The Alaskan Tarheel Reviews:
SPELLBOUND
    Yesterday was my day off. Its a chance to sleep in, have dinner/ breakfast with my friends, get some much needed shopping done. Mostly consisting of DVD's and CD's. Usually the day off is the same as it was the week before. This week was no different. I got up at about 1735hrs (5:35pm) and proceeded to have the first meal of the day at the chow hall. From there we head to the BX/PX for a coffee and some light shopping. Time spent shopping was about 15 min. Time spent in line was about 40 min. Well I picked up two DVD's this time. This has to be the least amount I have bought at the BX/PX in my time here. One of the films I picked up was Spellbound. I had seen something on the TV about this documentary and I remembered that I wanted to see this.

    I told my friends about the movie and they were less than interested. From what I could remember about the movie this was a documentary about some kids and their road to the National Spelling Bee. As this is a movie that most folks probably haven't seen, I thought I would try my keyboard at a movie review.

      Now it is interesting that I would watch a movie about a spelling bee, much less write a review about a documentary about this as I hate spelling bees. I can recall my earliest memories of spelling bee's that we would hold in elementary school. We had one every week on Fridays. I loathed this day. (In the 7th grade I spelled in a 2nd level. At the time I thought this was funny, and told everyone.) I would tell the teacher that I didn't want to be in the spelling bee but she didn't care. I was gonna, and I wasn't gonna make it to the second round. We would all stand up by our chairs and it would begin. As the teacher maid her way around the room and it got close to my turn I could feel my heart sink, knowing the coming embarrassment. "Caleb, Spell Carrot." she would say.

   "I can't" I would reply.

   "Try"

   "C.... "

   "Caleb you have to say the word then spell the word. When your done spelling the word, then say it again." This was the dumbest part of the spelling bee. Other than having a competition on spelling.

  

       " Carrot, C....A...R...." a long pause as I had no idea what came next. "A...T, Carrot." I then sat down and played space ship with my pencil until someone won. I hated Fridays.     

   Well I kept talking up the movie to my friends in hopes that they would cave and watch the film with me. Never underestimate the power of boredom. After we finished the first movie for the day we walked to my B-hut to check out what I had for our viewing pleasure. My overwhelming collection of chick flicks and thinker movies was absolutely a factor as they settled for Spellbound.

   I should be noted that this film was nominated in 2002 for best documentary of the year. So I have nothing to compare this to, as I have never seen a documentary I have nothing to compare this move to.

    We start out with a family from Texas. A young girl who is very bright. She site with her friends and talk about how boring the town is. I can immediately relate. We meet her family. Her parents are illegal immigrants from Mexico. The have lived and worked on a cattle farm for the last 20 years.

    We follow her to the regional Spelling be that she wins after going 30 rounds with one other student to win the spelling bee. I have never heard some of these words in my entire life, and most likely, never will.

   From her went went on to other families. Each of them odd in there own way. There was a family from Missouri that reminded me of something from the X-files. All the kids strangely seemed serial killer like. The middle child was very smart. However, he was one of those kids kids that kept to himself. His teachers and parents expressed this. His parents also expressed that the wish there older son would take in other interest as he was vary into weapons and blowing things up. This confirmed our earlier suspicions about this family. The scary part was that this was a real family. We only saw the older child once in the entire film. For the most part the kids were wired. There parents were even weirder. It was amazing.

   

     There were also families that just pissed you off. Two of the families were Indian. Not Native American, they were from India. These kids were way smart. They were a little more normal than the others too. However it was impossible to root for the kid from Orange County because you wanted to smack these people.  At one point during the film, the boy's father takes us to their "other house". He shows us all the work that they did with out the help of contactors, yadda, yadda, yadda.
" Carrot, C....A...R...." a long pause as I had no idea what came next.
    He was the most upsetting as you could do nothing but laugh at the others. One of the young girls gave off the impression that she was smarter than her parents and knew it. At least she thought she was smarter than her mom. You sit down with there family as they share a meal. The young girl then shares that her parents remind her of Archie Bunker an his wife because Archie is always getting mad at his wife because she is always  saying something stupid. The look on that girls mom was worth the movie alone.

    It comes time for the National Spelling Bee. We meat folks that are involved with the Bee, and meet former winners. All the kids make a good show, and try there best. Some seem relived when they are finished as they don't have to study anymore. I can't imagine studying from a dictionary.

    The film was great. You really got into each family and each child. Toward the end you have picked your favorite to win and you rooting right along with their family. This was interesting for me as I had no idea if they were spelling the word right or not.

    I hope you can check out this movie. Its totally worth the buy. Actually, if I were you I would rent. You have no idea about my taste in movies as this is my first review.

Thanks for reading, Enjoy life.

~Kandahar Caleb