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Akeelah and the Bee (Blu-ray)
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DVD Details
- Rated: PG
- Closed captioning available
- Run Time: 1 hours, 52 minutes
- Video: Color
- Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
- Released: August 29, 2006
- Originally Released: 2006
- Label: Lions Gate
Performers, Cast and Crew:
Starring | Keke Palmer, Angela Bassett & Laurence Fishburne | |
Performer: | Curtis Armstrong, Lee Thompson Young, Tzi Ma, Eddie Steeples, Erica Hubbard & Julito McCullum | |
Directed by | Doug Atchison | |
Edited by | Glenn Farr | |
Screenwriting by | Doug Atchison | |
Composition by | Aaron Zigman | |
Produced by | Laurence Fishburne, Sidney Ganis, Michael Paseornek, Dalia Phillips, Nancy Hult, Daniel Llewellyn & Michael Romersa | |
Director of Photography: | David Mullen | |
Executive Production by | Mark Cuban, Marc Butan & Todd Wagner |
Entertainment Reviews:
Its clichés seem bigger and its characterisations broader than they would on the more forgiving telly.
Full Review
Time Out
Rating: 3.5/4 --
It's hard to believe the best family film so far this year comes from a writer-director whose previous film bears the unfortunate title The Pornographer.
Full Review
Big Picture Big Sound
Rating: 4/5 --
This is a film that couldn't be more predictable or more joyful. I just hope I haven't misspelled anything.
Full Review
Cinema Signals
Akeelah obeys every sports-movie rule, but trading end-zone dances for etymology gives it a geeky innocence. What's the word? Splendiferous.
Full Review
Newsweek
Rating: 1/5 --
Give it an m, i, s, s.
Full Review
Guardian
3 stars out of 5 -- You'll have a lump in your throat during this heart-tugger...
Total Film
Rating: 3.5/5 --
The best thing ... is that, unlike the majority of sports films, the film doesn't suggest that spelling has some kind of transcendental importance.
Full Review
Cinematical
Product Description:
Following in the fine tradition of inspiring inner-city underdog tales like STAND AND DELIVER, and TAKE THE LEAD, Doug Atchison's AKEELAH AND THE BEE is a story of overcoming odds that never descends into empty formula. The narrative centers around the character of Akeelah (Keke Palmer, in a star-making performance), a charming yet insecure 11 year old girl from Los Angeles' gang-ridden South Central district. Upon flipping channels after school one day, she lands on ESPN's coverage of the National Spelling Bee. Having recently become aware of her innate talent in this area, Akeelah cannot help but fantasize about the prospect of being a star of the bee circuit. The tragic problem -- intelligence of this kind is not valued in her community, where skills of athleticism and rapping are coveted far more than school smarts. Though Akeelah attempts to hide her academic acuity behind a rebellious attitude, she cannot resist the temptation to enter her school's spelling bee, at which her stellar performance attracts the attention of her idealistic principal, who pairs her with a mentor, a former professor named Joshua Larabee (the always riveting Laurence Fishburne, who re-embodies the wise iconoclast character he played so well in the chess movie SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER). Meanwhile, Akeelah's strong, practical mother, (played by Angela Bassett, who worked with Fishburne on the Tina Turner biopic WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT') while always supportive of her talented daughter, does not necessarily see the point of spending such time and energy on what will likely amount to a fleeting hobby.
Perhaps taking its cue from the surprising popularity of Jeffrey Blitz's quirky documentary SPELLBOUND (2002), which explored spelling prodigies from diverse classes, races, and geographic locations, this drama makes what could be a narrow niche into a universal tale of triumph over adversity.
Perhaps taking its cue from the surprising popularity of Jeffrey Blitz's quirky documentary SPELLBOUND (2002), which explored spelling prodigies from diverse classes, races, and geographic locations, this drama makes what could be a narrow niche into a universal tale of triumph over adversity.
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Product Info
- Sales Rank: 37,182
- UPC: 031398195962
- Shipping Weight: 0.25/lbs (approx)
- International Shipping: 1 item