MovieChat Forums > Wordplay (2006) Discussion > I'd just like to point something out...

I'd just like to point something out...

posted 16 years ago by markcolumbus14
6 replies | jump to latest

After viewing the Wordplay DVD, and granted this is a documentary about the NYTimes Crossword Puzzle and Will Shortz along with the crazy generated by puzzles in the US public sphere, I couldn't help but notice a lot of NY Times plugging and subtle generating of praise and greatness associated with the NY Times, which I thought was translated subtly and ultimately succumbed what was supposed to be a documentary on the art of crosswords to marketing ploys.

While I do love the NY Times, I think that it tacitly understood that the NY Times, yes, is the great paper of prestige, the documentary shouldn't have reinforced it, but instead should've delved more into the culture of crosswords itself, with the NY Times crossword as a backdrop.

In the documentary, there is a special featurette where a lady in a small town asks everyone why the NY times is so special, with many of the citizens kind of just nonchalant and blase about the whole thing (people really wait in line to get the NY Times in that small city? it sure didn't seem like it) and i thought this was the icing on the cake. at times she sure just seemed like an annoying saleswoman, totally out of touch with the community she was covering.

You can tell that Will Shortz and the NY Times had a hand in making this documentary. Crosswords didn't begin and end with the NY Times, they just happen to helm the most challenging and wittiest ones, and do it best. But the nature of crosswords shouldn't be something based in and around the NY Times, NY Times should just be a big component of this craze, and Worplay at times sidestepped delving into the nature, mindset, and culture of crosswords and just reverted back to the splendor of the NY Times whenever it could, in my opinion.

[–] sarahdynomite 14 years ago

That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that. I'm from the southeast, but I don't like our state paper crossword at all. I always buy the NY Times crossword books. I laughed out loud when Jon Stewart said he will occasionally do a USA Today, but he doesn't feel good about it. I totally identified. I guess I assumed everyone felt the same way.

But geez, now that you mention it... it was like one big ad.

And I didn't even notice what they were selling me!

I feel like I've been had!!

[–] rmatlan 13 years ago

Yes it was a bit smug, but there was also a bit of kidding too. The guy who was the former ombudsman, who said "But we're the Times, so we can't call it an ombudsman." Also you had the piano player saying that if they took out the puzzle their circulation would drop precipitously. So yes, it is a homage to the Times, but let's face it the people who were at the tournament didn't exactly look like "the beautiful people". They were a bunch of nerdy, really really smart people who were having fun.

[–] albawhall 12 years ago

A B.U. (Boston University) undergrad from Bermuda of British stock named Celia Waters used to do her London Times crossword while scooping the yolk delicately out of her egg-cup. One of the clews (alt. Brit spelling): industrious excavating Mrymidon (a race of people whom Zeus made from a nest of ants. They settled in Thessaly and were led against Troy by Achilles)and "sharp...biting...". The answer: a kind of pun--Trenchant. Thoreau used myrmidons as a motif to describe embattled ants in his Walden Pond à la Jonathan Swift in Brobdingnagia.

I found the L. Times clues wittier than those in the N.Y. Times. Years later, I subscribed to the Financial Times while incarcerated in the Honolulu Federal Detention Center. The 'clews' were tougher and even with the answers were impossible to decipher. John Gielgud did the FT crosswords while taking a taxi to work.

By the by, what was the BA Shortz earned? In Etymology. And I couldn't find the word in a dictionary for the galleon sailor--galliot or something such?

[–] rbhattarai 12 years ago

Will Shortz's degree is in enigmatology.

[–] TheManInOil 12 years ago

It seems fairly obvious that this was a project made possible because of existing friendships and associations. I'm sure the substance of it, the financing and the guest appearances were all arranged through people knowing somebody rather than selling the project by virtue of its significance.

"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

[–] PsychoDingo 11 years ago

The DVD case says it's a journey into the world of Will Shortz, crossword editor of the New York Times.

The documentary was as advertised. I don't have a problem with it.