Hmmpost

I’ve been in the on again phase of Netflix online watching movies through our Xbox 360 Elite and somewhat ironically came across the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Those with a Netflix account around the time this is being published should be able to go check it out in the instant viewing. If you don’t have an account, it’s like $9 but to get one and this movie alone is worth the price of a month’s membership. And then you can go and watch a bunch more movies for no more $$. Quite the late Xmas 2009 present for yourself. Maybe I should couch that a bit by saying you will love this movie if one of the following does not apply:

you aren’t portrayed negatively in the film you are a videogame geek who takes gaming way too seriously

Bonus points for loving this film if you, like me, dug hanging out in the arcades in the early 80s and played games like Pac-man and Donkey Kong. The title is no joke, those games could gobble quarters like none other. King of Kong is a documentary that primarily follows one gamer’s quest, Steve Wiebe, in trying to set the world record for Donkey Kong.  His chief competitor is a guy named Billy Mitchell who is portrayed in the first half of the film as the master of gaming because when he was like 16 he set some extremely impressive high scores at Centipede and Donkey Kong. The much older and presumably wiser Mitchell opines about life and video games and it’s difficult at times to determine where one stops and the other begins. If Mitchell is being serious – which I kind of doubt – he’s every dweeb’s worst nightmare reflection. Later in the film, Mitchell buys an 80-year old lady a Q-bert machine and sends her to the annual Funcom event where she can compete for the world’s high score live but she also has another mission: take this VHS tape of a new high score Billy has set. Switch back to Steve Wiebe who tries to get Mitchell to meet him for some “friendly competition” at Funcom – but Billy doesn’t show up to play. Wiebe goes on and sets the world record for a live referee event of 985,000 or so. Enter Billy Mitchell’s tape which puts a new wrinkle on the situation. That’s about all I can say about Mitchell and Wiebe in the documentary without ruining it, so I’ll leave them be but the hilarious parts include such classic moments as a gamer stating that he doesn’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but has a far worse addiction in playing video games. And perhaps my favorite part of the movie is where one of the veteran gamers walks around and eagerly tells the other Funcom attendees: “just to let you know we may have a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.” Priceless! And if you think I spoiled the documentary, forget about it. Just go and read the intense off screen drama that followed the documentary with posts like this one from Robert Mruczek. But instead of pointing out the obvious that the documentary is also about entertainment, not to be confused with the exact truth of how good or bad these people really are, let me point out this quote from Mruczek about how he has painstakingly analyzed the Donkey Kong footage and sees how a nearly unbeatable Donkey Kong high score could be reached (editor note: I left the spelling errors as written): I sent BOTH Steve and Bill my completed yet unreleased comparative articles citing their 1.006M and 1.014M performance. I sent them the EXCEL spreadsheets as well. In fact, I spoke with Steve on at least two occassions, and publicly stated as much on the forums, that after watching his performance, it was clear that he had the potential for higher. I also discussed some specifics and analysis from my spreasheet data, and pointed out where the two gamers differed startegically in the various stages. For example, I discussed how in the hammer stage Steve made more points on top than Bill, and this was again the 1.006M vs 1.014M performances. I discussed my logic as to why. I also discussed the pie factory differences and how both players shared the same propensity overall to point press on all stages thru perhaps level 10, then stave off, and then press again once they reached level 17-18. I suggested that eventually, one of them will want to try pressing every step of the way, and whoever can first pull it off…press in every stage successfully and reach stage 115 on the 1st life, then milk three times and go to the kill…that would be a nearly unbeatable record. Bil lwas told same, yet neither player had tried that to date.

I never reached this level of videogaming prowess with Donkey Kong. I think my best score ever is in the 50k range. I’ve done a little better at Pac-Man, but again  … kill screens? Only the Obi-won Kenobi’s can achieve such greatness.  And yes Billy Mitchell is actually compared to Obi-Won in one segment by Twin Galaxies Videogame Referee and budding musician Walter Day. No, I can’t make this up, but I’m chuckling as I write this post. This movie made me laugh out loud. Rotten Tomatoes critics loved it too, giving it 97%. It’s easily in my top three favorite documentaries ever. Grade: A+