Orthographiosi

Spellbound

(2002)

The Ur-text for documentaries that introduce us to an array of appealing contestants and then take us through the contest, and still the best and most moving--and, after 3 or 4 screenings, still the most exciting and even suspenseful--of the subgenre.

And as a professional speller, I am always surprised anew by how many of the words thrown at these schoolchildren I not only have no idea how to spell, I don't even have any idea what they mean. But the bee clincher, those who know me well will be unsurprised to know, was one with which I am quite familiar: logorrhea.