If you use Yahoo mail for email, you may have noticed a little ad in the sidebar of your inbox today for a movie called The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters.



I saw the movie last night.

The film is a documentary about, as you may have guessed, two men who are, essentially, competing for the world record high score in the game Donkey Kong. The original game from way back in the day. It follows the story of two men, Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. Billy is the reigning king of the game, having scored 800,000-some points many moons ago. Steve is the "challenger", attempting to break the record.

Basically.

You might look at that poster and read that little bit of a synopsis and think to yourself "This sounds really lame." I assure you, though... it is not. It is, in fact, fucking HILARIOUS and an actual, honest-to-god good movie. Full of nerds people who spend the majority of their life playing these vintage video games and take it very, very seriously. Surely you can see the potential for comedy in that, but it's so much more than that. You'll be AMAZED at the politics, conspiracies and general douchebaggery involved in the world of official vintage game score-keeping. It's like watching a fucking Michael Moore movie, except it's about people who play video games. And the filmmaker, thus far, has given us no reason to doubt his word. Not only all of that, but it's a pretty... I don't want to say heart-warming, but you definitely get involved enough emotionally that you want to see Steve Wiebe win. The Nuart theater was packed last night and I'll tell you that the crowd was cheering Steve Wiebe on like crazy. It's been a while since I've been to a screening that an audience got that into.



I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this film.

Unfortunately, last night was it's final date at the Nuart, and I'm unaware of it screening anywhere else in the LA area. However, I believe it's still screening in other theaters all over the United States. If you can, then I urge you to check this movie out. Not only because it's awesome, but because it deserves your money and support.

Check out the Oficial Website for all the info and the trailer (which is awesome, too) there.

If you don't believe me, you can read Roger Ebert's review of the film, although I warn you his is much more spoiler-ish. If you're on the fence and my word isn't enough, though, then go read it.

I loved it.

Tags: movie reviews
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