Movies

I decided to steer well clear of the multitude of multiplexes in my area this past weekend, as I didn’t want to catch anything from the legions of Pirates fans (goddamn scurvy) keen on seeing Orlando “I’ve Got Creepy Facial Hair” Bloom and Keira “My Jaw Can Cut Glass” Knightley attempt to emote. Instead I saw Wordplay at the local Landmark, and Murderball from Netflix. I think I’ve had my fill of documentaries for a while…

Wordplay – I wasn’t wrong. It was really good, and really funny, and a good deal less awkward than the sort-of-similar Spellbound. You really appreciate the amount of thought that has to go into making the puzzles. (Related to my previous post: I found myself wondering during the film if anyone had ever monitored the brain activity of some of these crossword experts while they completed puzzles – something tells me it wouldn’t be all that different from the cortical activity of someone playing a really intense video game.) Two things I took away from the theatre: a) I heart Jon Stewart (he was very funny, especially something he said at the end of the flick, which I won't ruin for you), and 2) I really, really, really wish Bill Clinton was still President.

Murderball – good, maybe borderline great. Definitely interesting enough. At the very least it was quite inspirational in showing how these guys have gotten around a major physical impairment, but the filmmakers managed never to condescend or patronize. The “nemesis” (that’s a nice way of saying “asshole”) of the movie reminded me of a wheelchair-bound, slightly less pudgy Steve Ballmer (replace “Developers!” with “Canada!” and add a lot of cursing and you get the idea of this guy's intensity).