"Little Miss Sunshine," "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," "Akeelah and the Bee"

So, I've seen two movies, one in theatres and one on DVD, and one Broadway show lately.

I saw Little Miss Sunshine two nights ago. It was a good movie, while I felt it didn't quite live up to the "indie smash" hype I'd been hearing. Abigail Breslin, Toni Collette (um, hello, she's the best), and Greg Kinnear were standouts for me. The talent portion of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant was easily the highlight of the movie. I wouldn't necessarily recommend people see it in theatres (at least at NYC prices), but it's definitely at least worth renting.

Tonight I watched Akeelah and the Bee on DVD from Netflix after seeing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway. After four failed attempts at the lottery for ...Spelling Bee, I was finally able to buy a rush ticket (they just added a rush option for students to supplement the lottery). While it was definitely a good show (few Broadway shows aren't at least good), it was good in a "Aw, how cute that those adults are acting like kids" way. The serious moments where characterization was featured were the best for me, and the creative definitions for many of the words were great. The added aspect of incorporating audience participation also made the show much more interesting.

As for Akeelah, it was a really great movie. I was afraid it would be overly "kiddie" or saccharine, but it was just a nice feel-good movie. Laurence Fishburne was great, as was the girl who played Akeelah. Some aspects of the movie were a bit silly (naming cochampions in the bee, having "pulchritude" as the winning word -- oh, please, how easy is that?), but it was a nice movie for highlighting what can happen when one has the drive and the proper attitude in life.

All in all, a good couple of days for shows/movies.