Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Movies Can Be Okay Sometimes
We watched Word Wars tonight. Alright enough, but a little dull. More effective as a companion piece to Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak than as its own free-standing entity. It's ridiculously spotty as a documentary on tournament Scrabble, but does a decent job portraying the antisocial obsession of some of the world's top players. If you've read the book you'll be familiar with players like Marlon Hill and G.I. Joel Sherman, and being able to place physical characteristics to the names helps to thoroughly flesh out the Word Freak experience. The film doesn't approach the depth and insight of the book, however, in presenting their idiosyncrasies. On its own, it's almost a failure. The missus, who hasn't read the book, was bored at times, and confused at others; the filmmakers do a poor job of explaining the peculiarities of the competitive game, and so she didn't understand much of what was happening. So basically reading Word Freak might almost be essential to enjoying this flick, and I don't know if I can recommend the movie to those who haven't done so.
Oddly enough, the only licensed music utilized are two songs by the Minutemen, "Do You Want New Wave (Or Do You Want the Truth?)" and "The Glory of Man". You can find both of those over at the Extension.
We watched Word Wars tonight. Alright enough, but a little dull. More effective as a companion piece to Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak than as its own free-standing entity. It's ridiculously spotty as a documentary on tournament Scrabble, but does a decent job portraying the antisocial obsession of some of the world's top players. If you've read the book you'll be familiar with players like Marlon Hill and G.I. Joel Sherman, and being able to place physical characteristics to the names helps to thoroughly flesh out the Word Freak experience. The film doesn't approach the depth and insight of the book, however, in presenting their idiosyncrasies. On its own, it's almost a failure. The missus, who hasn't read the book, was bored at times, and confused at others; the filmmakers do a poor job of explaining the peculiarities of the competitive game, and so she didn't understand much of what was happening. So basically reading Word Freak might almost be essential to enjoying this flick, and I don't know if I can recommend the movie to those who haven't done so.
Oddly enough, the only licensed music utilized are two songs by the Minutemen, "Do You Want New Wave (Or Do You Want the Truth?)" and "The Glory of Man". You can find both of those over at the Extension.
