CROSSWORDS: WordPlay

Summary | Quotes | References

Will Shortz 2023
Will Shortz at the 2023
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
International license from Wikimedia Commons

Summary

  • WordPlay is an engaging 2006 documentary about crossword solvers, authors and editors
    -- and contestants at the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
  • If I don't show WordPlay during class, you can borrow a DVD from the Jackson Co. Library
  • "WordPlay focuses on the man most associated with crossword puzzles, NYT puzzle editor and
    NPR Puzzle Master Will Shortz. Director Patrick Creadon introduces us to this passionate hero,
    and to the inner workings of his brilliant and often hilarious contributors,
    including syndicated puzzle creator Merl Reagle.

    Along the way, the film presents interviews with celebrity crossword puzzlers
    such as Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Mike Mussina, and the Indigo Girls,
    who reveal their process, insight and the allure of the game.

    In addition to deconstructing this uniquely American institution, WordPlay takes us through
    the [2005] 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."
    ~'www.wordplaythemovie.com' and ACPT
  • WordPlay movie trailer video: 2:00

Quotes

  • "Discover a world that thinks inside the box. A wildly entertaining documentary
    about crossword puzzles, the people who make them and the people who love them."
    ~Internet Movie Database (IMDb); see also: Wikipedia, PBS: Independent Lens
  • "There's more palm-sweating suspense in one minute of this baby than in all of 'The Omen.'"
    ~Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
  • "What's an eight-letter word for a non-fiction feature that is witty, wise and wonderful? 'Wordplay'"
    ~Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
  • "If it's challenges you're after, forget cracking "The Da Vinci Code."
    Wordplay captures the exhilaration that comes from navigating the ins and outs of complex puzzles."
    ~Claudia Puig, USA Today
  • "As someone who has never completed a crossword puzzle,
    I was surprised how engaged I was by Wordplay."     ~Lou Lumenick, New York Post
  • "A movie about crossword puzzles is an easier sell than a movie about the national debt."
    ~Patrick Creadon, Director [comparing Wordplay with I.O.U.S.A.]
  • "Watching President Clinton solve the puzzle while he answered our questions
    during the interview was incredibly cool."     ~Christine O'Malley, Producer
  • reagle
    Merl Reagle by Michaelblake1,
    CC BY-SA 4.0,
    via Wikimedia Commons

    "And there's word-choice rules. You can't use -- usually -- bodily functions in puzzles,
    you know. 'Urine' would bail me out of a corner, I mean, a million times a year.
    Same with 'enema.' 'Enema' -- talk about great letters."     ~Merl Reagle

  • "Every time I see the film, my palms get itchy and I start to sweat.
    Of course I know the outcome and I've seen it five times, but it gets so exciting."     ~Will Shortz
  • "Dunkin' Donuts... put the D at the end, you get Unkind Donuts...
    which I've had a few of, in my day."     ~Merl Reagle (driving by a Dunkin' Donuts shop)
  • [solving a puzzle] "Come on, Shortz! Bring it!" ~Jon Stewart
  • "I am a [NY] Times puzzle fan. I will solve, in a hotel, a USA Today,
    but I don't feel good about myself when I do it."     ~Jon Stewart
  • "I don't smoke, I don't drink coffee, and I don't need to have a drink at the end of the day.
    What I do need is to solve the crossword, every day, in ink."     ~Ken Burns
  • "I've always been intrigued by the letter 'Q'." ~Norman (Trip) Payne
WikiWordplay
WikiWordplay by Greg Williams, CC BY-SA,
via Wikimedia Commons

References