"Bless Me, Ultima," the book, is a widely read and critically
acclaimed piece of Chicano literature that also has been quite
divisive since its publication in 1972. Some critics and parents
have decried Rudolfo Anaya's novel as anti-Catholic or too
profane and pushed to have it banned from school districts
across the country.  "Bless Me, Ultima," the movie, is a mostly
gentle and tastefully photographed depiction of a young boy's
coming of age in rural 1940s New Mexico. His maturation includes
a questioning of the Catholic faith of his parents and a
curiosity about the Native American mysticism of his elders. But
such musings feel more like an inherent part of the progression
into adolescence, a fine-tuning of identity, rather than an
intentionally subversive force.  Besides, Luke Ganalon, who
plays the boy at the center of the story, couldn't be a more
adorably precocious and optimistic little scamp. What sort of
damage could he possibly do?  Writer-director Carl Franklin
presents the journey of Ganalon's ch