Director: Patrick Creadon
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 2.5
Pleasant little documentary - strongly reminiscent of Jeffrey Blitz's 2002 Spellbound - that covers the immensely popular world of crossword puzzles, the people who make and solve them, as well as the annual gathering of puzzleheads in Connecticut for their timed and very competitive championship. Being strongly anti-puzzle myself (ask anyone that knows me - I'll come right out and ask for answers, I don't care for that kind of challenge) I found the people involved in this - especially Will Shortz, the New York Times Puzzle Editor at Large - to be curious and peculiar (to say the least); there's a strong elitist bent here as well, all but listing the IQs of these individuals next to their profiles (not the worst of things - at least some people are still thinking). It's jovial and light, but there isn't much to say, really (aside from the very obvious maxim that mankind has an innate need to 'figure things out'), and the aficionados are no more or less nerdy than people who engage in costume play and/or frequent comic book conventions.
