FILM REVIEWS . . .

By Carrie Rickey Inquirer Movie Critic

How do you spell irresistible?

Another iridescent tile in the spelling-bee-as-metaphor-of-America mosaic, Akeelah and the Bee is an endearing inspirational of an 11-year-old abecedarian from South Central Los Angeles who wins her middle-school contest and can't imagine that she'll advance to the regionals, let alone the nationals, of what might be called the Orthographic Olympics.

Imagine The Karate Kid hooking up with Boyz N the Hood and spawning Girlz and the Word.

As Akeelah Anderson, the underachiever fearful of being branded a brainiac by sister seventh graders, Keke Palmer soars, carrying writer/director Doug Atchison's film on new 'tween wings.

Even when the movie occasionally strains credulity and chronology, Palmer possesses that winning combination of shyness and spunk so particular to girls of her age that she keeps it rooted in the believable.

Akeelah has recently lost her father. Unbeknownst to her grieving mother (tigress-tense Angela Bassett), she finds a surrogate father and mentor in Dr. Larrabee (Laurence Fishburne, with an apt name for a spelling coach), a flinty UCLA professor and etymologist.

While gruffly chiseling Akeelah into his Eliza Doolittle, Dr. Larrabee finds his granite heart humanized by the youngster who soaks up learning like an infinitely absorbent sponge. It says something about Palmer's performance - and Fishburne's generosity - that the young actress eclipses the seasoned actor (one of the film's producers) in so many scenes.

Nicely shot by cinematographer M. David Mullen, who captures the glow of summery sunlight in every frame, the film never visualizes words, as that in-the-word-we-find-the-Word spiritual Bee Season so powerfully did last year.

For Atchison, who developed his film from his Nicoll Award-winning screenplay of 2000, the spelling bee isn't a religious, but a social experience. He sees it as a proving ground for multicultural players whose mother and grandmother tongues make American English the diverse potluck it is.

When she advances to the citywide contest, Akeelah, who is African American and attends an underfunded public school, meets the Mexican American Javier and Asian American Dylan, students from a prosperous school district with enrichment courses.

Akeelah's age-appropriate flirtation with Javier (J.R. Villareal, a pint-size George Lopez) is one of the sunniest aspects of a film mostly about the bee's salutary effects. Atchison celebrates the spelling competition as a uniquely democratic institution that provides cross-cultural understanding, cements fractured communities, and, most of all, treats spectators to a high-stakes competition of rare sportsmanship and grace.

In its final act, Akeelah is as exciting as any Final Four matchup. What it may lack in cinematic art it compensates for in abecedarian adrenaline guaranteed to pump the pulse and the spirits of viewers from 10 to 90.

Copyright 2006 Philadelphia Enquirer

I-n-s-p-i-r-a-t-i-o-n-a-l

By Michael Rechtshaffen

During the course of the half-dozen years it has taken Doug Atchison's "Akeelah and the Bee" to go from script to screen, that old schoolhouse standby known as the spelling bee suddenly became hot property, informing everything from the documentary "Spellbound" to the novel/film "Bee Season" to the hit Broadway musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

Arriving in that aftermath, Atchison's heartfelt drama about an 11-year-old black girl from South Central L.A. who expertly faces down the multisyllabics at the Scripps National Spelling Bee can't help but feel a bit played out despite its empowering message and nice performances.

Such subject matter would, back in the day, have made for a swell "ABC Afterschool Special," but as a significant moviegoing draw, suffice it to say the future isn't looking exactly pulchritudinous.

Effectively anchoring the picture is Keke Palmer's lovely lead performance as Akeelah Anderson, a bright, highly articulate kid who's a terror in Scrabble but an underachiever in the classroom.

Taken under the wing of the sternly professorial but soft-spoken Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), Akeelah ascends the spelling competition ladder leading to a hard-earned spot in the big event despite the objections of her hard-working, widowed mother (Angela Bassett), who would seem to have a bee in her bonnet.

Akeelah ultimately earns her seat in the Washington Hyatt Grand Ballroom, but will she go the distance to become a motivating force for her family, friends and general community at large?

Word.

Adhering closely to the inspirational film playbook, Atchison hits all the essential emotional posts, but even if certain scenes have a weakness for the overly purposeful, this stuff can still click effectively with audiences, especially with an accomplished cast.

While Fishburne and Bassett, who worked together in "What's Love Got to Do With It," bring the required weight to their respective roles, the film does particularly well by the effervescent performances of its juvenile cast. In addition to Palmer's bright work, young JR Villarreal demonstrates some natural comic timing as Javier, an easygoing spelling bee veteran from Woodland Hills who shows her the ropes.

Behind the scenes, M. David Mullen's photography is clean and crisp, while editor Glenn Farr ("The Right Stuff") orchestrates all that spelling quite efficaciously.

By Dennis Harvey

Former VP and Presidential candidate Al Gore's crusade to raise awareness of global warming gets a useful new platform in "An Inconvenient Truth." Davis GuggenheimDavis Guggenheim's docudocu is a straightforward record of the lecture Gore has toured for years, juiced by elaborate graphics. An excellent educational tool, pic may prove an awkward fit for theatrical distribution. Exposure through academic/activist channels and perhaps self-distributed, one-night-stand bookings (a la Warren Miller's sports films) could work best.

Defining how global warming works on the atmosphere and dramatically illustrating its effects with before-and-after photos of drastically shrunken glaciers, et al., Gore's data is concise and accessible, greatly aided by a state-of-the-art slide show involving computerized charts, photos, archival footage, even cartoons. Point is that pollution has wrought more drastic changes in a few decades than Earth has seen since the last Ice Age, with truly dire consequences just years ahead. Gore builds a persuasive case for immediate action. Tech aspects are first-rate.

Copyright 2006 Variety

A vivid and vital activist movie

By Kirk Honeycutt

PARK CITY -- There are two agendas behind Davis Guggenheim's "An Inconvenient Truth." One is to bring to a much larger audience former Vice President Al Gore's fascinating multimedia presentation of the facts and issues arising from the phenomenon of global climate change. The other is to re-introduce to the American public a man we thought we knew but clearly did not. The film, which is screening in the Spectrum sidebar, succeeds on both counts.

The danger, of course, is that viewership for the film, which is looking for distribution, will divide along red state/blue state lines. Gore does make a strong argument that the need to address global warming is not a political but a moral issue. Time is running out as witnessed by the record number of tornadoes in the Midwest, the torrential flooding in Mumbai, India, and Hurricane Katrina all in one year.

What Gore strives to make crystal clear to anyone in opposition is that the tools and methods to reverse these calamitous changes are at hand -- no new inventions required -- and that the economic consequences of tackling the problem are positive rather than negative. The idea that responsible environmental protection is bad for the economy is exposed here through facts and science for what it is -- a Big Lie.

The film will need critics and op-ed page writers to get across the message that people of all political persuasions can risk exposure to Gore's message without fear of becoming tree-huggers. What they will become is alarmed.

The heart of the film is what Gore casually calls his "slide show." In fact, this is an ultrasophisticated use of charts, graphics, a cartoon, photos and other media to distill more than 30 years of research into the issue by Gore, dating back to his study under university professor Roger Revelle. This is a dynamic and at times humorous explanation of the link between carbon emissions and public health problems, insurance company costs, melting glaciers, shrinking lakes, rising sea levels, killer heat waves and, most dramatically, Katrina.

Interspersed through the lecture is footage of Gore traveling the world to meet with scientists, governmental officials and laypeople along with quieter moments where Gore reflects about growing up on a ranch and his own affinity with nature.

Gore traces his activism on the issue of climate change to the near-fatal accident of his young son in 1989. The possibility of losing a child devastated him but did confront him with the question of "how should I spend my time on this earth?" The fact that we're in real danger of losing that earth, just as he nearly lost his son, made the environment his cause.

The documentary is an act of political activism. Guggenheim and his politically conscious producers, Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns, have no interest in either challenging Gore's viewpoint or giving opposing opinions equal time. The film is simply a conduit for Gore's message.

Along the way, though, we do see a different Al Gore than the one who conducted the 2000 presidential campaign. Instead of a stiff politician, seeming uncomfortable in crowds, Gore the activist is an earnest, passionate, funny and caring individual, determined to communicate with people about the most important issue facing our earth.

Copyright 2006 Hollywood Reporter

Devastating in Its Implications

By David Edelstein

As the controversy over The Da Vinci Code makes clear, a vast majority of Americans—among them our president—regard the divinity of Jesus as a fact, not a theory. So what’s a theory? Global warming, of course. And it’s a theory that needs more study, preferably carried out by the unbiased scientists at ExxonMobil and their past or future colleagues in the Bush White House.

On the other hand, someone who would treat as fact the self-serving yammerings of Al Gore must be an environmentalist wacko, right? So let’s have a good laugh at An Inconvenient Truth, a feature-length lecture directed by Davis Guggenheim (there’s a limousine-liberal name for you!) in which the failed presidential candidate (lampooned a few weeks ago on the libertarian-tinged South Park, where he raved about a creature called “ManBearPig”) drones on about cracking ice shelves and disappearing permafrost and soaring temperatures and rising sea levels. It’s obviously just a tedious, 96-minute presidential-campaign commercial, right?

That, in any event, is how much of the mainstream media is likely to characterize this new documentary of Gore and his traveling global-warming slide show: Anything else would invite charges of liberal bias. But the fact is—the fact is—that only a brainwashed audience (and their brainwashers) could portray anything in An Inconvenient Truth as even remotely controversial. Gore has all the graphs and charts and time-lapsed photographs and peer-reviewed scientific studies he needs to underscore his message about where the planet is heading—and sooner than we think. So be afraid. Be very afraid.

In An Inconvenient Truth, Guggenheim weaves together the ex-vice-president’s speeches before a series of packed houses all over the United States and abroad. Casually dressed, Gore is less stiff than during his last presidential run, and he has learned not to drone. But he is still clearly in his element as a pedant. After introducing himself as the former next president of the United States (a joke that made at least one viewer wince at the thought of what might have been), he shows an image of the planet as it looked in the first pictures taken from space. Then he shows a picture of the planet as it looks now. Then he graphs the differences to show the acceleration of global warming. He debunks the theory that these changes are “cyclical”: Scientists have studied all the environmental cycles since the last Ice Age, he says. These are off the charts.

Guggenheim puts Gore on a pedestal, no doubt. There are biographical interpolations in which Gore discusses the death of his sister from lung cancer and the near-death of his son, and they’re extremely moving. But they do edge the film a little closer to the realm of campaign biographies. That said, his spiritual journey is a great deal more compelling—and transparent—than George W. Bush’s supposed revelation after decades of alcoholism and (alleged) drug abuse. Gore has real gravitas now, and not just because he has gained a bit of weight.

It’s worth dwelling on the mocking responses to Gore and his book Earth in the Balance (and, for that matter, to my friend Bill McKibben’s seminal The End of Nature in the late eighties) because everything Gore is saying should be old, old news. But the people on the other side will do and say anything. Perhaps the most amazing statistic in An Inconvenient Truth is that of 900-plus peer-reviewed studies in recognized journals, not one has challenged the idea of global warming, whereas more than 53 percent of articles in the mainstream media have presented it as a theory or been careful to include the demurrals of a tiny handful of bought-and-paid-for scientists or politicians. In the course of Gore’s lecture tour comes the unsurprising news that Bush aide Philip Cooney routinely red-penciled the conclusions of impartial government scientists; when exposed, he resigned and took a job with ExxonMobil.

But it won’t be long, Gore suggests, before other industries find it in their economic interest to sound the global-warming alarm. The insurance industry will have to pay for all the damage from hurricanes and floods as a consequence of Gulfstream disruptions. The auto industry will register that unless it makes cars more fuel-efficient, it won’t be able to sell them to anyone but Americans. There’s no spinning the images he presents of earth’s dwindling ice caps or, more poetically, the absence of snow on Kilimanjaro.

An Inconvenient Truth is one of the most realistic documentaries I’ve ever seen—and, dry as it is, one of the most devastating in its implications. See it with your kids—and watch closely to see who attacks it and on what grounds. I differ with Gore only on his optimism. “Political will is a renewable resource,” he says. There’s no accounting for people’s nutty faith.

by Jeff Otto

June 1, 2006 - I first heard about The Break-Up straight from Vince Vaughn about a year ago. He touted the film as a "romantic comedy in reverse," promising that the film would not placate Hollywood norms and stay true to that vision. It sounded like a good idea in theory, but the room full of critics and journalists had an understandable skepticism. After all, we've heard these hopes and dreams before, but once the Hollywood machine gets their meat hooks into something, it's all about conformance, it's all about sucking out the originality and making another mass-market, fast food product for wide consumption in mini-malls across America. But Vince Vaughn proved me wrong, and thank God he did.

Vaughn stars as Gary and Jennifer Aniston stars as Brooke. The film opens with a baseball game in Chicago, the great Cubs vs. White Sox rivalry. Gary is attending with his friend Johnny O (Jon Favreau) when Brooke catches Gary's eye. He romances her with a hotdog and the rest is history. The credits take us through a photo montage of their happy courtship, leading us to present day, where the couple reside in a great condo they purchased together in Chicago. They are preparing to have some friends and family over for dinner. Now this is where the premise really begins. Brooke and Gary conflict over the usual things couples fight about, from Gary buying too few lemons to create a dinner table centerpiece to him not offering to help out around the house to her nagging him with constant questions right after he gets home from work. Anyway, that's the jump off point, and it all gets nastier from there. This is the beginning of the end of their relationship.

The first two-thirds of The Break-Up are straight-up comedy. In fact, this portion runs the tried and true route of many romantic comedies before it, but this all seems to be intentional. Without giving away too much more beyond this one aspect of the story, Brooke didn't really want to break up with Gary. She merely hoped that breaking up with him would open his eyes to all he had with her and convince him to change. Needless to say, this isn't nearly as effective a method as women might believe, leading Gary to speak the age old question men have been asking women probably since caveman days: "If that's what you meant, why didn't you just say that?" I'm with you Gary, I'm with you.

At the heart of the story, The Break-Up is another entry to the age-old and neverending battle of the sexes. Those expecting a warm and fuzzy no-brainer (the kind that usually stars the likes of Meg Ryan or Hugh Grant and of which even Aniston herself has been guilty) need not apply. This film is more War of the Roses than Sleepless in Seattle. Yes folks, it's a little dark, it's a little different and it might require you to process an actual thought now and again.

Writers Jeremy Garelick, Jay Lavender and Vaughn have created a story that anyone who has ever been in a relationship can readily identify and sympathize with. All couples fight, but not usually in the movies. Movies always focus on the honeymoon period, but what's great about The Break-Up is it gets that part of the relationship out of the way by the end of the opening credits. The story is an exceptionally perceptive tale of the reality of relationships. As anyone who's been in a relationship knows, everyone fights. But in Hollywood, love stories are mostly of the utopian variety, leading couples worldwide to wonder why their love lives can't be as perfect as they are in the movies. Have no fear, The Break-Up is a portrayal of a real relationship, warts and all. Director Peyton Reed, who previously directed the whimsical Down With Love (and even more whimsical Bring It On) succeeds in every way here. The Break-Up is balanced and plotted perfectly, with a straight and narrow path that never deviates. I've heard that he had to fight for certain moments in the film and I'm glad to see that he convinced the execs to stay true to his vision.

Vince Vaughn continues his roll, again completely and totally off-the-hook funny. Remember, after Swingers, Vaughn went through a period of his career in the late 90's where he tried to be taken more seriously as an actor, as more than just that fast-talking, quick-witted, funny guy. After the recent roll of comic megahits Old School and Wedding Crashers, Vaughn has finally found a part that offers him the chance to explore multiple aspects of his talent. Here he gets to run with his trademark rapid-fire comedic dialogue, but he also gets to prove that he can create a heartfelt, sympathetic and dramatic characterization.

Aniston, whose feature work is spotty at best, gets a chance to balance the comedy with the drama as well. Brooke falls somewhere between Joanna in Office Space and Justine in The Good Girl. It's some of the most mature work she's has done, and a refreshing change from the cutesy girl-next-door parts she's run into the ground.

Picking up the comedic slack while Vaughn does some of the heavy lifting is Jon Favreau, who gets the rare chance to let Vaughn play his straight man. Favreau is hysterical, adding a nice comedic relief to some of the film's darker moments. Cole Hauser and Vincent D' Onofrio have their moments as Gary's brothers. Jason Bateman continues his return to the mainstream as a friend of the couple and a real estate agent who stands to profit from the possible sale of their condo. Justin Long has some funny moments as the slightly flaming secretary at the art gallery where Brooke works and Judy Davis is amusing as the manic owner of the gallery. John Michael Higgins plays Brooke's chipper acapella singing brother, who Gary can't stand.

I'm very interested to see how mainstream America reacts to The Break-Up. The movie mixes the laughs with great drama. I can't think of a mainstream movie that more accurately explores the truthful ins and outs, the good and bad of a realistic relationship. It's incredibly refreshing. I'd imagine most audiences will find at least a few moments seemingly ripped right out of their own relationship experiences, again some funny and some, well, sad. Now it's up to audiences to prove that they actually are smart enough to accept a romantic comedy that has a little something more to offer than mere escapism. If nothing else, see it with another couple and prepare for post-film battle of the sexes debates. You just might want to make sure that couch in the living room folds out.

By LOU LUMENICK

RON Howard's splendid "The Da Vinci Code" is the Holy Grail of summer blockbusters: a crackling, fast-moving thriller that's every bit as brainy and irresistible as Dan Brown's controversial bestseller. After being kept under close wraps by Sony, the hotly anticipated film was finally screened for critics yesterday before its premiere tonight at the Cannes Film Festival and its worldwide opening on Friday.

It's the best thing that either Howard and Tom Hanks - perfectly cast as Brown's hero, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon - have done since their last collaboration, "Apollo 13," a decade ago.

While most summer movies ask to check your brains at the popcorn counter, "The Da Vinci Code," which opens with a bizarre murder in the Louvre, requires you to follow an increasingly elaborate series of puzzles and double meanings.

They all lead to a centuries-old conspiracy that one character labels "the biggest cover-up in human history."

Even those who haven't read the book know that conspiracy involves Opus Dei, a real-life prelature of the Roman Catholic Church, which has condemned the novel as libelous and blasphemous.

While the movie doesn't seriously deviate from Brown's premise, sometimes that premise is held at arm's length: "We've been dragged into a world of people who think this stuff is real," as Langdon puts it.

While we're not going to reveal major spoilers, the few people who haven't read the book might want to stop reading now if they want to derive the fullest enjoyment from seeing "The Da Vinci Code."

After being fatally wounded by a flagellation-loving albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), the man in the Louvre has stripped himself naked and elaborately arranged himself as a replica of a famous sketch by Da Vinci.

The victim, the chief curator, failed to keep a date with Langdon, so our hero is summoned to the museum by a French police captain (Jean Reno) who suspects him of the crime. But Langdon is whisked away in a clever chase sequence by cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou), the dead man's granddaugher.

She works with Langdon to decipher other clues left by the old man, including the phrase "So Dark the Con of Man" and a code device in a bank vault.

Pursued by the police and Silas, the fugitives enlist the help of the enigmatic Sir Leigh Teabling (the splendid Ian McKellen), a former mentor of Langdon's.

Teabling relates a fantastic plot (rendered in lavish flashbacks and backed up by clues in The Last Suppper) to cover up the explosive historic truth about Jesus Christ - and Mary Magdalene.

The exciting pursuit of nothing less than the Holy Grail - whatever that may be - takes Langdon and Sophie across France, England and Scotland.

Howard keeps the narrative taut, and Akiva Goldsman's screenplay is a model adaptation that hews closely to the essentials of Brown's already cinematic novel without being slavish.

And this lavish production almost entirely avoids the schmaltz that Howard and Goldsman ladled over their previous collaborations, "A Beautiful Mind" and "Cinderella Man."

At the movie's heart is Hanks, who is sympathetic, funny and immensely watchable as the rumpled Langdon.

He's well matched by Tatou, who in a difficult role shows the most screen presence since her breakthrough performance in "Amelie."

"The only thing that matters is what you believe," Langdon tells Sophie at one point.

It's also the creed of "The Da Vinci Code,'' which is far more interested in being a rare summer movie that you won't forget an hour after leaving the theater than questioning the basis of anybody's religious faith.

Copyright 2006 New York Post

Better than the novel, and a pleasant surprise!

By WILLIAM ARNOLD

The bottom line on the $125 million screen version of Dan Brown's controversial, mega-bestselling thriller novel, "The Da Vinci Code," is that it could have been worse -- a lot worse. Considering the immense challenges involved in adapting such a talky tome, it even struck me as something of a pleasant surprise.

It is not, let's be clear, in the same lofty league as such great movies made from phenomenon-novels as "Gone With the Wind," "From Here to Eternity," "The Godfather," and "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- movies that not only capture and enhance their literary source but touch the sky with a special magic all their own.

I'm not even completely sure if the movie will be coherent to people who have somehow managed to avoid reading the novel (if any such people exist). By necessity, the adaptation sheds large chunks of the saga and elements of the puzzle that shifts the action from place to place.

On the other hand, the film has an exciting visual texture that gives body to Brown's bestseller-ese prose, and uniformly strong performances that give dimension, depth and interest to characters that the author never entirely brought to life. In this sense, I found it much more entertaining and satisfying than the novel.

As a thriller and as the conveyer of an elaborate conspiracy theory, it's only moderately successful. But it consistently holds one's interest, and it never seeks to over-simplify its convoluted case or in any way talk down to its audience. I found its willingness to be "difficult" very refreshing in a big Hollywood movie.

The script, of course, follows the novel to the letter, telling Brown's story of Robert Langdon, a Harvard expert in religious symbols (Tom Hanks) who, while lecturing in Paris, finds himself the chief suspect in the grisly ritual murder of the director of the Louvre -- a man Langdon barely knows but who has left him a dying message.

On the spot, Langdon is befriended by the victim's granddaughter, Sophie (Audrey Tautou), an understanding Parisian policewoman who masterminds his escape and -- over the course of one eventful day and night -- helps him battle conservative Roman Catholic fanatics in a quest to find the Holy Grail.

There are some changes. Characters have been lost (Sophie's brother, for one), vast amounts of dialogue have been jettisoned (thankfully) and the conspiracy has been narrowed from all mankind suppressing the Sacred Feminine to the Catholic Church specifically denying the role of Mary Magdalene in the life of Christ.

The puzzle-solving aspect of the novel -- in which, by trial-and-error, the characters crack a complex linguistic code and other symbols to advance toward the treasure -- has also been significantly reduced. It's the kind of thing that works on the printed page, where you can study the riddles, but not in a fast-paced film.

Where the film really shines is in director Ron Howard's clever use of special effects to make scenes from the ancient past live in the present, and to present some of Brown's arguments. For instance, seeing a multi-media presentation of the hidden meaning of "The Last Supper" is infinitely more effective that reading about it.

The blue-chip actors also elevate the characters far beyond Brown's capabilities. Hanks and Tautou -- both abandoning their natural quirkiness to play their roles very straight -- are totally engaging, while Jean Reno, Paul Bettany and likely Oscar nominee Ian McKellen (as the fugitives' fussy British ally) also shine.

As an expose of the hidden history of the Catholic Church, the film is definitely less strident than the novel. But it doesn't really pull back all that far. The Vatican has just cause to, if not fear the movie, at least dislike its icy message that the church's historic subjugation of women was probably no accident.

But, you ask, shouldn't the movie be condemned on moral grounds? After all, hasn't it been conclusively proven that the secret parchments found in Paris' Bibliotheque Nationale in 1975 identifying Da Vinci and other illuminati as guardians of the Grail -- the factual premise of the book -- was a hoax?

All I can say is that when Alexander Dumas wrote "The Three Musketeers" in 1844, he tried to pass it off as his hero's factual memoirs, which Dumas claimed he found in the exact same Paris Bibliotheque Nationale. Fraud or not, "The Three Musketeers" is still one hell of an adventure story. So is "Da Vinci."

Good or bad, history or hoax, sacrilege or metaphoric feminist truth -- beyond these matters, "Da Vinci: the Movie" holds an added importance to the world that hasn't been fully recognized. It's the first summer blockbuster in two decades that has hugely excited people and is not a sequel, remake, science-fiction extravaganza or sword-and-sorcery kid's fantasy.

Whatever it is, it's a complex movie about ideas. That makes it unique in a Big-Budget Hollywood Cinema that is has been consistently dumbing itself down since the mid-'80s. And if this movie, with its immense built-in following, fails or disappoints at the box office, Hollywood is not likely to be this intellectually ambitious again anytime soon. So I, for one, wish it well.