Wordplay!

[jedusor]

So, there's this movie about crossword puzzles. It's a documentary, centered around the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and includes appearances by Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls, and other celebrities. The movie was shown at the 2006 Sundance Festival. I know several people in it through the National Puzzlers' League, so I've been hearing about it for a long time, and I did an article about it for Spectrum a few months ago. Tonight, I finally got around to watching it.

It was an awesome movie, despite the roughly six people in the theater. It's opening night; you'd think there'd be more of a turnout, but apparently not. I went with mamagotcha. We got there early and killed a few minutes impressing some other moviegoers with our formidable acquaintances ("Why, yes, Will Shortz is a pal of ours!") and playing One, Two, Three. Then we were thrown into unusually sudden darkness and the movie began.

First off, the effects were awesome. The way they showed the puzzles in progress was simple without being boring and interesting without being confusing. Top marks to whoever was behind that.

I saw a LOT of people I recognized, but only a few whose names I could place. I didn't get to go to the L.A. con last year, and my memory for names noms is fairly bad. Qaqaq and his boyfriend were adorable- the little kick in front of the pinball machine sent both me and Mom into fits of giggles. En and her umbrella were charming too, and I learned some things about her that I hadn't known. When Kray came on the screen, I barely heard what he was saying, because I was excitedly whispering, "My flat stumped him in the flat competition! I wrote a flat that stumped Kray!" I don't know Tyler, but his line after the finals (roughly "Words fail me... I'm just glad they waited until now to do so") was cute, and the Trogdor shirt gave him bonus points. He's apparently a member of the NPL, too- maybe I'll meet him at Con. I also spotted Saxifrage and Uncanny, and Mom saw Tyger, though I missed her. And, of course, WILLz, who dominates the world of nerdy awesomeness. (While my icon doesn't contain any of these people, by the way, the picture was taken in a room with almost all of them present.)

The music surprised me- first a song that I recognized but couldn't place, then a TMBG song from Link's "Here Come The ABCs" DVD, then that fabulous "if you don't come across I'll be down" song. I thought the musical selections were great.

The celebrity bits were okay. They added interest to the movie for non-puzzling people, which is good for the movie's success but not all that great for the movie itself, at least from my point of view. Jon Stewart was trying too hard, and Clinton's horrendous tie made everything he said seem a little less serious. I had no idea who Mike Mussina was before I watched the movie, but I gather he's a pretty big deal. The Indigo Girls didn't seem to have much to say at all. Fortunately, they comprised fairly little of the movie.

All in all, it was excellent. I'll see if I can pull together a review for the next issue of the paper and give it a little publicity, relatively small as our readership may be. We'll see if Craig will let me get away with it. He doesn't usually let people handle stories with which they're personally involved, but I don't know if that applies to movie reviews.

Blair is here and in one piece, which is good. Tomorrow will probably be spent cleaning the house and calling people.

Comments

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Mike Mussina is a *very* big deal in NYC. Moooose!

It was just as well you didn't see me. My back was to the camera, I looked even fatter than usual in my green parka, and I was dismayed to find out that I already have the Fiore bald spot that my mother has, as did her mother and aunts.