Wordplay: The Movie

Last night I had some free time and sat down to watch the movie Wordplay by Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley. If you're a hardcore printable crosswords enthusiast, you will enjoy this documentary on the crosswords cult that exists in our society.

Witness the inner workings of Will Shortz, NY Times Editor and NPR Puzzle Master, and his brilliant, entertaining and often hilarious contributors as well as surprising celebrity fans. Wordplay takes us through the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament where almost five hundred competitors battled it out for the title "Crossword Champ" and showed their true colors along the way.

This documentary is not about the casual crosswords puzzler who occasionally does one while waiting in the doctor's waiting room. Oh no. This is about the hard-core, die-hard, live-to-solve puzzlers. There are individual interviews with different people from across America who share an obsession with printable crosswords. Some of the people interviewed include Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, Ken Burns, and The Indigo Girls.

You also learn a bit of history behind the NYT puzzles, how they come up with ideas, how they construct them, how puzzles are made to be more difficult, the rules of puzzle making, and the effects of certain types of puzzles on it's solvers.

They also cover the World Crossword Puzzle Championship that takes place each March in Stamford, Connecticut. The viewer is taken through how the tournament is organized and operates, how players are ranked and scored, and finally taken to the final, where the top three finalists all compete against time and each other to solve their crosswords on large easels setup on a stage, while the crowd stares on.

Even if you only have a light interest in printable crosswords as a hobby, this documentary will be well received and will open your eyes to an entire almost underground-cult that exists around printable crosswords.

So check out the documentary Wordplay, I promise you won't be disappointed! If you enjoy the documentary, there is also the Wordplay Official Companion Book by renowned crosswords maker Will Shortz. I haven't had a chance to checkout the companion book yet, but from some of the reviews I've read, it's a great extension to what's covered in the movie. And a little secret, you can save a few bucks by buying them both together. Check out this page on Amazon.com, scroll down to the "Better Together" section to get your discount.