Word Wars

Some people consider Scrabble to be an intellectual parlor game, a way of passing the time on long winter evenings. Others manage to turn a board and bag full of letters into a life-determining obsession. The typical professional Scrabble player is unemployed, lives with his mother, and attaches as much importance to clothing as a chicken does to sack racing. In a documentary that has as many hilarious moments as any sketch show, Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo accompany four world-class eccentrics on the way to the grail of the Scrabble world: the National Scrabble Tournament in San Diego.