Lee Daniels

[7] Lee Daniels (Precious, The Butler) directs this moody piece about a college dropout who helps his older brother investigate the murder of a police officer. The convicted killer’s girlfriend joins the investigation to help prove his innocence. Zac Efron and Matthew McConnaughey play the brothers and Nicole Kidman plays the girlfriend — each of them showing range and abilities you haven’t seen from them …

[7] Precious is the kind of movie a studio exec must dread hearing a pitch about: “So, there’s this girl, and she’s really sad, her daddy raped her, she named her down syndrome baby Mongo, her mother violently abuses her, she’s HIV-positive, and, yeah, it really sucks to be her.” Surprisingly, Precious doesn’t wallow in melodrama. It plays straight-forward and honest, and you really start …