Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

Wordplay

Exhilirating, if a little pointless. Like crossword puzzles themselves

By PETER KEOUGH | June 21, 2006

3.0 Stars

WORLD OF WORD NERDS: Wordplay

In Patrick Creadon’s sly and agreeable documentary, the world of word nerds expands from the driven schoolchildren competing in the national spelling bee of Spellbound (2002) and the savant-like anagrammists scrambling for the Scrabble championship in Word Wars (2004) to ordinary folks like Bill Clinton, Mike Mussina, Jon Stewart, and myself. In other words, fans of Will Shortz and the New York Times crossword puzzle. I don’t know what those not addicted might get out of these celebrity insights into this obsession, but I found them fascinating. Creadon also imposes on his debut feature a symmetry and form not unlike the puzzles themselves (reflected visually in the down-and-across gridlike cutting). Interwoven with the talking heads are two narrative lines: puzzler Merl Reagle constructs one crossword (on the theme of “wordplay”) while competitors in Shortz’s 28th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament vie to deconstruct others. Exhilarating, if pointless, like puzzling itself.

Related: Beep, beep, beep, ka-boom, Differential sudoku II, Magic for beginners, More

Topics: Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Games, Hobbies and Pastimes, More

| More

More Information

Watch the trailer for Wordplay (QuickTime)

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: WHERE DO WE GO NOW? | May 22, 2012
Lebanese director Nadine Labaki's whimsical film about internecine slaughter has a tone problem from the very start: a group of widows engage in a goofy line dance while the voiceover narrator bewails the death toll of religious warfare.

REVIEW: MEN IN BLACK 3 | May 24, 2012
Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), a fifth dimensional alien, can see the infinite possibilities each moment possesses and the infinite contingencies that caused it to happen.

INTERVIEW: RICHARD LINKLATER MESSES WITH TEXAS IN BERNIE | May 16, 2012
No matter how far he strays, Richard Linklater's heart remains in Texas.

REVIEW: THE DICTATOR | May 16, 2012
Though his PR campaign might suggest otherwise, Sacha Baron Cohen has actually made (with director Larry Charles) a sweet movie, not unlike Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator , if less sentimental.

REVIEW: THE HUNTER | May 17, 2012
Apparently extinct since the 1930s, the Tasmanian Tiger resembled an uncanny assortment of mismatched parts from other animals. Daniel Nettheim's film is equally weird and motley.