Word: winfrey
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...While Oprah will woo the public, the involvement of Winfrey and Perry as executive producers only enhances the film's backstory - a crucial ingredient when it comes to becoming the talk of the Academy. Voters love hearing about the actress who saved a doomed production (Kate Winslet in The Reader) or a left-for-dead drama that went on to become the darling of critics and audiences (Slumdog Millionaire). Thus far, the narrative surrounding Precious is one of audiences and critics being moved to tears, caught off guard by its stark portrayal of poverty and wrapped up in its uncompromised...
...storming the campaign trail on behalf of her favorite presidential candidate or launching the most influential book club in publishing history (her latest pick, Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them, was shipped to bookstores just last week). So when even the hint of a possible Oprah Winfrey Film Club arose at this year's Toronto Film Festival, reporters took note. "A film club," the TV icon said in response to a question at a Sept. 13 press conference. "That's a thought." (Read TIME's cover story on Oprah and her film Beloved...
...what might have seemed like only idle speculation a week ago took on a new dimension of seriousness Sept. 19, when the film Winfrey is producing took the festival's top award. Lee Daniels' Precious (based on the novel Push by Sapphire), the story of an illiterate black teen in 1980s Harlem who is both abused by her mother and pregnant with a second child by her father, was honored with Toronto's coveted audience award, following in the wake of last year's Toronto-to-Oscar champion Slumdog Millionaire. It was only the latest in a long line...
...What's different about the Precious campaign is the O factor. At the same press conference where she toyed with the notion of undertaking a film club, Winfrey announced her intention to lead a promotional blitz on behalf of Precious across her various platforms, hoping to "bring in different audiences" by promoting the film on her show, in her magazine and on her satellite-radio channel...
...behind The Great Debaters - a film that went on to gross only $30 million. She produced and co-starred in 1998's Beloved, 12 years after she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in The Color Purple. If Precious were to be crowned Best Picture next February, Winfrey could well be singled out as one of the producers to take the stage to accept the award: Oprah would have her own Oscar...