I just watched King of Kong on Netflix

[Fordman]

I know Im way late to see this movie/documentary (King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters) but its is interesting (it was on Netflix). I really didnt know what the gamer dweebs of the 80's and 90's did with themselves, but it looks like they havent strayed too far from the arcade.

Billy Mitchell is a --cream-filled twinkie-- as he wouldnt even challenge/acknowledge the contender. I like how the Steve Wiebe just showed up at his restaurant just to try and provoke him. Mitchell does have his following of ass-kissers though!

Also, if the dork that was going around the arcade telling everyone about the impending kill screen would have made Wiebe loose by putting the extra pressure on, I'd got up from the stool and just knocked the crap out of him!

Oh well, thats my film review!

Fordman

[Ginsu Victim]

There's a lot you need to learn about how much of that film is ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow---.

[yotsuya]

Yeah, there's a whole 'nother side to that coin/token.

[opt2not]

Seems like every 6 months there's one of these posts. Good film, but completely scripted.

If you wanna watch an arcade documentary that's closer to reality, check out Chasing Ghosts. IMO a superior film.

[yotsuya]

Chasing Ghosts was good.

[Vigo]

I wouldn't call the movie ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow---, but it does paint a one directional, black and white picture. I just suggest reading some more on the story and draw your own conclusions.

There is also more that happened in the rivalry after the movie was made.

[SNAAKE]

there is a movie about playing the......computer

I will care when billymitchel fights me in any multiplayer game and wins(say..street fighter?)

[Malenko]

guess Im the only one who watched and liked Tilt:The battle to save pinball. And Im not even a pinhead

[Singapura]

Anyway, who cares.  Steve Wiebe has the record at this moment 

[HanoiBoi]

guess Im the only one who watched and liked Tilt:The battle to save pinball. And Im not even a pinhead

You're not the only one...just the first to mention it in the latest "King of Kong" thread.  I just watched "Tilt" two days ago and I also enjoyed it.  Pretty neat to see the people behind the machines.  Also interesting is that you didn't see Ritchie involved in the movie with the exception of some photographs.

[Vigo]

Ah god... not this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- again.

Yep. It's just like you PMS, PinballJim. It's around more often than not. 

[BadMouth]

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1303

The highlights:
•A core theme is that Billy Mitchell is an ---uvula---, one who doesn’t even deign to spend time in the same location as Steve Wiebe and won’t even come in to eat lunch at the same table as him. In fact, Billy came in and paid for lunch.
•Billy denies Steve the satisfaction of playing one-on-one on Donkey Kong. They’d played Donkey Kong one-on-one a year before the documentary was filmed at a previous championship.
•It seems like Steve Wiebe finally gets a chance to top Billy and that same day, a videotape arrives and Billy tops Wiebe. Steve Wiebe already had the top spot in Donkey Kong, having achieved the record before the documentary started.
•The videotape that Billy sends in has a suspicious glitch. The videotape was a copy and the original was sent in with no glitch.
•Two representatives of Twin Galaxies arcade forced their way into Steve’s garage and looted the machine. Two members of the same social scene as Twin Galaxies and Steve were let into his garage by his grandmother, and asked Steve for permission to photograph the circuit board.
•A number of insiders constantly appraised Billy on what was going on at the competition and took suggestions from him. Multiple times, the conversations being shown from both sides are not the same conversation.

[Ginsu Victim]

Don't forget that the videotape was a bounty. Anyone who could beat the score would win $10,000 from Billy. It was not a submission, but Walter entered it as one. Less than 48 hours later, Rob took the score down because it did not meet the criteria of an official submission.

[opt2not]

guess Im the only one who watched and liked Tilt:The battle to save pinball. And Im not even a pinhead

I jus watched Tilt last week for the first time. Excellent documentary. I always enjoyed pinball, I wouldn't say I'm a pinhead in any regard, but that movie made me want to get a pin for my collection.
Lots of great information for those who aren't versed in the pinball scene...I was especially impressed by some of the info they showed about the rise of pin-popularity after the arcade crash.
I highly recommend watching it!

[TOK]

Chasing Ghosts was good.

Totally disagree. Made people in the hobby look bad to the point of real embarrassment. Thank God it went nowhere.
 

[yotsuya]

TOK-

In retrospect, I will agree to you that in certain cases, it did make a number of people in hobby look bad, but I think those of us that are enthusiasts would be entertained by it.

If I learned one thing from it, it's that I wonder why Billy Mitchell gets so much grief with there are guys like Roy Shildt out there!

[Fordman]

So basically the whole movie was a work?

Ok, hook, line, sinker - mounted on the wall!

Without the adversarial riff between champ and challenger, the movie would be boring and have lesser appeal than it did?

Did anyone actually pay to see this in a theater? (and if you did, my guess is that you brought your gamer buddy and not a date/wife)

Did I see every chance to get Billy's wing sauce in every shot that could possibly be fit in to? How many times did we have to see him re-shuffling the items on the store shelf to make room for the Bodine size wing sauce jar?

ok......I'll stop with the stupid rhetorical questions!

Fordman

[CheffoJeffo]

Chasing Ghosts was good.

Totally disagree. Made people in the hobby look bad to the point of real embarrassment. Thank God it went nowhere.
 

I agree with both yotsuya and TOK -- it was a well-made movie (and those 3-D game animations that Peter did would be sweet in a front-end) that showed a segment of people in this hobby who are truly embarrassing for the rest of us and, from my experience, are very different from the collector and restoration folks.

It had the added benefit of making me feel better about sucking at the classic games that I love, since I definitely don't want to be lumped in with the likes of Rob Mruczek. He may play Star Wars better than I can, but I'm pretty sure I can fix Star Wars better than he can ... and, even though we are the same age, I don't live in my parents' house with a humongous cat ... and I've gotten laid.

[opt2not]

Is Chasing Ghosts the one where they didn't spring $100 for a working Berzerk boardset?

Yeah, Chasing Ghosts had the two Berzerk guys trying to swap boards to fix one for them to play.

Or was it the one where the guy started hallucinating during Missile Command and didn't manage to break the record?

That's High Score. Not really a great movie, but interesting enough. The ending part got a laugh out of me though.

[CheffoJeffo]

Is Chasing Ghosts the one where they didn't spring $100 for a working Berzerk boardset?

Yeah, Chasing Ghosts had the two Berzerk guys trying to swap boards to fix one for them to play.

And then repeatedly cycling the power just expecting things to work ... 

[HanoiBoi]

Is Chasing Ghosts the one where they didn't spring $100 for a working Berzerk boardset?

Or was it the one where the guy started hallucinating during Missile Command and didn't manage to break the record?

These movies are really starting to blur together...

I'm a big fan of Berzerk and imagine my disappointment to not see these guys fire it up.  At that point, why even keep that story line in the movie?

Maybe I'm the only one, but I do get pretty excited about watching these arcade movies, but while watching and afterwards, I feel sad and never plan on watching them again*.  And that 'art' collection....   

*Tilt I will watch again.

[CheffoJeffo]

I'm a big fan of Berzerk and imagine my disappointment to not see these guys fire it up.  At that point, why even keep that story line in the movie?

Especially since one of them is a child molester.  

[HanoiBoi]

Wow.  So, this guy was called 'Coach' and he never had kids?  That would've sent up a red flag for me.

Well....I'm just into Berzerk.

Sometimes I really wonder about the people in the arcade community.  

And people working in comic book stores.  

And EMTs.

And pinballjim's avatar.

[BadMouth]

Rob Mruczek. He may play Star Wars better than I can, but I'm pretty sure I can fix Star Wars better than he can ... and, even though we are the same age, I don't live in my parents' house with a humongous cat ... and I've gotten laid.

But he's got that classy, expensive art collection (consisting of women spread eagle).

[opt2not]

Well, at least he's heterosexual and not raping boys, so he's got that going for him.  Which is good.

Seems like that's really all he has going for him.

I made the mistake of trying to get my wife to watch this movie. She did pretty good, but once the "artwork" scene came on, she immediately stood up and said "done!", and walked out of the living room.
 
Bless her for the effort.

[CheffoJeffo]

I'm watching it right now, my wife walked in and saw Steve Sanders preaching ...

WHAT THE ---fudgesicle--- !

[Howard_Casto]

Everybody seems to be doing these types of documentries these days.  I say we do our own. 

Forum Wars:  The Quest for Qin!


I can be the bad guy.  I don't have a mullet, but I can grow that beard in no time and I'm sure I can find a crappy blue dress shirt and american flag tie somewhere.
 

[amendonz]

oh lord the "art"! 

such a great watch, i know that its easy to edit something to make someone look worse than they really are, but in this case i don't think they had to do too much... 

[jipp]

anyone remember the movie "joystick" hehe cheesy 80s flick.. but made me laugh. the valley girls were annoying as heck tho.. thank goodness that valley girl trend died in the 80s. like o my gawd gag me with a spoon.. heavy accent you cant understand..  laughs

chris.

[Bootay]

anyone remember the movie "joystick" hehe cheesy 80s flick.. but made me laugh. the valley girls were annoying as heck tho.. thank goodness that valley girl trend died in the 80s. like o my gawd gag me with a spoon.. heavy accent you cant understand..  laughs

chris.

Not sure I would say it died altogether. Have you listened to young kids talk today? "Like I was like going to the store and I like seen a dog and was like "oh my god how cute" and then it like ran away and like..." It is mind numbing listening to them. I have a 12 year old and I work with a bunch of people in their early 20s...heh

[opt2not]

anyone remember the movie "joystick" hehe cheesy 80s flick.. but made me laugh. the valley girls were annoying as heck tho.. thank goodness that valley girl trend died in the 80s. like o my gawd gag me with a spoon.. heavy accent you cant understand..  laughs

chris.

Not sure I would say it died altogether. Have you listened to young kids talk today? "Like I was like going to the store and I like seen a dog and was like "oh my god how cute" and then it like ran away and like..." It is mind numbing listening to them. I have a 12 year old and I work with a bunch of people in their early 20s...heh

I always enjoy sending this out to the "youngin's" that I know:

[Bootay]

Yep. That about sums it up. 

[jipp]

here is the first scene in the movie joystick we get to see connie acting like  a valley girl.  she is cute, but if thats how she really talked...  id have to throw her in the pool.  if you do not like frank zappa skip to 33 seconds or so to get to the girls talking like idiots heh. but i dig zappa



chris.

[Howard_Casto]

anyone remember the movie "joystick" hehe cheesy 80s flick.. but made me laugh. the valley girls were annoying as heck tho.. thank goodness that valley girl trend died in the 80s. like o my gawd gag me with a spoon.. heavy accent you cant understand..  laughs

chris.

Not sure I would say it died altogether. Have you listened to young kids talk today? "Like I was like going to the store and I like seen a dog and was like "oh my god how cute" and then it like ran away and like..." It is mind numbing listening to them. I have a 12 year old and I work with a bunch of people in their early 20s...heh

I always enjoy sending this out to the "youngin's" that I know:

You know, I get a lot of crap on this site for typing with conviciton.

[Q*Bert_OP]

Is Chasing Ghosts the one where they didn't spring $100 for a working Berzerk boardset?

Yeah, Chasing Ghosts had the two Berzerk guys trying to swap boards to fix one for them to play.

And then repeatedly cycling the power just expecting things to work ... 

That doesn't work?!?!

Works on SYS 6 pins. YMMV 

[Gray_Area]

It's not enough to *simply* question authority?