Spellbound (2002 film)

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Spellbound
Spellboundposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jeffrey Blitz
Written byJeffrey Blitz
Produced byJeffrey Blitz
Sean Welch
Starring
  • Harry Altman
  • Angela Arenivar
  • Ted Brigham
  • April DeGideo
  • Neil Kadakia
  • Nupur Lala
  • Emily Stagg
  • Ashley White
Edited by Yana Gorskaya
Music byDaniel Hulsizer
Distributed by ThinkFilm
Release date
2002
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Spellbound is a 2002 American documentary that was directed by Jeffrey Blitz. The film follows eight competitors in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The film received positive reviews and won several awards, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Contents

Spellers

The spellers were Neil Kadakia, Emily Stagg, Ashley White, April DeGideo, Harry Altman, Angela Arenivar, Nupur Lala and Ted Brigham. As they appear from left to right on the DVD's cover:

Neil Kadakia

Neil (as speller # 139) missed "hellebore" as "helebore" in the bee to get ninth place. Other words Neil spelled include: encephalon, desecration, mercenary, Darjeeling, and hypsometer. He was sponsored by the Orange County Register . [1] Neil is a graduate of UC Berkeley. He is currently the COO of Greens Global, a real estate company based out of San Clemente, CA. On July 3, 2011, he married Archana Sheth, also a UC Berkeley graduate. He is also an avid chess player, and has earned over 15 chess trophies in his life. His grandfather paid 1000 people in India to pray for him.

Emily Stagg

Emily Stagg (speller # 148) was sponsored by the New Haven Register in New Haven, Connecticut and spelled: seguidilla, disclaimant, kookaburra, viand, apocope, brunneous, clavecin (spelled incorrectly as "clavison"). She came in 6th place. In 2006, as a junior in Carleton College, she wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times questioning the usefulness of the National Spelling Bee.

Ashley White

Ashley White (speller 149) represented The Washington Informer in Washington, DC in the spelling bee, spelling "lycanthrope" before misspelling "ecclesiastical" in the third round. Following Ashley's teenage pregnancy (she was 18), a marketing consultant who had seen the movie managed to rally support from other viewers of the documentary to help Ashley into Howard University. The proctor of the Washington Informer regional spelling bee featured in the film is Mac McGarry.

April DeGideo

April DeGideo, who lives in Ambler, Pennsylvania, participated in the 1998 and 1999 bees, in the latter of which she placed third, representing the Times Herald of Norristown, Pennsylvania. April graduated in 2007 from New York University with a degree in Journalism. She then went on to get a second degree in creative writing and later went on to publish two books. The study guide, and Where to start.

Harry Altman

Many critics who reviewed Spellbound singled out Altman (speller # 8) as its most interesting "character". Roger Ebert wrote that he "has so many eccentricities that he'd be comic relief in a teenage comedy... He screws his face up into so many shapes while trying to spell a word that it's a wonder the letters can find their way to the surface." [2] He spelled "cephalalgia" and "odyssey" over the course of the bee. In a prolonged clip, Altman was eliminated in the fourth round, on the word "banns", which he spelled "bands". He later appeared in the 2001 Bee, but was again eliminated in the fourth round. Altman went to the Academy for Engineering and Design Technology in Hackensack, New Jersey. In autumn 2005, he enrolled in the University of Chicago. In 2014 Harry completed a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, focusing on integer complexity. [3]

Angela Arenivar

Angela Arenivar represented the Amarillo Globe-News in the 1998 and 1999 bees, being eliminated in the latter during the third round. Angela graduated from Texas A&M University in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in Spanish and earned a master's in Spanish from the University of New Mexico in 2009. She has taught Spanish in Texas public high schools. Angela now attends Texas A&M University pursuing her Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies. [4]

Nupur Lala

Nupur Lala was the champion of the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee (as speller # 155), spelling "logorrhea" to win. Nupur won the bee against David Lewandowski, a speller from Indiana who misspelled "opsimath." She turned down an MTV reality show that would have followed her college years. [5] In 2003, she entered University of Michigan at Ann Arbor to study brain and cognitive sciences and pre-medical studies and graduated in 2007 with a degree in Brain, Behavior and Cognitive Science. [6] In the fall of 2014 she entered the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She also appeared in the 2020 documentary Spelling the Dream .

Ted Brigham

Ted Brigham was speller # 1. He represented the Rolla Daily Record of Rolla, Missouri. One of the more notable stories from his experience is the congratulations posted by students on the marquee in front of his high school in which "champ" was misspelled (presumably as an ironic joke) as "chapm". Ted misspelled "distractible" in the second round, becoming the first of the eight spellers eliminated. Ted attended medical school in Kansas City, Missouri until his death in December 2007. His family chose not to disclose the circumstances of his death. [7]

Other notable spellers

Reception

Spellbound opened to positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 97%, based on reviews from 139 critics, and an average rating of 8.27/10. The website's critical consensus states, "A suspenseful, gripping documentary that features an engaging cross section of American children". [9] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 80% based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [10]

Awards

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; [11] Yana Gorskaya's editing won the ACE Eddie award for best editing of documentary. Spellbound won the Emmy Award for Cultural/Artistic Programming and Jeffrey Blitz was nominated for directing.

In 2007, it was included as #4 of the "IDA's Top 25 Documentaries" of all-time by the members of the International Documentary Association.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Blitz</span> American film director, film producer and screenwriter

Jeffrey Blitz is an American film director, screenwriter and producer best known for the documentary Spellbound (2003), The Office, the fiction film Rocket Science (2007) and Comedy Central’sReview. Blitz is a two-time Emmy Award winner, the winner of the Directing Prize at Sundance and an Academy Award nominee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">81st Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> 2008 spelling competition

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Annual spelling bee held in the United States of America

The Scripps National Spelling Bee, formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and often referred to as the National Spelling Bee or simply “the Spelling Bee” in the United States, is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company and is held at a hotel or convention center in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area during the week following Memorial Day weekend. Since 2011, it has been held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center hotel in National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington D.C. It was previously held at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington D.C. from 1996 to 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 2010

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">85th Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 2012

The 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held at the Gaylord National, in Oxon Hill, Maryland from May 27 to May 31, 2012, and was broadcast live on ESPN3. The championship finals occurred on May 31, 2012.

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The 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held from May 28 to May 30, 2013 at the Gaylord National in Oxon Hill, Maryland and was broadcast live on ESPN3, ESPN2, and ESPN. For the first time, the competition included a vocabulary quiz in addition to the usual spelling challenge. Arvind Mahankali of Bayside, New York won the competition and received the $30,000 grand prize. Including local feeder tournaments, an estimated 11 million children participated.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">20th Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 1947

The 20th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, District of Columbia on May 29, 1947, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

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The 72nd Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C., on June 2–3, 1999, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

The 70th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C., on May 28–29, 1997, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

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The 44th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. at the Mayflower Hotel on June 9–10, 1971, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">53rd Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 1980

The 53rd Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. at the Capital Hilton on May 28–29, 1980, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">56th Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 1983

The 56th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. at the Capital Hilton on June 8–9, 1983, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">93rd Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 2021

The 93rd Scripps National Spelling Bee was held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Bay Lake, Florida. The finals were held on July 8, 2021, and televised on ESPN2 and ESPN. It was won by Zaila Avant-garde, the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the second black person to do so.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">94th Scripps National Spelling Bee</span> Spelling bee held in the United States in 2022

The 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee was a spelling bee that was held at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. The finals were held on June 2, 2022, and televised on Ion Television and Bounce TV, marking the first time in 27 years that the Bee was not televised on an ESPN network. The winner of the bee was Harini Logan, an 8th–grade girl from San Antonio, Texas, who won with 21 words spelt correctly during the Bee's first spell-off round.

References

  1. ↑ "Orange County Spelling Bee".
  2. ↑ Roger Ebert (16 May 2003). "Spellbound".
  3. ↑ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~haltman/ University of Michigan Ann Arbor pursuing
  4. ↑ "Hello! Not heleoplankton".
  5. ↑ "Nupur Lala reflects on winning National Spelling Bee". May 27, 2013. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  6. ↑ http://web.mit.edu/gabrieli-lab/People/technical-assistant.html Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Gabrieli Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory website
  7. ↑ "Theodore Earl Brigham Obituary: View Theodore Brigham's Obituary by Kansas City Star". Kansas City Star.
  8. ↑ Brown, Emma (2011-03-21). "Frank Neuhauser, winner of first national spelling bee, dies at 97". Washington Post . Retrieved 2011-04-03.
  9. ↑ "Spellbound (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Spellbound". Metacritic . Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  11. ↑ "NY Times: Spellbound". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-01-15. Retrieved 2008-11-23.
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