Spellbound (2002)
Starring Harry Altman, Angela Arenivar, Ted Brigham, April DiGideo, Neil Kadakia, Nupur Lala, Emily Stagg, and Ashley White.
Directed by Jeffrey Blitz.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)

Before I saw part of the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee on ESPN last year, I thought spelling bees worked in a pretty straightforward manner. The judge gives the kid a word, the kid tries to spell it, and either stays or goes, and that's it. But the kids at the Bee display cunning and guile to belie their years. They ask for the judge to repeat the word, and then again. And again. They ask for alternate definitions. They ask for etymologies. They ask if the word involves the Greek root pneumo. They stall and fidget and pucker their brows and ghost-write the words on the backs of the placards they wear around their necks. They ask to hear the word again and again. They purposely mispronounce the word in order to draw hints from the judges. And they are competitive. Dewy-eyed twelve-year-olds they may be, but put them on a stage in front of a mike and they will tear you asunder and chew on your entrails, giggling while you writhe.

The interesting (though not brilliant) Spellbound follows eight regional spelling champions to the National Spelling Bee. They come from wildly varying backgrounds: urban, suburban and rural; white, black and Indian; rich, poor, and middle-class. If you're hoping to see fire-breathing, red-faced parents, you won't find much of that here -- the parents appear to have a healthy perspective on the contest, and seem genuinely proud (and relieved) when their kids misspell their way out of the competition. Neil Kadakia's father comes the closest to obsession; he drills his son on 7,000 words a day and hires French, German, and Spanish tutors to help Neil learn foreign roots. This gets played for laughs later, when Neil, an Indian-American, struggles to spell darjeeling. I recommend Spellbound if you like documentaries on obscure subjects, (although you should watch Hands on a Hardbody first).

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I won the spelling bee in 1987 at John Adams Middle School, then got bounced at the district spelling bee in the second round, misspelling simile. I came back in 1988 to capture first place at the chapter MathCounts competition. See my trophy here.)

Human Nature (2001)
Starring Patricia Arquette, Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, and Miranda Otto.
Directed by Michel Gondry.
Kilgore rates it: 4 (out of 10)

More weirdness from Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the wonderfully bizarre Being John Malkovich and the very good Adaptation. But I can only recommend Human Nature if you harbor an insatiable desire to see Patricia Arquette gamboling about naked with fake hair pasted all over her body. The delightful strangeness that seemed so natural in Being John Malkovich is forced and contrived here, plus we only get to see Arquette naked and not Miranda Otto, voted by me as the Hottest Chick from Lord of the Rings.

DISCUSSION TOPIC #1: In 1999, I worked at Sparky's, a 24-hour diner in San Francisco. One day a hostess told me that sometimes celebrities stopped by Sparky's, and told me a story about meeting "Trish Arquette" some weeks beforehand.

"Trish Arquette?" I asked. "Is she related to David Arquette?"

"Well, yeah," the hostess said. "Trish Arquette. You know, as in Patricia? Patricia Arquette."

Do you think people should be allowed to refer to famous people by nicknames, as though they had known each other since grade school? (A Google search for "Trish Arquette", by the way, turned up zero results, while a search for "Patricia Arquette" yielded over 130,000 matches.)

DISCUSSION TOPIC #2: Do you think Insatiable Desires would be a good name for a straight-to-Cinemax erotic thriller starring Shannon Tweed?

DISCUSSION TOPIC #3: Why does anyone give two shits about the Academy Awards? I stopped caring about the Oscars at the exact moment that Titanic won Best Picture in 1997. I guess some people like to watch the shiny people walk down the red carpet and answer insipid questions from idiot entertainment journalists. These are the same people who subscribe to Soap Opera Digest and look forward to the Super Bowl halftime show.

+posted by Lawrence @ 3/02/2004 11:15:00 AM