Spellbound
Today I attended a screening of Jeffrey Blitz' Academy Award-nominated documentary, Spellbound, which follows eight young contestants in the 1999 National Spelling Bee. I got very caught up in the competition, and couldn't decide who to root for. The kids are smart, determined, and likeable, and it's stressful on the viewer as one by one they inevitably drop over the course of the tense competition. My favorite quote, from a contestant's younger brother: "If I had blood pressure, it would have rocketed high-sky!" The film has a nice but Flash-heavy official site here.