(Page 1 of 1)
When buying your copy of The King of Kong, be sure to tell the cashier that Uncle Crispy sent you. Say those words: "Uncle Crispy sent me!" You won't get a discount or anything. But you will get a strange look, guaranteed.
If you haven't picked up "The King of Kong" on DVD, you have brought shame on your house.
When it comes to videogame documentaries,
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (on DVD; Picturehouse) has no peer.
The film tells the story of two men hell-bent on achieving the
Donkey Kong high score.
Of course, it's about much more than that.
First and foremost, the film is about people. One of the competitors is humble family man Steve Wiebe. We see him in his suburban home,
Donkey Kong upright installed in his garage, with a video camera angled over his shoulder to capture his feats.
The other is the hirsute, infamous Billy Mitchell. Mitchell has been a staple on the high-score circuit since his teens, holding a number of arcade records. Now, as an older man with big hair and an even bigger ego, and owner/operator of Rickey's World Famous, a chain of chicken-wing centric restaurants based in Hollywood, Florida (
read our restaurant review here), Mitchell seems determined to hang onto his past glory.
"There's only one thing that I love more than my hot sauce, and that's me."
Along the way, we meet other characters like Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, an international organization that tracks arcade high scores. We meet Wiebe's long-suffering wife, and Mitchell's kooky (but supportive) parents. Best of all, we meet Roy Shildt, a former
Playgirl model-turned-fitness instructor who manages to sully Wiebe's achievements.
Be warned: The movie does, er, monkey around with the facts a bit. According to Walter Day, Mitchell wasn't always avoiding Wiebe, as the film implies. Day says that the two were actually quite friendly, even giving interviews together at the 2004 Classic Gaming Expo.
Referee Walter Day tries to make Steve Wiebe nervous by
whispering the word "Noonan" in his ear during a record attempt.
Then again, isn't it common knowledge that all documentaries (and biographies and nonfiction accounts) do a bit of fact-monkeying? I say, get too caught up in the veracity of the film, and you're missing the larger picture here.
"The King of Kong" offers the chance to spend some time in the company of these strange, compelling characters, the chance to mull over why some men place so much value on something that, from a distance, seems so trivial. And, finally, "The King of Kong" offers the chance to ponder the terribly trivial pursuits in our own lives.