I've heard from more than one of my trusted moviegoing pals that The King of Kong is an extraordinary documentary.

So... no thread about it here at all??

I'll be seeing it this weekend, but I'm wondering if anyone wants to comment on it. I understand it's a must-see before I make up my year-end list.

Thanks for the reminder. I have a screener but couldn't get to it before the Washington Area Film Critics Association voted last week.

However, Sarah has just surprised me by declaring that she'd like to watch Juno -- good review in today's Washington Post -- so, you'll be pleased to know, I'll be seeing that film a second time before I see The King of Kong for the first time.

I really, really liked it. Great characters, great drama. Everything you'd think that a documentary about video game players couldn't be. But a word of warning... If you're like me, you'll be left at the end wanting to run off and google the film to find out more about the what's/how's/who's and if anything's transpired since the end of the filming. Without going into detail, I did, and regretted it.

Popechild's update has me concerned.

I thought the doc was wonderful, another look at a group of societal outcasts -- or, maybe better said, those on the fringes of society -- who have their own network of interested observers. The film reminded me a lot of Wordplay, which I liked quite a bit better than this film. Maybe I respond more to wordplay than to video games, although I'm terrible at both, and terribly uncompetitive in general (maybe because I stink at most things?). Here, the individuals didn't engage me as much as in Wordplay, where there seemed to be more generosity of spirit, even among the top contestants.

However, well over an hour into this movie, which is never less than interesting, there's a genuine display of emotion from one of the contestants, and from that point on, I was completely in his camp. The film sets us up for a rise-fall-rise again paradigm, then nicely and surprisingly undermines that. The final moments are wonderful nonetheless.

Not Top 10 material for me, but compelling viewing during a very strong year at the movies.

Now -- dare I go Google for that update?

EDIT: Hah! Jeffrey's gonna love this, from the AICN Q&A with Steve:

Quint: I can only imagine if it were me, that I would of course be picturing people for be playing me, so who would you want to play you?

Steve Wiebe: Nathan Fillion was a name that… and that’d be a good choice. Some people say we resemble each other.

EDIT AGAIN (for Popechild): AAAAAaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh! This thing is gonna go on forever, isn't it? Kind of cool, though: Forces of "darkness" arrayed against "forces of light," that sort of thing. The solace I took toward the end of the film, before those final closing moments, is that Steve's life seems blessed -- wife, kids, a job in which he serves others (as a teacher). So, even if he was the loser, he was a "winner" in life, whereas Billy didn't seem to have genuine relationships. I didn't know he was married until late in the movie. One of the most revealing moments was that other gamer, Billy's friend, who speaks so highly of Steve's character. Didn't that guy quote Scripture early in the movie? I wasn't sure how to read his exposed-liar "testimony" -- had he actually become a Christian? -- but his charity toward Steve was a nice touch.

It comes to Vancouver this week, if anyone's interested in coming up this way.

I loved how it felt like such a grand campaign of the forces of evil all aligned against the one poor sap who didn't belong but wanted to be the best at something so bad that he just couldn't help himself. In addition to the obvious "ah, shoot" postscript you referenced, there's also apparently at least one *other* guy that's never even mentioned or talked about, but who actually held the record at least at one point during the proceedings. I think it just detracted from the "wholeness" of the pic for me.

I really liked the film as well. It's a real "truth is stranger than fiction" story. The characters are so rich and their good/evil angle is so unique that you couldn't make up people like this out of fiction.

We do indeed have a winner!

Wow, what a fantastic movie. I don't know what's more amazing... the story, or the fact that the filmmakers were so dedicated to their subjects that they captured so many important moments of the story as they happened.

A top-tenner for me, definitely.

One thing I wanted to add: I loved the video game “nostalgia” in this film. THESE are video games, the ones I grew up with, the ones at all the arcades (which were just like the arcade where the competition was held; are places like that still around?). The mania for home video games today—which put those earlier games to shame in terms of graphics but which are WAY too hyper-kinetic for me—eludes me. I’m happy for those who enjoy the games, but I simply have no interest whatsoever. Give me more “Pac Man,” “Asteroids,” “Centipede,” and, heck, “Donkey Kong.”

“Centipede” was my personal favorite, but as I indicated earlier, I was no good at any of these games—not in the arcade versions, or the home versions. Besides, I didn’t even have an Atari; we had the lowly Odyssey game system, which we reveled in, believing it was superior to Atari because the Odyssey joysticks turned freely in eight different directions (or was it six?), while the stiff Atari joysticks barely moved. That seemed to matter when I was in grade school, although even then, most of my friends (save one, who also had an Odyssey) didn’t agree.

And people wonder why I invested in a laserdisc player in the early 1990s. It all started with the Odyssey! I just like being different.

As much as I love the killer "next-gen" graphics of my Xbox 360, I still remember with great fondness all those Saturday afternoons my friends and I spent at the Family Fun Center arcade back when we were in junior high and high school. My favorite was the sit-down version of After Burner II, which enclosed you in a moving cockpit as you lived out your Top Gun fantasies. I still dream of the day when I can put one of those down in the basement.

South Florida Kong star takes a pass on film
Billy Mitchell is the co-star of a movie that he says he hasn't even seen. . . .
Why the boycott? Mitchell has some issues with his portrayal in The King of Kong. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, the villain of the piece. And he sounds mostly OK with that designation. "I can see why the people in Hollywood who play the bad guys find it intriguing," he said.
But he said filmmakers glossed over and left out key facts. Challenger Wiebe, for example, "did not surpass my [Donkey Kong] score, contrary to what the movie would have you believe," Mitchell said. He hasn't spoken with Wiebe since the two met at Rickey's, Mitchell's Hollywood restaurant, in 2005.
But he said he bears Wiebe no ill will, and he maintains that they had more friendly interaction, both competitive and casual, than the filmmakers let on. . . .
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, January 29

The man who would beat Kong
The dispute sets up Wiebe for a second, official run at the record, and presumably a face-to-face showdown with Mitchell. This is where Gordon has left out a bit of back story for the sake of the yarn. A viewer will get the distinct impression that these foes have never met until an on-camera encounter at an arcade-game warehouse in Pompano Beach. But according to Mitchell (see accompanying article), he and Wiebe actually did play Donkey Kong side by side at an earlier meeting in California.
Sean Piccoli, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, January 29

I loved this. The classic games, the 80's soundtrack (I can't get that Karate Kid song out of my head now), the David v. Goliath setup. The region 1 DVD has alot of great extras. I was happy to hear Wiebe confirm my suspicions that he's a Christian. In one of the extended interviews they ask about his music and he talks about his faith. Wiebe makes a great flawed hero. (By his own admission, he wasn't showing the best parenting habits when he went for his first taped record at home.) It was interesting how even Mitchell's friends came around to see Wiebe's decency and character by the end.

For the record, Wiebe tried twice and failed to regain the record

Billy Mitchell is the Terminator.

Hilarious video. That would make a great extra on the DVD.

Seth Gordon Interview: We Didn’t Show You The Darker Stuff in The King of Kong
My main problem was the fact that Seth and his producer Ed Cunningham had seemed to play fast and loose with the facts when they edited their movie. Gordon doesn’t deny this, and he tantalizingly drops the fact that Billy Mitchell was actually much worse than they depicted in the movie. Does this mean that there needs to be a The King of Kong 2: Take This Hammer and Shove It sequel to set the record straight? I’d stand in line for that.
Kevin Kelly, SpoutBlog, November 26

I find fascinating the filmmakers' claims that Billy Mitchell was such a savage. I love this movie dearly, but the more I read about the film's production and the facts and circumstances behind it, the more fictional it seems to become. Could Billy really be as over-the-top or as "bad" as they make him out to be? Even if he's a crummy guy in real life, I tend to think that the film glorifies his roguery to some extent.

I still love this movie as a movie (and as Jeffrey pointed out, it's amazing how many important events the camera was on-hand for). I just don't know how much I believe its tale.

Side note: The director of this film, Seth Gordon, also directed this weekend's #1 movie, Four Christmases ... and Steve Wiebe has a cameo, appearing in, like, three shots (or at least three camera set-ups) as Reese Witherspoon's brother-in-law. I can't even remember if he had any dialogue; all I remember is that, the first time we see him, he's playing a video game and barely paying attention to the family reunion. In another scene (in which Wiebe does NOT appear), Witherspoon's sister remarks that her hubby once experimented with men. Hmmm. Wonder what his family makes of that.