the early bird special

Netflix is making a lot of money off me these days. I have the same three dvds at home that were delivered to me before I left for Greece. Last week I finally watched Word Wars, but it remains languishing with Little Children and Radio On on my coffee table. It feels stupid, because I know I would rather be watching a critically lauded or quirkily obscure movie than that same rerun of Scrubs I've seen three times, but I just feel like can't sit still long enough to watch a whole movie anymore.

Cody and I watched Word Wars, a documentary about semi-professional Scrabble players last Thursday night. Spellbound was so excellent, and also Wordplay, that movie about crossword puzzles, that adding a movie about scrabble nerds to my queue was an obvious choice. And it was mostly good, but I think that where Wordplay made the crossword obsessed characters seem endearing and relatable, the scrabble players in Word Wars just came off as bizarre and maladjusted. And obviously, in Spellbound, it's alright to be insane as long as you're simultaneously adorable and also under the age of 18. I'd be hard pressed to argue if there's an intrinsic difference between spelling bees, crosswords and scrabble playing that makes the two former appropriate all-consuming hobbies and the third creepy, or if it's all filmmaking that has left me with that impression. But, dude, there was this character in Word Wars that was in serious gambling debt because he bet large sums of money on long 36 hour scrabble matches, and that was less interesting as much as it was just sad.

Maybe I'll watch Little Children tonight, but between a Costco trip and watching 30 Rock, I probably won't have time. There's always this weekend, I suppose. Until then I'll just be easy money for Netflix, but at least I'm not accruing overdue fines.