Friday, February 08, 2008

Cool Kids Watch: King of Kong

Do yourself a favor and rent/download this movie: King of Kong. No, not the Jack Black action comedy from a couple years back, but the extraordinary documentary of classic gamer culture and the insanely interesting story about one man's obsessive quest to break the top score on Donkey Kong.

In a nutshell, the movie follows the plight of one Steve Wiebe - a quiet family man who takes to playing Donkey Kong after being let go from his job and soon finds himself in a quest to knock Billy Mitchell off his throne as 'That Guy Who Has the Top Score In A Centuries Old Videogame'. Unfortunately for Wiebe, Billy Mitchell also has an obsession with being 'that guy' and pulls out some pretty shady tactics to stop Steve Wiebe (or at least discredit him).

Billy Mitchell (Narcissist - hot sauce baron ... seriously)

Of course, its much more than a battle of the nerds and, in fact, the directors have pretty much owned up to playing up some of Billy Mitchell's asshole-ness. All said, its an amazing story and one which actually manages to infuse heart into a story about breaking videogame scores.

(Steve Wiebe ... likely autistic ... school teacher)

I'm probably not describing this well, but you'll understand my love for this documentary once you see it for yourself. And make sure to watch until the very end lest you miss the best part.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"No matter what I say (about donkey kong) it draws controversy... sort of like the abortion isue."

After a quick youtube visit, and hearing quotes like that, I clearly need to see this movie. Watching people with no grip on reality makes me feel better about myself.

Just like watching the special olympics and saying to yourself 'pfft... I could do that'

The bread and butter demographic of documentaries about weird people HAVE to be boarderline weird people like me feeling insecure... but hey, you're the marketing guy. You tell me.

grasshopper said...

Billy Mitchell is the ideal video game villain, nappy facial hair and everything