Rated PG 

Directed and Written by Doug Atchison

Starring Angela Bassett, Keke Palmer, and Laurence Fishburne

Did you ever feel like you didn’t belong? That no matter what you didn’t fit in? This is the story of Akeelah played by Keke Palmer(Madea’s Family Reunion and Barber Shop 2), a girl who lives in a bad neighborhood. She goes to sleep at night with helicopters flying overhead, dogs barking, loud music and gunfire. Her family consists of: her world weary mother played by Angela Bissett (Masked and Anonymous and How Stella Got Her Groove Back) her brother who is trying to break into the drug trade, her sister and infant cousin and her other brother who’s in the Air Force. Her only solace in life is words, particularly spelling words.

She wins the school spelling bee her principle wants her to compete at the regional level, in order to generate some interest in the school and raise its spirit. He tries to convince her and she asks him. “ Why should I support a school that doesn’t even have doors on bathroom stalls?” He does manage to convince her and a professor played by Laurence Fishburn (The Matrix Trio and Assault on Precinct 13) to be her coach. I won’t give the plot away suffice to say we go on a journey of growth and change. A journey where Akeelah learns she has many coaches.

This little gem of a movie is one of the first of a wave of movies that will be promoted by Starbucks. Yes, the Starbucks that charges you $2.00 for a large coffee and makes you learn a foreign language to order it. Although its the Starbucks Entertainment division really promoting it. The company that brought you polite friendly service and treats its employees and suppliers like human beings has gotten into the movie business. The few of you that have been paying attention will have heard about the Alanis Morissette acoustic album that Starbucks sold exclusively for six weeks.

Now the Java pushers are promoting this film in every one of its 10,000 plus stores to the 40 million customers a week that stop in for their caffeine fix . Every cup sleeve is bright green and advertises the movie. Every table has the same bright green color coasters with Akeelah on it, there are also Flash Cards with winning words from past Spelling Bee’s. The chalkboard that advertises the daily specials has a countdown for the movies release and one table in every store has a chair reserved for the Spelling Bee champion.

This could start a whole new trend companies supporting a project not for product placement but because they believe in it. There is not one scene or mention of the coffee merchants in this movie. Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are going to get a cut of the profits. It’s nice that you can do a good project and still make money to do more good works.

Pay attention boys and girls. This is how the entertainment industry is going to integrate the latest movies, music and muscle cars into your psyche. It’s not going to be a media assault on you senses but a subtitle saturation of your environment.