''Word Wars'' is a 2004

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo about competitive

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

playing. Its full title is: ''Word Wars - Tiles and Tribulations on the Scrabble Circuit''. The film was an official selection at the 2004 Sundance film festival, had a 25-city theatrical run, was included as part of the

Discovery Times Channel Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million Ameri ...

's "Screening Room" series, and was nominated for numerous awards including a 2004 Documentary Emmy for "Best Artistic or Cultural Programming" and an International Documentary Association (IDA) Award. The film is distributed by 7th Art Releasing. The film follows four players in the nine months leading up to the 2002

National Scrabble Championship The Scrabble Players Championship (formerly the North American SCRABBLE® Championship, and earlier the National SCRABBLE Championship) is the largest ''Scrabble'' competition in North America. The event is currently held every year, and from 2004 ...

, which was held in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Joe Edley Joseph Edley (born 1947) is a professional Scrabble player and author, and the first player to win the National Scrabble Championship three times. Pre-Scrabble life Joe Edley grew up in Detroit, Michigan and attended Wayne State University, where ...

, Matt Graham, Marlon Hill, and Joel Sherman. These players also appear in Stefan Fatsis's book ''

Word Freak ''Word Freak'' is a non-fiction narrative by Stefan Fatsis published in 2001 (). The book is subtitled ''Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players''. Fatsis, a sports reporter for ''The Wall Street ...

'', as does Chaikin. Fatsis and Chaikin are both tournament Scrabble players themselves.''The Washington Times'' "Fightin' words spur vivid documentary" page M24 accessed via Ebbsco's Australia New Zealand Reference Centre 20 June 2007

Soundtrack

* E Wolf & the Moneylenders - "Paralyzed" (Written by Chalkin & Haber) * Your Mom - "The One" (Written by Your Mom) * The Minutemen - "Do You Want New Wave (Or Do You Want the Truth)" (Written by Mike Watt) * The Minutemen - "The Glory of Man" (Written by Mike Watt) * Andrew Chaikin & Austin Willacy - " Across the Universe" (Written by

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

and

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

) * Joel Sherman - "Across the Universe" (Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

References

External links

* Documentary films about words and language Works about Scrabble 2004 films 2004 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about competitions Films shot in Baltimore 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{arts-documentary-film-stub