Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [107]
This was Josh Sternfeld’s first feature as writer-director, and I think it’s an impressive piece of work. When he brought his film to my class at USC I asked him about his approach and he said, “I always feel like there’s so much more going on with what people feel as opposed to what they say, so when I started writing I think that was a natural part of my process, to try to have levels of subtext operating in the script.”
That’s one reason such good actors as Anthony LaPaglia and Allison Janney were attracted to his screenplay. Ron Livingston agreed to play a small role as a schoolteacher, not because it would help his career, but because he admired Sternfeld’s writing.
The setting is a quiet suburban town in New Jersey. LaPaglia plays a widower who’s trying to meet the challenge of raising two sons and running a business, but he gets so caught up in his daily routine that he doesn’t recognize his boys’ emotional needs.
Aaron Stanford and Mark Webber play the sons who miss their mother. They love their father but see their lives in this tranquil community as running into a dead end. The one spark of life comes along when a woman (Janney) moves in down the street who might be open to a relationship with LaPaglia.
In this movie looks, glances, body language, and silence tell as much as the dialogue. You never doubt for a moment that the three central characters care about each other, but you can also feel the tension that’s building with the older son—and the open wound that the loss of his mother still represents to all of them.
Josh Sternfeld told me that the highest compliment he received after screenings of his film was when people would say, “It’s just so real.” That it is.
149. WORD WARS
(2004)
Directed by Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo
Spellbound movingly captures the suspense of America’s national spelling bee and the young contestants who give their lives over to that competition. Wordplay celebrates the world of crossword puzzle addicts and their hero, New York Times puzzle master Will Shortz. Overlooked in this select field of documentaries, Word Wars (full title: Word Wars: Tiles and Tribulations on the Scrabble Circuit) deserves to be better known, even though its protagonists are not nearly as endearing as those in the other two films.
Word Wars explores the world of full-time Scrabble players. That’s right: there are people who spend every day of their lives playing Scrabble, mostly for money and what little glory they can muster. The four individuals profiled here don’t make much of a living this way—from the evidence at hand, they exist at the margins of society—but they all share the same goal, to win the country’s leading tournament, held every summer in San Diego, where the grand prize is $25,000.
In fly-on-the-wall fashion we meet these motley participants earlier in the calendar year and get an idea of their everyday lives leading up to that crucial trip west. These characters are oddballs with a capital O, and fascinating in their own bizarre way.
What struck me most about these people is that they’re just like any other obsessives. I was reminded of people I know who are consumed by old movies or comic books. Only the object of their passion sets them apart. Yet filmmakers Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo don’t judge them: they leave it to us to draw our own conclusions.
Another distinction of Word Wars is its stylish cinematic treatment, establishing a visual motif of Scrabble letters as anagrams—seemingly random lineups of letters that we quickly discover can be transformed into seven-letter words by an experienced eye. The action is further propelled by a snazzy music score by Thor Madsen. All of this takes what some might consider dry material and making it vibrant and fun…even if you’re not a Scrabble connoisseur.
150. THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN
(2005)
Directed by Roger Donaldson