Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Director
Doug Atchison

Main cast
Keke Palmer; Laurence Fishburne; Angela Bassett; Curtis Armstrong; J.R. Villarreal

Genres
Drama

Description
Eleven year-old Akeelah Anderson's life is not easy: her father is dead, her mom ignores her, her brother runs with the local gangbangers. She's smart, but her environment threatens to strangle her aspirations. Responding to a threat by her school's principal, Akeelah participates in a spelling bee to avoid detention for her many absences. Much to her surprise and embarrassment, she wins. Her principal asks her to seek coaching from an English professor named Dr. Larabee for the more prestigious regional bee. As the possibility of making it all the way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee looms, Akeelah could provide her community with someone to rally around and be proud of -- but only if she can overcome her insecurities and her distracting home life. She also must get past Dr. Larabee's demons, and a field of more experienced and privileged fellow spellers.


Similar movies

11-year-old Eliza Naumann comes from an odd family; they all divert their emotional frustrations into secret channels. When Eliza unexpectedly begins winning spelling bees, what had been a stable dynamic within the family becomes disrupted; long held secrets emerge, and a latent spiritual yearning is awakened in her withdrawn father Saul and compulsive mother Miriam. As Eliza moves closer and clos
Bruno is the story of a unique young boy genius, Bruno (Alex D. Linz), whose expression of his own individuality leads his family and community along an emotional journey. By the time he reaches his final destination, Bruno's story becomes a fable of the importance of each person's uniqueness and originality.
Molly is a girl living in the year 1944 and WWII has brought many changes to Molly's life. An English girl comes to live with Molly's family to escape the bombings. They slowly become good friends.
Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to kill black people.
TV producer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it incredibly becomes a smash hit. Michael Rapaport co-stars in this searing satire.
Powerful magic cast by Alex spells trouble for the Russo's. The kids must go on an adventure to save their family and their existence.
Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Joanne (Tracey Heggins) find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection. Barry Jenkins (nominated for a Best First Feature Independent Spirit Award) directs this poetic tale of love and sex that blends the elements of old-fashioned romance with the sensibilities of modern-day relationships.
Goldie returns from five years at the state pen and winds up king of the pimping game. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt white cops and a crime lord who wants him to return to the small time.
An alien slave crashes lands in New York city while being pursued by two Men in Black bounty hunters. His attempt to find a place for himself on earth parallels that of the immigrant experience.
Against the backdrop of a missing girl case, lost souls throughout Los Angeles search for meaning and redemption and affect each other in ways they don't always see.
This is the story of Samantha Horton, a former Texas homecoming queen and physical therapist. When both she and her husband, Rex, are laid off from their jobs, Samantha accepts an offer to work at a massage studio in a nearby town, not realizing that the other staff members are actually prostitutes who service a clientele of wealthy and powerful businessmen. Eventually realizing what goes on behind closed doors, but desperate to provide for her family, Samantha goes along for the ride. But when the police raid the business and Samantha is arrested, she ends up as a key witness in the case — putting high-profile johns in handcuffs and bringing a small Texas town to its knees.
Menace II Society is a coming of age tale detailing the summer after its protagonist Caine (Tyrin Turner) graduates from high school. This is Caine's story, which details real life in today's tough inner city.
In 1980 young George O'Dowd baffles his parents with his love of frocks and make-up and moves into a squat with kindred spirit Peter, who dresses as Marilyn Monroe and calls himself Marilyn. They make a splash at Steve Strange's trendy Blitz Club where George gets a job in the cloakroom but George is unlucky in his relationships with men until he meets wannabe musician Kirk. Through Kirk George meets the handsome drummer Jon Moss, on whom he develops a crush, but sacked by the Blitz and spurned by Kirk, George turns to Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren to further his music career. George's spell with McLaren's group Bow Wow Wow is short but fan Mikey North is impressed and asks George to sing in a group he is forming, where George again meets Jon. They will have an affair and the group will become the very successful Culture Club. Four years later, however, hounded by the tabloid press amid stories of his drug addiction, an unhappy George turns to Jon for advice on his future.
Get on the Bus follows several Black men on a cross country bus trip to the Million Man March. On the bus are an eclectic set of characters including a laid off aircraft worker, a former Gang Banger, a Hollywood actor, a cop who is of mixed racial background, and a White bus driver, all make the trek discussing issues surrounding the march, manhood, religion, politics, and race.
A former stripper's (Rebecca Hall) talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler (Bruce Willis) who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.
In high school, Matt and Ryan were best friends. More than friends, actually. But in the ensuing ten years, they've lost contact. So when Matt receives an invitation to Ryan's wedding he's surprised - especially that Ryan is marrying a woman!
On Christmas Eve in the Arizona desert, a middle-aged man (Stephen Baldwin) and an old woman (K Callan) contemplate suicide. But through chance run-ins with strangers and perhaps some divine intervention, they cross paths and change each other's life forever.
John and his girlfriend have vowed to marry once they save $30,000 for their dream house. But the minute they achieve their financial goal, John finds out his niece has been accepted at Harvard, and he's reminded of his promise to pay for her tuition (nearly $30,000). John's friend Duff convinces him to turn to petty crime to make the payment … but Duff's hare-brained schemes spin quickly out of control.
Holly is tired of moving every time her mom Jean breaks up with yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man, an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her self-esteem.
Road of no Return follows the final nine days in the lives of four atypical hit men who are secretly brought together in a covert operation to fight the drug trafficking epidemic in the country.
Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.
A man (Richard Roxburgh) the Australian government blames for 1990s political woes blames his mother (Judy Davis), a communist Stalin seduced in 1951.
A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.
After the Crown Heights riots, an orthodox Rabbi and a community activist help two youths--one a Hasidic Jew, the other African-American--form a hip-hop group to heal their neighboorhood.
Six misfit schoolgirls at an all-girl Catholic high school, left alone at the school for Easter week, get mixed up with the occult and witchcraft after an old Satanic temple is found underneath the church where they attend as well as an old book of black magic spells for conjuring up an ancient demon from the pits of Hell. Janie, the most characteristic and cruelest of the girls, takes charge of the group and plots to resurrect the demon using a series of black arts spells, while one innocent girl, Faith, has a change of heart and tries to stop them from completing their spell which also includes a human sacrifice.
Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.
A recently released ex-con gets involved in a fake kidnapping scheme that turns very real.
Hal, a 15-year-old high-school student with a minor yet socially alienating (and painful) disability: he stutters uncontrollably. Determined to work through the problem, Hal opts for an extreme route he joins the school debating team, which sends him on a headfirst plunge into breakneck speech competitions and offers a much-needed boost toward correcting the problem.
A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.
Michael Jordan agrees to help the Looney Tunes play a basketball game against alien slavers to determine their freedom.
Stay' is a romantic comedy in which a girl's relationships are destroyed when she reluctantly reveals a past indiscretion. 'Stay' will move and touch you -- maybe in a bad way.
Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.
Samantha MacKenzie, the daughter of the president of the United States, arrives at college with a group of Secret Service agents. Samantha, however, resents their presence and decides she wants to attend school just like a normal student. Her father agrees to recall the agents but secretly assigns James, an undercover agent, to pose as a student. They fall in love, but their romance is jeopardized when Samantha learns James' true identity.
Mark Thackeray (Poitier) is a West Indian, who in the 1967 film had taken teaching in a London East End school. He spent twenty years teaching and ten in administrative roles. He has taught the children of his former pupils, but is now retiring.
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
Malik (Omar Epps) is an African-American student attending on a track scholarship; academics are not his strong suit, and he goes in thinking that his athletic abilities will earn him a free ride through college. Fudge (Ice Cube), a "professional student" who has been at Columbus for six years so far, becomes friendly with Malik and challenges his views about race and politics in America.
Six young adults struggle with their personal demons while staying at a secluded mansion during a dark and stormy night where a seemingly innocent game of 'taboo' brings out their inter-most secrets which soon leads to murder.
A young girl tries to fit in with a clique of popular middle school girls after moving into the guest house of one of their homes.
Bizarre black comedy about 15th-century Paris lawyer Richard Courtois (Firth) who decides to ply his trade in the country, only to find things stranger than he can imagine. His first case turns out to be defending a pig that's accused of murdering a child. And the pig is owned by beautiful gypsy Samira (Annabi), so the idealistic lawyer can fall in love (or lust). There's religion and superstition, there's power struggles, there's ignorance versus knowledge--things sound very modern indeed.
When jobless Tommy Collins discovers that sequestered jurors earn free room and board as well as $5-a-day, he gets himself assigned to a jury in a murder trial. Once there, he does everything he can to prolong the trial and deliberations and make the sequestration more comfortable for himself.
At a French boarding school for troubled youth in the early 1970's, the Headmaster and his wife decide that their son Daniel, who is fifteen years old but looks younger, should finally go live in the dorm with all the other students, as they do not want it to seem Daniel is receiving any special treatment. Daniel is now faced with the challenge of earning the trust and respect of the other students, who all come from troubled backgrounds.
Matt falls for Casey, the new girl in school. She's fun-loving and eccentric, but there's a darkness to her whimsy that Matt can't begin to comprehend. When Casey attempts to commit suicide, her parents place her in a mental institution. Matt springs her out, and together the young lovers head on a road trip. They believe their love can "cure" Casey's problems. Matt starts to wonder, though, if are they inspired or misguided.
J.J. is a rookie in the Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at that station. Racial tensions run high in the department as some of J.J.'s fellow officers resent his presence. His only real friend is the other new trooper, the first female officer to work there, who also suffers similar discrimination in the otherwise all-white-male work environment. When J.J. becomes increasingly aware of police corruption during the murder trial of Teddy Woods, whom he helped to arrest, he faces difficult decisions and puts himself into grave personal danger in the service of justice.
Elizabeth is on the verge of losing her grip on life after she leaves her emotionally fraught home to start college. Quickly, her life takes a turn for the worse: She clashes with her roommate and decides her boyfriend, Rafe, is her sole salvation. Her psychiatrist prescribes Prozac … but is that her only choice?
A Greek History Professor & his daughter travel to a Greek Island for one last chance to finish his thesis on ancient love spells before he loses his research grant. His daughter attempts to match her father with the local women without sucess until she meets a beautiful Mermaid with whose help the Professor might finally find true love for himself.
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
Donna and Joel Gregory are staying at the estate of Lorna Love while researching a book about the long dead Hollywood goddess. Joel, who's father had a passionate affair with Lorna, becomes obsessed with her. His wife attemts to break the spell which threatens their marriage and their very lives.
Soap actress May-Alice Culhane is paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. She returns to her old home in Louisiana, where she proceeds to drink quite steadily and to drive away five personal attendants in the first twenty minutes of the movie. Then she meets with Chantelle, whose stubbornness matches her own -- if only because Chantelle, herself a recovering cocaine addict, cannot afford to lose this job. Their mutual dislike gradually develops into an armed truce as the two women deal with their own problems and with each others'.
A drama that looks back on the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.
Father's return from the insane asylum spells calamity for the Fairfield family.
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
An American reporter and an Afrikaans poet meet and fall in love while covering South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.
David Samuels is from an intellectual Jewish family from the posh Amsterdam Old South, where he is often mistaken as Moroccan because of his dark hair. David is a remarkable man on a mission: to find a ghetto fabulous queen with great tits and thick buttocks. His parents and friends declare him mad, but David continues unabated. His search leads him to the Bijlmer, where, after some wild adventures he is left disappointed. Will David ever find his ideal woman - a large, dark sex goddess with booty and brains?
BLACKOUT takes you inside the personal journey of what went down and what it was really like in Brooklyn, NY on August 14. It examines the nature of man to take advantage of his own fellow man outside of normal conditions, in times of weakness and vulnerability
Wong Yiu was a very shameless person and a blackmailer until one day he met a waitress named Ni Chen. He thought Ni Chen was like any other girls that could be controlled by him, but her stubbornness was way beyond his imagination. As time goes by, they both lost their ways and losing themselves in the process. He was not as free as he once was. Insanity causes him to end her life. Eight years later, Wong Yiu stepped out from the jail. He carried a gun and went to look for Ni Chen's mother at her home wishing to fulfill his own will. Written by Cannes Film Festival
A coming of age story about an inner-city youth raised by a hardworking single mother. When his dream of becoming a basketball player fails to materialize, he finds himself employed in a supermarket. After his mother is tragically gunned down, Clarence (played by Jackson) is consumed by revenge and takes up a life of crime in order to support his younger brother.
Romanian director Cristian Nemescu's comedy California Dreamin' (aka Nesfarsit, 2007) unfolds against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, circa 1999. A NATO train rolls through a Romanian hamlet, transporting a plethora of weapons across the country -- without official documents, and equipped only with the verbal consent of the Romanian authorities. The transport thus grows intensely vulnerable.
After a fundraiser for a black politician is robbed, Detroit police put two detectives, one white and one black, on the case, who try to work together under boiling political pressure.
Catch a Fire is a 2006 historically based drama about anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, focussing on the life of Patrick Chamusso, an timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world, who in 1980 is wrongly accused, imprisoned, and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant. The injustice transforms the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.

© Valossa 2015–2024