Friday, September 5, 2008

The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters

Documentary: The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters
Like/Don't Like: My face almost exploded from the joy of watching it.

This pretty much was made for me. Because it combined several things that I love. 1.) Documentaries, 2.) the ridiculous, 3.) a good under-dog story and 4.) really bad hair. I mean REALLY bad hair. So bad that it's fabulous. So bad that at one point it showed this guy blow-drying his hair and I almost swooned. The picture doesn't even do it justice. You have to see it in motion. Like a wild horse's mane.

That guy is Billy Mitchell, the original world record holder of Donkey Kong. And he's a jerk. You will hate him at the end. But you will also love him because you couldn't create a character like this. He's everything you want in a geek/hot sauce mogul/egomaniacal video game lord, complete with sycophantic toadies and all wrapped up in black jeans and an American flag tie. You will be cheering for Steve Wiebe, who has been cheated out of the record by Billy Mitchell several times. He's a good guy that bad things have happened to and he just wants to do something great. And Donkey Kong is that something.

I never even dreamed that I would care about Donkey Kong or gamers but I'm telling you, by the end of the show you're going to be laughing and screaming and crying. There's drama and espionage (seriously) and real heart touching moments. And bonus, a video game tournament on Lake Winnepesaukee. I couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing.

6 comments:

Rach said...

I'm so glad you watched it. I loved it, especially the bad hair (I agree that the scene with the blow-dryer is swoon worthy in a horrible way). And I love that Billy Mitchell is a hot sauce mogul. And I feel so bad for Wiebe's wife and his little boy that needed wiping during the best game of his life. It's just an all-around great documentary. Who knew there were that many geeks that took arcades that seriously. So awesome.

Ms. Liz said...

I'm SO SO SO SO glad you watched it! I just adored that movie. I need to get the DVD like nothing else. Nick and I saw it at the Laemmle with no one else in the theater so we were as obnoxious as possible and I marveled half way through that I was caring so intensely about video games and video gamers. Its on my top 10. Yay yay and yay!

Anonymous said...

;) ;) ;)

Anonymous said...

;) ;) ;)

Jenny said...

My hubby and I watched this a few weeks ago and we could talk of nothing else for days. Awesome and uplifting and excruciating. Did you watch the extras?

Laura said...

This sounds good - especially considering what Mike does for a living. I'm putting it on my netflix queue. And, I'll be on the shore of Lake Winnepesauke in a few days!