Yesterday, Gabourey Sidibe explained to us how she has always been awesome and we were all like, "Duh, girl! Wanna get some drinks later?" And that was that. Today, we learn about a diva whose life has seen its own fair share of ups and downs. A diva who may or may not has been known to shake her fist defiantly at the sky and cry, "Why is my life like an oversalted pork rind?" A diva, who has, post-Precious, found a wellspring of confidence, a new lust for life. Mariah Carey has discovered that for a boost of morale, she needs to put down her concealer and start getting real. With herself and with the world.

Of all the young things to make it big in Hollywood in the last six or so months, we couldn't be happier with the whirlwind of success of Precious star Gabourey Sidibe. Plucky, brilliant, and effervescent, Sidibe has a charm that belies the downtroddenness of her on-screen alter-ego. We already knew this when she sat down with BlackBook last November, on the eve of the film's release. However, in spite of the film's runaway success three months later, Sidibe still remains awesome as ever. A recent Guardian profile of the actress finds Sidibe's candor and confidence so refreshing that you can't help but tut-tut the false pretenses of other young stars.

When news surfaced that she had won two prizes for her starring role in Lee Daniels’ Precious, Gabourey Sidibe reacted as one might expect of a woman in her position. “I changed my Facebook status,” says the 26-year-old actress while sipping a rum cocktail at Bistro Milano in midtown Manhattan. “I can literally tell people I’m an award-winning actress,” she says, with a violent, characteristic burst of snort-punctuated
laughter. “And that’s pretty bomb.”

Oh, look. Awards! Bestowed by a tight-knit coterie of L.A.-based film critics! And, lo! More awards! This time, conferred by some folks in Boston. A common thread among the breakout winners? A dastardly streak that makes Heath Ledger's Joker seem warm and cuddly. This awards season, it pays to be a ruthless villain. A few obvious and unlikely picks after the break.

Oh, hello! You're still there? Excellent. Here's your end-of-the-weekend, doused-in-the-mists-of-Ida box office round-up. It's fairly predictable, with the most predictable development reflecting our fickle whims as American pop consumers. Meaning that with the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It sliding 60%, perhaps it's time for all the king's men to start pointing fingers at each other, lobbing jagged accusations like "You're not faithful enough, I loved Michael more!" as they tear each other to shreds, devolving into pagan beasts of burden. On the sunnier side of things, Precious enjoys growth of about 225% this week, mostly because of a wider release. Also, 2012 made like a kajillion dollars and ranked at #1, so everyone will be talking about that tomorrow.

With one of Oscar's biggest players entering the box office ring this past weekend, the most resounding breakthrough rumbled just outside the top ten. The usual brawlers were there: that Michael Jackson documentary, a fantasy movie about a child and some monsters, some film about goats and George Clooney, and of course Disney's latest attempt to reinvent Charles Dickinson, despite Vanessa Williams' success with that initiative years ago. While Disney's A Christmas Carol leads the pack on numbers alone, the $200 million production budget saw only a seventh of that money trickle back with about $31 million opening sales. Many are terming the film a "flop" even though there's still over a month until Christmas. Precious is enjoying the opposite fate.

Oh what a world! When I first heard that Mo'Nique had started to form something of a diva complex, expecting pay-outs when asked to represent Precious, I balked and assumed that it was just weedy grapevines sewn by spurned extras from The Parkers who had a grudge to settle. But then similar stories continued cropping up. At the beginning of this month, the comedienne's new publicist quit after two weeks on the job. Surely she would be humble in her demands of a media that was simply waiting on the right moment to herald her as Oscar's Last Hope.

When Precious won all sorts of awards at Sundance, it was called Push. Then another movie called Push came out that no one liked and even less people saw, so the producer's of this Push changed the movie's name to Precious. At least that's our theory. We also think they did it so they can stick this inspirational tagline in the trailer: "Life is Hard. Life is Short. Life is Painful. Life is Rich. Life is Precious." Brill-iant.