{"id":31053,"date":"2006-05-27T16:42:40","date_gmt":"2006-05-27T16:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2006\/05\/27\/wordplay-the-movie\/"},"modified":"2006-05-27T16:42:40","modified_gmt":"2006-05-27T16:42:40","slug":"wordplay-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20060527-40\/?p=31053","title":{"rendered":"Wordplay (the movie)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I saw a screening of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wordplaythemovie.com\/\"><i>Wordplay<\/i><\/a>, a documentary on crossword puzzles featuring <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crosswordtournament.com\/articles\/ct0398.htm\"> Will Shortz<\/a>. If you&#8217;re a crossword puzzler, this movie is a must-see. In addition to Will, there are plenty of other rock stars of the crossword puzzle subculture who play major roles: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crosswordtournament.com\/1997\/art01.html\"> Merl Reagle<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crosswordtournament.com\/2004\/photos\/christensen\/0026.htm\"> Trip Payne<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/ennienyc.livejournal.com\/\">Ellen Ripstein<\/a>. (I was particularly amused by <a href=\"http:\/\/ennienyc.livejournal.com\/87210.html\"> this entry<\/a>. Hey, if you&#8217;re not going to appreciate Ellen Ripstein&#8217;s autograph, give it to somebody who will!)\n The audience loved this movie, laughing so hard in places that it drowned out the dialogue. (And gasping in horror when&#8230; well, you&#8217;ll have to watch the movie to find out.) Crowd-pleasing one-liners (paraphrased):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting Merl Reagle to compose a Tuesday puzzle     is like getting Barry Bonds to play on your Little League team.     &mdash;&nbsp;Daniel Okrent reacts to seeing Merl Reagle&#8217;s     byline on a Tuesday puzzle.     (Monday puzzles are easiest, with the difficulty increasing     as the week progresses.) <\/li>\n<li>I had a boyfriend who would put me down, but I would just     come back with, &#8220;Oh yeah? And what are <i>you<\/i> the best     in America at?&#8221;     &mdash;&nbsp;Ellen Ripstein, 2001 American Crossword Puzzle     Tournament champion. <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate you. Sincerely&#8230;&#8221;     &mdash;&nbsp;Will Shortz reads a letter from a frustrated     puzzle solver. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> As a recovering crossword-aholic myself, I found myself using the on-screen clues to race against Al Sanders as he himself raced the clock to solve a New York Times crossword. Although I&#8217;m no crossword slouch, I&#8217;m no match for Al Sanders.<\/p>\n<p> Wholeheartedly recommended. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I saw a screening of Wordplay, a documentary on crossword puzzles featuring Will Shortz. If you&#8217;re a crossword puzzler, this movie is a must-see. In addition to Will, there are plenty of other rock stars of the crossword puzzle subculture who play major roles: Merl Reagle, Trip Payne, and Ellen Ripstein. (I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-31053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>This morning I saw a screening of Wordplay, a documentary on crossword puzzles featuring Will Shortz. If you&#8217;re a crossword puzzler, this movie is a must-see. In addition to Will, there are plenty of other rock stars of the crossword puzzle subculture who play major roles: Merl Reagle, Trip Payne, and Ellen Ripstein. (I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}