Spellbound (2002 film)

There are a number of films entitled Spellbound; for the full list check the disambiguation page.
Spellbound

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jeffrey Blitz
Produced by Jeffrey Blitz
Sean Welch
Written by Jeffrey Blitz
Starring Harry Altman
Angela Arenivar
Ted Brigham
April DeGideo
Neil Kadakia
Nupur Lala
Emily Stagg
Ashley White
Music by Daniel Hulsizer
Edited by Yana Gorskaya
Distributed by ThinkFilm
Release dates
 2002
Running time
 97 min.
95 min. (Canada)
Country United States
Language English

Spellbound is a 2002 documentary that was directed by Jeffrey Blitz. The film follows eight competitors in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature;[1] Yana Gorskaya's editing won the ACE Eddie award for best editing of documentary. Spellbound won the Emmy for Cultural/Artistic Programming and Jeffrey Blitz was nominated for directing. Frank Neuhauser, winner of the first National Spelling Bee, held in 1925, appears in the film.[2]

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" 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.[3] Neil is a graduate of UC Berkeley. Before he went to college, he went on a jet ski expedition with his father and his sister, Shivani, also a speller. 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. 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". Yet in the finals Altman is stumped by the word 'banns'. 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."[4] He 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, focusing on integer complexity.[5]

Angela Arenivar

Angela Arenivar represented the Amarillo Globe-News in the 1998 and 1999 bees. 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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8] In the fall of 2014 she entered the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

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 attended medical school in Kansas City, Missouri until his mysterious death in December 2007. His family chose not to disclose the circumstances of his death.[9]

Other notable spellers

Reception

Spellbound opened to highly positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports 98% approval, based on 137 reviews;[10] and the film holds an 80/100 average on Metacritic.[11]

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

References

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