Word Play
Tonight, I walked with a group of friends to the West Village to see Word Play, a documentary about the crossword championship held in Stanford, Connecticut each year. When I heard that the group planned on going to see the film about crosswords, I said "No, thanks." These "documentaries" seem sketchy, at best. In Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock enlightened us to the fact that eating nothing but McDonalds and not exercising makes you fat.
Brilliant. Thanks, Morgan.
Sometimes I think we're going to see a documentary about alcohol. It'll go something like this:
*image of document on screen zooms into some old Xeroxed line*
Narrator: As you can see here from this 1993 document, the Anheiser-Busch company admits knowing that drinking several beers in quick succession will impair your judgement.
Then we'll see some bizarre, preachy message about how the government and the people should crack down on reckless businesses, who retain super-secret information, like alcohol making you drunk, or McDonals making you fat.
In the ilk of Michael Moore, it just seems to me that the "documentary" is the idiot's way of advancing an agenda. It feels like church for Noam Chomsky.
With this in mind, I've rolled my eyes, and stayed away from the documentaries. However, with prodding from friends, and the realization that there couldn't possibly be anything political about crosswords, I agreed to go. However, I still didn't plan on enjoying it.
It's almost as if two film makers made a bet at a bar one night...
Guy 1: Hhheeyy guy, I betchyou can't make a mmmoovie about crossword puzzles!
Guy 2: Ohhyeah? Ohhhhyeah? I bet you I can!
Thus, we end up with a movie about crossword puzzles. However, finding myself with nothing else to do on a Sunday night, I wandered a few avenues west, and we sat down to watch the movie.
Will Shortz is the crossword editor for the New York Times, and he's something of the star of the show. A graduate of Indiana, where you can pick your own major if you like, he majored in... puzzles. Nope, I'm not joking. There was some latinized version of the word for "studies puzzles", but even if I DID remember it, I wouildn't justify it through repetition.
I'll be honest and admit that I did enjoy the movie, but not for conventional reasons. Halfway through the movie, I realized that I wasn't actually into the subject matter. Rather, I was just laughing with everyone else at the kind of person who actually becomes a crossword puzzle elite.
A Hewlett-Packard employee from Fort Collins was featured in the movie, and he's famously taken 3rd place multiple times. At one point in the movie, he realizes a mistake he's made, and slams his headphones to the ground in disgust. Sure you just messed up a crossword championship... but buddy... it's a crossword tournament.
Another lady who lives uptown near Columbia University quite simply epitomized the word "nerd". She won the tournament once, and that was basically all that could be said about the poor lady. She was shown walking around NYC with a badly broken umbrella, and twice during the movie displayed her "talents" as a baton-twirler.
Still another contestant was this 20 year-old kid from some tech institute. He had the personality of sandpaper, and most certainly is a real blast at parties. He wore the same t-shirt throughout 90% of the movie, and did crossword puzzles with as much good humor as a prodded wolverine.
Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and Jon Stewart were throwin into the mix, because apparently they like crossword puzzles. Jon Stewart couldn't even make decent jokes up about so bland a topic. It was uncomfortable to watch. Yep, this is the stuff of documentaries, and what happens when bar-guy #2 says "Oh yeah, I bet you I CAN make that movie."
End movie.
I enjoyed the movie... but come ON, people.
Let's toss in an exploding car.
Brilliant. Thanks, Morgan.
Sometimes I think we're going to see a documentary about alcohol. It'll go something like this:
*image of document on screen zooms into some old Xeroxed line*
Narrator: As you can see here from this 1993 document, the Anheiser-Busch company admits knowing that drinking several beers in quick succession will impair your judgement.
Then we'll see some bizarre, preachy message about how the government and the people should crack down on reckless businesses, who retain super-secret information, like alcohol making you drunk, or McDonals making you fat.
In the ilk of Michael Moore, it just seems to me that the "documentary" is the idiot's way of advancing an agenda. It feels like church for Noam Chomsky.
With this in mind, I've rolled my eyes, and stayed away from the documentaries. However, with prodding from friends, and the realization that there couldn't possibly be anything political about crosswords, I agreed to go. However, I still didn't plan on enjoying it.
It's almost as if two film makers made a bet at a bar one night...
Guy 1: Hhheeyy guy, I betchyou can't make a mmmoovie about crossword puzzles!
Guy 2: Ohhyeah? Ohhhhyeah? I bet you I can!
Thus, we end up with a movie about crossword puzzles. However, finding myself with nothing else to do on a Sunday night, I wandered a few avenues west, and we sat down to watch the movie.
Will Shortz is the crossword editor for the New York Times, and he's something of the star of the show. A graduate of Indiana, where you can pick your own major if you like, he majored in... puzzles. Nope, I'm not joking. There was some latinized version of the word for "studies puzzles", but even if I DID remember it, I wouildn't justify it through repetition.
I'll be honest and admit that I did enjoy the movie, but not for conventional reasons. Halfway through the movie, I realized that I wasn't actually into the subject matter. Rather, I was just laughing with everyone else at the kind of person who actually becomes a crossword puzzle elite.
A Hewlett-Packard employee from Fort Collins was featured in the movie, and he's famously taken 3rd place multiple times. At one point in the movie, he realizes a mistake he's made, and slams his headphones to the ground in disgust. Sure you just messed up a crossword championship... but buddy... it's a crossword tournament.
Another lady who lives uptown near Columbia University quite simply epitomized the word "nerd". She won the tournament once, and that was basically all that could be said about the poor lady. She was shown walking around NYC with a badly broken umbrella, and twice during the movie displayed her "talents" as a baton-twirler.
Still another contestant was this 20 year-old kid from some tech institute. He had the personality of sandpaper, and most certainly is a real blast at parties. He wore the same t-shirt throughout 90% of the movie, and did crossword puzzles with as much good humor as a prodded wolverine.
Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and Jon Stewart were throwin into the mix, because apparently they like crossword puzzles. Jon Stewart couldn't even make decent jokes up about so bland a topic. It was uncomfortable to watch. Yep, this is the stuff of documentaries, and what happens when bar-guy #2 says "Oh yeah, I bet you I CAN make that movie."
End movie.
I enjoyed the movie... but come ON, people.
Let's toss in an exploding car.
posted by Brett at 9:15 PM
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