Sunday, January 13, 2008
Wordplay
Director: Patrick Creadon
Writers: Patrick Creadon & Christine O’Malley
Runtime: 94 painfully boring minutes
What’s an 8-letter word for a movie that totally blows? The answer is a movie entitled Wordplay. It’s a documentary on the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people that do it. Not only the über crossword puzzle nerds that actually go to a crossword puzzle convention and competition every year in Stamford, Connecticut, but famous celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton.
I guess the reason they included celebrities in the documentary is to show that not all people that do the New York Times crossword puzzle are major dorks. Some are just regular people that do the crossword puzzle to unwind. I can’t help but remember what else President Clinton likes to do in his spare time to unwind. It involves a female intern and a cigar.
Forgive me if I don’t take anything Bill Clinton does as an example of normalcy.
These über crossword puzzle nerds don’t just do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, they do it while timing themselves. How do you make the New York Times crossword puzzle even more nerdy? By turning it into a speed event. Some of them keep logs documenting how long it takes them to complete the puzzle. The reason they do this is because the competition at the yearly convention at Stamford is timed.
The level of nerdiness displayed by these puzzles doers in comparison makes the Dungeon Master of my old Dungeons & Dragons group look like Fonzi.
Much of the movie takes place at the yearly convention in Stamford. The competition involves seven timed crossword puzzles with the final three people with the best scores moving on to the main event. They then do a puzzle up on stage using a large dry erase type white board while wearing sound-canceling headphones that look to have been invented in 1972.
Towards the end of the competition when the tension was at it’s highest level, I was thinking how funny it would be for someone to pull the fire alarm. If Stamford wasn’t a 7-hour drive, I’d probably seriously consider making the trip just so I could do it.
These people would freak out.
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I saw a documentary a few years ago called “Spellbound” (I think). It was similar in theme: about a bunch of nerdy kids who enter those competetive spelling bees. I had never seen one of these competitions before, but I understand they’re actually on ESPN or something. It’s a pretty cool documentary.
Best documentary of the past few years, however, goes to King of Kong. Make no haste in locating that one; it’s great.
Make no haste? What? Are you recommending this or not, retard?
Yeah, I guess I thought “Make No Haste” meant hurry up. I see where I went wrong. Seems kind of silly in hindsight.
And calling people “retards” is offensive, you filthy fucking Kraut.