dana gave bad reviews to . . .

2008's best picture "slumdog millionaire" (she called it "hokum"

2007's best picture "no country for hold men"

this is a person who is unable to learn from her mistakes, and is demonstrably unable to recognize film film making.

baltimore aureole:

dana gave bad reviews to . . .

2008's best picture "slumdog millionaire" (she called it "hokum"

2007's best picture "no country for hold men"

this is a person who is unable to learn from her mistakes, and is demonstrably unable to recognize film film making.

And as we all know, the Academy is never wrong. If you blaspheme Oscar, you must be re-educated, and only then you too will be able to recognize "film film making."

("Slumdog" WAS hokum. But I did like "No Country For Old Men." Don't know what a hold man is.)