akeelah and the bee

as someone who I have dragged to too many movies recently told me, "when you see a lot of movies, you start to know which ones are good." well, this one is the real deal. describing the plot won't do it justice, just know that laurence fishburne (who also produced the film) is understated and great, angela bassett is gorgeous as always, 13 year old keke palmer is fantastic as a little girl secretly obsessed with words, and when I left the theatre, I did not see a dry eye in the house - and it wasn't even sad. one thing though - the spelling bee movies (this one and bee season have created a genre) would have us believe that kids regularly desire to throw spelling bees for the good of others. can this possibly be true?