BEE SEASON: If there's two things you know I like a bit too much, it's good formula films and spelling bees. So you're damned right I was at a sneak preview for Akeelah and the Bee tonight, and whether you want to call it Drumline without the drums or Lean On Me but with only one kid taking the test, well, that's fine.

Because if you're the kind of person who was considering seeing this movie, then, yes, you should see it. It's a warm, smart, inspirational film about a girl from Crenshaw who wants to make it to the National Spelling Bee, and it works. When I say that people were cheering in the audience, I'm not shitting you.

Look: the formulaic elements are in abundance -- characters using each other to replace missing family members, concerns about Keeping It Real, and, perhaps regrettably, The Evil Asian Speller With The High-Pressure Dad as the stock nemesis. But as a whole, the movie works: accept it on its own terms, and let it manipulate you well.

The cast is superb, from Keke Palmer as the serenely poised Akeelah Anderson all the way down to Dr. Jacques Bailly as himself, chief pronouncer at Nationals. It is disconcerting to see a grown-up Curtis Armstrong playing the well-meaning principal and not winning belching competitions, but it's even weirder to see a movie starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett where he's not beating the crap out of her. (Yes, there's one or two times in the movie where you're just waiting for him to call her Annie Mae.)

I want to say a few words about accuracy in the movie. First off, those of you who follow the Bee will recognize that they're re-using a lot of recent competition words throughout the movie. Nice verisimilitude. It's capped with the re-use of a word from the 2004 Bee which made Jen and I laugh out loud because of its association with a prior work of Mr. Fishburne's, and if you insist on having the in-joke spoiled, click on this link.

There were three problems in terms of strictly obeyeing actual Bee rules, though, but since they're spoilerish I'll make you highlight below if you want to know: first off, there's no rule at Nationals which states that when you're down to two spellers and one gets a word wrong, the other does not have to spell that word correctly to proceed, but, rather, the rule is just that you have to spell the next two other words correctly. (But this is invoked with a really nice twist, so I didn't mind in the end.)And obviously, the kids don't get to confer with their coaches again in the middle of the competition. Lastly, the final word used was not exactly a Championship Words caliber word, but I understand why it was used to pull the plot back to square one.

All in all, though, it's done with good heart and good intentions, and it's a good piece of entertainment in a season sorely lacking in joy. Grade: Bee-Plus.

IF YOU THINK YOUR CABLE BILL IS TOO HIGH NOW, JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL THEY'VE GOT STANDARD VS. PREMIUM BROADBAND RATES TO ARBITRAGE YOUR *SS WITH: Is it too late to stop it? I'm still amazed at the lack of awareness / concern / outrage about this particular issue. Granted, there's plenty to be angry about, what with Nick and Jessica breaking up and Britney's baby's skull fracture and David Hasselhoff's divorce all that, but c'mon! Most of the users of this medium don't even know what's about to be done to it.

PIMP MY RIDE? Hell no. Pimp my snack.

YOU'VE BEEN OMER-IZED: Let's start with the good about American Dreamz--the original songs by Stephen ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") Trask and Paul Weitz are brilliant, nailing silly country cliches ("Mama, Don't Drink Me To Bed Tonight"), inept "rockers" ("Rocket Man," performed by Trey Parker), and even sappy ballads like "A Moment Like This" ("Dreamz With A 'Z'"), and consistently nicely performed. Mandy Moore is also good as a cocktail of Kellie Pickler, Kelly Clarkson, and Britney Spears--a girl smart enough to use her perceived stupidity to her own advantage with an amazing set of pipes. A couple of folks do nice work in supporting roles (Seth Meyers is shockingly funny, and Judy Greer has a couple of hysterical scenes.)

So what's wrong? Pretty much everything else. The "political" material amounts to little more than an extended "Bush is Stupid!" joke, which stopped being funny sometime around, oh, 2003, and POTUS is miraculously changed during the course of the film, apparently as a result of reading volumes of Federal Reporter and West's Federal Practice Digest, straight through, from an oblivious idgit into...well...an idgit aware that he's an idgit. (My experience indicates that reading volumes of Federal Reporter straight through has little effect on a person other than putting them to sleep.) The biggest problem is that rather than firing the satirical gun at one target, Weitz has chosen about 20, ranging from American Idol to Xenophobia, with stops along the way at Us Weekly, Terrorism, and Matisyahu. Because Weitz hasn't focused his script like a laser, rather than hitting hard and punchy, he's fired birdshot at a big target. Sure, there's some pellets that hit, but they're not focused enough to make an overall impact. One of the big disappointments of this year.

Another mystery, born from a trailer before the film--why is Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn writing a screenplay for a Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock Somewhere In Time knock-off? Actually, Auburn's involvement might actually get me to see this one.

BUT SUPERMAN BATTLING THE PRADA-CLAD DEVIL, THAT I'D SEE: Quotebot 5000, alias Joel Siegel, has this to say:

The summer's best counter-programming is "The Devil Wears Prada," set for release the same weekend as "Superman Returns." The assumption: No one in America wants to see both movies.

True, but there are plenty of us who want to see neither.

LEGISLATE...TRY NOT TO HATE: Time magazine chooses the 10 Best and Five Worst U. S. Senators. Among the surprises, one of the picks is from Illinois and is not named Obama. Also missing from the list are the junior senators from New York and Massachusetts though the latter's senior senator makes the cut.

RIGHT NOW, SOMEONE IS SPEAKING WITH HIS ATTORNEYS: David Lee Roth has been let go from his East Coast Howard Stern replacement gig. Roth's replacement will be a (presumably heavily censored) version of "Opie and Anthony," who return to the airwaves after an unpleasant dustup involving a contest in which listeners "scored points" for having sexual relations in strange places.