Pun Salad

A fun documentary about the game of Monopoly, exploring its origin, history, and current-day devotees. There is nothing extraordinary here, but movie held my interest throughout. It is narrated by Zachary Levi, late of the TV show Chuck.

The history is especially fascinating: the very earliest version, called The Landlord's Game, was meant to illustrate the single-tax theory of Henry George. Over decades, it mutated. Today's version was originally developed/stolen by Charles Darrow in the 1930s; even today, his descendants get a few cents thrown their way for each and every version of licensed Monopoly product purchased. Fascinating trivial details abound: "Marvin Gardens" is actually a misspelling of the actual property; "Short Line" was thought to be punchier than the actual "Shore Fast Line".

Much of the movie is spent reporting on competitive Monopoly tournaments, sponsored by the makers of the board game. If (like most people) you don't take Monopoly very seriously, you might be amazed at the number of people who do. There are a lot of talking heads, but they're colorful talking heads. There's some trash talking, as it develops that some of these guys don't really like some of these other guys. It all culminates in the 2009 World Tournament, held in Las Vegas; the winner is an unlikely Norwegian.

Novices can pick up some playing tips. (Example: in the early stages of the game, you should always bail out of jail ASAP, so you can accumulate tradeable properties. Once all the properties are owned, however, jail is a pretty attractive place, and you should stay there until you get thrown out.)