As my friend Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience has pointed out, this Friday can safely be declared the beginning of Oscar season. That's because it's the day that we finally finally! see the release of Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire, a movie that has been lauded since all the way back at Sundance, and if you listen to some people, already has multiple Oscar statues guaranteed it even before it grosses a dime.

Precious is only going into limited release this weekend, but unlike other platformers that have yet to make it out of major cities (An Education, what are you waiting for?), Precious will be playing virtually everywhere before you know it. Not only does it have Oprah and Tyler Perry out promoting it, but it's this year's Slumdog Millionaire if there is one, a story about hope coming out of poverty and overcoming life's obstacles. It's much, much harder to watch than Slumdog, and doesn't end with an oversimplifying musical number, but I have plenty of faith that if most Americans wind up seeing one adult drama this fall, it'll be this one.

I've had Precious ranked as one of the Best Picture locks since I began this column, and as the movie comes closer to release, that position has only solidified. I've yet to manage to bang out my review, but other critics are generally wild about it. The most interesting thing about the movie's public perception, though, has been from publicity tours or lack thereof. It started with rumors that Mo'nique was being hugely uncooperative when it came to promoting the movie, which led into a strange New York Times piece on Daniels in which he claimed to have directed Monster's Ball (he was a producer; the actual director was Marc Forster) and compared raising money for films to drug dealing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from these egomaniacs, though, there's the film's star Gabourey Sidibe, who is black and overweight like Precious, but otherwise utterly unlike her character. The below clip from her appearance on Ellen, in which she dances goofily and speaks with energy and humor about the film, says everything about her one-woman charm offensive: