SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Must See Movie...

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Humans are unique in that while nearly all of us communicate with language (and our intellectual processes are fairly similar, even across nationalities, cultures and classes), we have formed a variety of different languages with which to communicate with out neighbors, some of those languages have and are dying out.Crossword puzzles are fairly universal things; you see them in most languages and nationalities with the opportunity for leisure and with an established media and mass distribution points. While this documentary was very focused on crosswords in the U.S. and very specifically on crosswords in the New York Times, the puzzles themselves are not so selectively found. In that regard, while this documentary worked well to educate an audience about somethings they may not have known about crosswords generally or those who either design or attempt to solve them more specifically, the fact that the focuses was so narrowed made it interesting that an attempt was made to distribute this as a feature rather than to showcase it as a documentary on cable or otherwise.The material on New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz was interesting, if brief. While there was not as much personal focus on "puzzle creator" Merl Reagle, his aspect of the film was perhaps the most interesting and informative.The section on the competitors in the annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which was inter-cut (as was the entire film) with very brief interviews with more notable enthusiasts (such as Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart) was the most entertaining of the human interest narratives featured, but probably could have (and I believe was done previously) as a nice piece on 60 Minutes.While worthy of a rental, it's hard to recommend this film as a real documentary.

To me, a successful documentary teaches me about someone or something I didn't know. I am not a crossword enthusiast, but I thought I knew about crossword puzzles. It turns out there is a lot I didn't know, and what I learned in "Wordplay" was conveyed in an entertaining manner.The film is rated PG, and the only mildly "offensive" language occurs when one of the puzzle constructors lists several clinical terms that he is not allowed to use in the puzzles. It's nothing you wouldn't hear at your annual physical.Wordplay is one documentary with three interwoven parts. The first part introduces us to New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz and a number of puzzle constructors, primarily Merl Reagle. It shows how crossword puzzles are created and edited. It explains the "rules" of puzzle-making, how the degree of a puzzle's difficulty is changed by altering the clues, and how creators use themes throughout the puzzle. It also shows how there are often puzzles within the puzzle.The second part is a series of interviews with six or seven celebrity crossword enthusiasts, and with a number of competitors in the annual tournament. One of the most interesting parts of the film is watching each of the celebrities work on the same puzzle at the same time. The filmmakers use split screens and animation to show the answers being filled in.The third part (and the bulk of the film) covers the 28th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament held in March, 2005 in Stamford, CT. It features more cool puzzle-filling animation, and it includes a blunder of Bill Buckneresque proportions. The tournament is a nerd-fest of the highest order (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's a combination competition, convention, and family reunion. The participants seem like nice people who genuinely enjoy each others' company. There is one scene with an element of sportsmanship that is rarely displayed in competition on any level.You MUST watch ALL of the bonus scenes on the DVD. OK, you can skip the music video, but watch the rest of them. In their entirety they are about as long as the movie itself (94 minutes). They include deleted scenes, extended cuts from the celebrity interviews, additional insight into the puzzle creation process, and more clips from the tournament.There is also a short film about a group of people in a small Wisconsin town who read The New York Times every Sunday. This segment is a little out-of-place if not off-putting. It is not about the puzzle at all, it's just about people who read The Times. I found these people to be elitist and condescending -- not at all what I expected from a rural town in Wisconsin. One of them even admits to "playing at" being a farmer while not at his "home" in Chicago. The point of the film seemed to be that erudite urbanites love spending time in the country as long as they can get a decent cup of coffee and the Sunday New York Times. If I lived in that town I would buy up all of the papers every Sunday so these people would go back from whence they came.

The commercial success of documentaries in recent years has led to a spate of money moving into various projects that would have never been seen in theaters five years ago. This rash has lead to many films that approach the method as novice polemicists that have little understanding of the documentary form. The presentations tend to feel more like textbooks than works of art ('Enron, the Smartest Guys in the Room', 'Outfoxed').The best documentaries are those with oblique presentations of a world you may know little about. The goal is often to leave you illuminated, the best leave you inspired. Quality documentaries work either from the inside out or the outside in. The first type presents some source whose story offers up a world or view of a world that we never had the privilege to see before. The second category presents glimpses of various views of a subject and alters these viewpoints as it moves toward illuminating the topic. 'The Fog of War' and 'A Brief History of Time' are marvelous examples of inside out presentations. 'Harlan County, USA' and 'Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control' are amazing outside in story lines.'Wordplay' is the best documentary I have seen since 'The Fog of War' and this came as a complete surprise. I expected a textbook presentation by a puzzle obsessor about those like him and their inspiration. I got a wondrous, understandable exploration of a world I knew little about from a guy whose major claim to fame to date was filming hot Maxim babes.The film is an outside in presentation of the crossword world using four views from the edge. There is the history of the form that centers on its development by the NY Times and the paper's first and current Crossword Editors. Then you have the constructors, the guys who weave these puzzles into shape, the philosophers of the art. You see a view from the fans, the best of which are Ken Burns, Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls, Jon Stewart, and Mike Mussina. And there are the fanatics, the pastiche of intellectual weirdos who make a science out of it and participate annually in the World Championship.The film crisscrosses the edges of these oblique views toward a center of what could have been a pedestrian presentation of the 2005 championship. The director actually turns this into a meditation on the zing one gets from successfully doing puzzles while allowing you to take sides with one or more of the fanatics. I found myself utterly mesmerized by this, feeling exhilaration, disappointment, inspiration, appreciation, and most importantly, respect for this cast of zanies. The net effect of this experience was a huge smile that I felt on my face as the adventure wound down. The energy of this comes from the amazing use of juggling split screens that I won't even attempt to explain. Just see it.And I haven't tried to do a crossword puzzle in years.I certainly hope this guy has graduated to a new level of film-making and is given whatever he needs for future projects. I am so honored to have been introduced to him in this way rather than in a titillating Maxim video.Not that there is anything wrong with ….

As I watched this movie, I heard all around me little appreciative chuckles from the audience. I like but don't love crossword puzzles (my mother did the double crostics when I was a kid, which were beyond me) and can take them or leave them, but Will Shortz is a gem and the theme of competition is universal. Heck, I don't usually even like documentaries, but I felt as if this funny, courteous, kind, assortment of people was inviting me into a particularly enjoyable party in which nobody was a wallflower. The film-makers deserve credit for the humor and kindness of this film, as well as for the excellent craftsmanship (and their interesting assortment of celebrity interviewees)