SPEW: The World of Competitive Debate is delayed 10 minutes due to a technical problem which a volunteer says is due to a cable issue. This is the third thing to go wrong at this year's festival, but in all fairness all three things have occurred in one screening.

The blurb for this film made it sound really interesting, like Spellbound or Word Wars but at the Speed Debate Championships. It wasn't what I expected, which isn't to say it isn't good.

The film shows the summer session at the Dartmouth Debate Institute, where high schoolers travel from around the US to train and compete in Speed Debate Championships.  The kids spend more time researching their debates than a graduate student researching their dissertation. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, researching isn't that interesting to watch. So instead we are treated with the high school antics. Which can be exciting and involving, but again, just not what expected.
DDI breaks the kids down into labs. Imagine a bunch of teenagers sitting around tables in classrooms debating on world economics - but they're all talking like the Micro Machines guy. They gasp for breath as the words spew out of their mouths like a machine gun fires bullets.

The movie is more about the high schoolers than the debates themselves. It's a coming of age film where no one comes of age. The kids complain about the strict rules at their dorm. One kid gets in trouble and is put on some sort of lockdown.

One of the kids is very reminiscent of a character in the Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous. The one who wears t-shirts with Led Zeppelin lyrics on his shirt and travels with the band but not "with the band."

I think another problem is that in Spellbound or Word Wars we know the rules and understand the game. In SPEW we can hardly understand what the kids are saying, nevermind participate as viewers of the competition.

It was interesting to see and I can say I am glad I've met the characters but I have no interest in seeing the film a second time. And for me that's a big thing because I'm a repeated viewing type guy.