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.
A crew of officers at an armored transport security firm risk their lives when they embark on the ultimate heist against their own company. Armed with a seemingly fool-proof plan, the men plan on making off with a fortune with harm to none. But when an unexpected witness interferes, the plan quickly unravels and all bets are off.
A DEA agent provides former Marine Tim Kearney with a way out of his prison sentence: impersonate Bobby Z, a recently deceased drug dealer, in a hostage switch with a crime lord. When the negotiations go awry, Kearney flees, with Z's son in tow.
The black policeman Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA: the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss. The first step is to get the lawyer and hobby dealer David Jason to trust him.
In this action thriller set in post-Katrina New Orleans, business owner Jack Vermillion (Laurence Fishburne) is struggling to run a legitimate shipping company while bad guy Ernest Pike (Karl Urban) is struggling to get his family's illegal gun collection out of the country. When their paths collide, Jack realizes that exposing Pike might get him just the sway he needs to persuade law enforcement officials to treat his imprisoned son kindly.
Forced underground by the next ice age, a struggling outpost of survivors must fight to preserve humanity against a threat even more savage than nature.
In "The Soul of A Man," director Wim Wenders looks at the dramatic tension in the blues between the sacred and the profane by exploring the music and lives of three of his favorite blues artists: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir. Part history, part personal pilgrimage, the film tells the story of these lives in music through an extended fictional film sequence (recreations of '20s and '30s events - shot in silent-film, hand-crank style), rare archival footage, present-day documentary scenes and covers of their songs by contemporary musicians such as Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Garland Jeffreys, Chris Thomas King, Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Los Lobos, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid, James "Blood" Ulmer, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Marc Ribot, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Lucinda Williams and T-Bone Burnett.
At age 82, Mitch Albom's former rabbi Albert Lewis wants the famous Detroit sportswriter to give his eulogy when the time comes. Albom makes a visit to his former home town in New Jersey, where Rabbi Lewis has served a congregation for about 50 years. Albom doesn't feel worthy, especially since he is no longer a practicing Jew and, in fact, he has married a Christian (who apparently isn't active either). Nevertheless, Rabbi Lewis says he is the one to do the job, and over the next eight years, Albom makes several visits back home and even attends some Sabbath services, where the good rabbi is determined to continue working and inspiring his flock even as his health declines.
This one-man play stars Laurence Fishburne in his Tony-nominated performance as Thurgood Marshall, the remarkable Civil Rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice.
During a routine prison work detail, convict Piper is chained to Dodge, a cyberhacker, when gunfire breaks out. Apparently, the attack is related to stolen money that the Mafia is after, and some computer files that somebody wants desperately to bury. The pair, who don't exactly enjoy each other's company, escape and must work together if they are to reach Atlanta alive. Luckily, they meet a woman who may be willing to help them.