Akeela and the Bee
 

We just saw this one on Monday and all I have to say it wow! What a nice piece of work.

Its a story of Akeela(Kiki Palmer), a girl that lives in the ghetto(or at least a bad part of town) and consequently goes to a less than stellar school. Her talent for spelling is 'discovered' when a college professor, Dr. Larabee(Larry Fishburne), happens to witness her winning the school spelling bee. He introduces her to the idea of moving on to other, bigger bees. I won't go into details about the rest so as to not be a spoiler.

Akeela is seemless in its dialogue and plot. No clunky wordplay or disposable sideplots are found. The performances by Kiki Palmer & Larry are simply wonderful. I had never heard of Palmer before this movie but she is really something else - a twelve year old actress who is going to get a lot of work after this wonderful performance. Angela Bassett also does well as Akeela's mother.

If you hadn't guessed, I highly recommend this movie. It would make a great family film. There is only one curse word and I am pretty sure that they put that in so the thing wouldn't end up 'G.' My wife couldn't even remember that there was one afterwards.

On their program, Ebert & Roper were musing as to whether a 12 year old could win a best actress Oscar