Precious costar Mo’Nique, whose performance has been way over-praised but has nonetheless locked an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, is continuing to give Academy members reasons not to vote for her. The latest boner, as reported by Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil, is her decision not to accept her Best Supporting Actress award from the New York Film Critics Circle on 1.11.
A rep explains that “Mo’Nique and her family will just be returning from vacation that very night” [presumably she means Monday, 1.11] and that “she begins taping her TV show in the a.m. on the 12th.”
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If Mo’Nique had any respect for the NYFCC she would cut short her vacation by a day or so and haul her lard ass up to Manhattan on the 11th. It’s 12.19 today — she’s got over three weeks to figure this out. And who ends their vacations on a Monday? People flying coach and looking to avoid the crowds?
If Mo’Nique is worried about being fresh and well-rested for the taping of her Atlanta talk show, she could probably delay the start of taping by a day. She could certainly hop on a NY-to-Atlanta plane on the night of the 11th and get a good five or six hours sleep, no problem. So she’s full of shit. She’s not attending the NYFCC ceremony because she doesn’t care to — end of story.
And one of the reasons she doesn’t care to, I suspect, is because the NYFCC is being honcho’ed this year by an outspoken African-American critic, Armond White, who thinks Precious is a load of crap. So in addition to “attitude queen” and “show me the money” we can add “coward” to the list of Mo’Nique slogans, pronouns and adjectives.
Response quotes: Yesterday a prominent NYFCC member, speaking anonymously to O’Neil, said Mo’Nique’s snub lends “credence to the story that she wants to be paid to show up for these things.”
Us Weekly‘s Thelma Adams adds the following: “As a NYFCC member, my response is more snacks and drinks for us, and more available seats for more congenial people. My guess is that Meryl will attend.”
The NYFCC ceremony will take place at Crimson in the Flatiron district.
