RyothChatty
ridiculous rating
Robert Joyner
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Steve Pulaski
My seventy-six-year-old grandmother has two rituals she's carried with her every day for the past twentysomething years - first thing in the morning, upon walking outside in the bitter cold or the scorching Chicago humidity to get her newspaper, she'll always do the crossword puzzle and she'll always watch the new episode of Jeopardy! in the afternoon. I remember observing her as a young child, staying overnight at her house, wondering how she could fill in the blanks to a complex puzzle so quickly or respond so confidently to nearly every question on the gameshow. To this day, her energy levels and intelligence far surpass mine and I'd be damned if she wasn't one of the wisest people I've come to know.According to Will Shortz, the editor of the crossword puzzles found in The New York Times, she would fall into one of two categories of people who are good at crossword puzzles. Those two kinds of people are musicians and math-minded people, otherwise known as those who excel at actuary sciences, accounting, or problem solving of any kind. These kinds of people are said to process a great deal of coded information in their field, allowing them to have more of an aptitude at trying to decode your average crossword puzzle found in your local newspaper.Wordplay is a documentary about the crossword puzzle, a national passtime of sorts that compliments Sunday morning like a piping hot coffee or a freshly baked doughnut. Throughout the film, we observe a national crossword competition, where dozens of people from around the world gather to solve a series of crossword puzzles in record time, whilst documentarian Patrick Creadon profiles a select few individuals from the competition to give us insight on the difficult nature of crossword puzzle solving and creating.One of the contestants in the the national competition is Trip Payne, a puzzlemaker who has crafted an upwards of 4,000 unique crossword puzzles and frequently competes on a national scale. Armed with the support of his husband and his consistent desire to outdo his previous performance, Payne makes his way through the national competition in order to win the title of the crossword champion.Another individual Creadon profiles is Merl Reagle, a crossword puzzle maker who shares his insights on how to make a fun and challenging puzzle. Reagle, similar to Shortz, always starts with a core idea, for example, "Word Play," where all the subsequent words, be them up, down, or across, will have the word "word" or "play" embedded somewhere in them but not deal directly with either of those words. Reagle sits as his dining-room table for hours, crafting a puzzle, sometimes surprising himself with how many words he knows. These scenes are the most intimate and revealing, mostly because we see how something we either take for granted or don't pay much thought to is structured. Just the thought of trying to create a crossword puzzle, let alone solve one, for me, makes me nauseous; I struggled to make word searches in grade school.Creadon also holds interviews with people like Jon Stewart, a lover - perhaps connoisseur - of Shortz's crossword puzzles and Bill Clinton, all of whom enjoy challenging themselves and testing their verbosity with The New York Times puzzle. A terrific scene comes about halfway through the documentary, where we see Stewart, Clinton, and other celebrities try to solve one of Shortz's crossword puzzles in record time. "I'm so confident in myself," Stewart claims, "I'm going to do it in gluestick." Wordplay, much like toying around with the English language, is a lot of fun. The heart of the documentary is in the characters it profiles, specifically people like Payne and Reagle, who craft these complex crossword puzzles. When the documentary takes the last twenty-five minutes to profile the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the spark of charisma in the film greatly simmers. The people Creadon focuses on are so filled with insight and ideas that it almost seems criminal to shift focus late in the game when we have a wealth of ideas and language trickery being detailed right before us.Directed by: Patrick Creadon.
SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain
Recently I've watched films about those obsessed with Scrabble, Chess, and Cinema. This was probably my favorite. First of all, all the people featured in this documentary seem to be able to function. They make friends, relationships, study, have jobs, etc. This makes them easier to relate to and makes their talents more impressive. Unlike Scrabble, where people just memorized words, and not their meaning, here the contestants need some intelligence. The documentary loses points as it focuses too much on just The New York Times crossword puzzle. Which is fair enough, and leads to us seeing the creation and editing of crosswords. However, it comes across as an advertisement sometimes. Luckily, there is a lot of interest here. You wouldn't believe how much work goes into a simple puzzle, and how clever they can be. I never knew a puzzle could be witty until I saw the election of Bob Dole/Clinton section. It all boils up to a fantastic tournament finish. What I loved about this was that I was routing for all three finalists, and it was an unpredictable, heart-breaking, but also uplifting ending. It contained a lot of emotions without the manipulation you find in sport biopics.
postmanwhoalwaysringstwice
What is it with intelligent people? Nerds, for lack of a more colorful but expressive term, make for surprisingly interesting stories. There is something about watching people attain another league of mental skill that humbles the rest of us. Sure, there's the madness that sets in (ala "A Beautiful Mind"), but what about the quiet cheers brought about from a film like that Spelling Bee championship flick, "Spellbound"?"Wordplay" fits into that category of documentary film-making, as it further instills certain modesty into the lesser minds of us viewers. The film cleverly interweaves the tale of several competitors who rival one another at the twenty-eighth annual crossword puzzle tournament. As their stories develop, and we learn about these individuals, the actual match builds with surprising tension. These stories are told side-by-side interviews with other crossword enthusiasts such as former President Bill Clinton and TV's Jon Stewart who offer their own passionate opinions on the pleasure and overall importance of crossword puzzles. It's a fun, entertaining film that could easily have been otherwise.
julian kennedy
Wordplay: 5 out of 10: In reviews of Robert Redford's delightful movie Quiz Show critics lamented on the disappearance of the middle class intellectual since those storied fifties. Turns out they are alive and well and doing the New York Times crossword, in ink no less.Wordplay is a documentary about such people and the puzzles they love. Like the New York Times resident enigmatologist Will Shortz, Wordplay is genial to a fault.The fact is for many people doing the daily crossword is the only intellectual exercise their brain gets all day and is the total sum usage of a four year liberal arts degree. Lets face it knowledge of Sophocles doesn't come up often at the daily grind. (Or as Sir Humphrey Appleby said in Yes Prime Minister what use is knowing Latin if I can't even use it when talking to the Prime Minister.) So doing the crossword is often the best intellectual stimulation an over-educated person can get in his or her daily life. (Alas some people simply write movie reviews instead.) Does Wordplay touch upon these larger issues? Not on your life.Instead we get an assortment of celebrity moments some insightful (Bill Clinton) some humorous (Jon Stewart) and some downright creepy (documentarian Ken Burns).There is a very perspicacious look inside the creation of the crossword with enigmatologist (I love that word) Merl Reagle but alas it is over just as it gets interesting.There are also the painfully non-judgmental profiles of the fanatics. Those people who dedicate themselves to solving puzzles in record time and winning the crossword championship. So screen time is spent not just watching the crossword championship talent show but watching the baton twirling practice in the park for the same.The film is very slick with excellent graphics but it certainly isn't at all deep for such an intellectual pursuit.