Day 28 - 1/28/09 - Movie #29
BEFORE: I heard a lot about this documentary, but I guess I didn't know the whole story behind it. Late last year I watched a doc called "Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade", which told the back-story of some of the people who hold world-record scores on arcade games. Looks like some of the same people are featured in this film...
THE PLOT: Diehard video game fans compete to break World Records on classic arcade games.
AFTER: Since I watched the other film, I guess I DID know a few things about Billy Mitchell, Walter Day, Steve Sanders, etc. This movie is edited in such a way that you end up rooting for the upstart/underdog, and Billy Mitchell is seen as a slick manipulator who won't defend his title. It goes on all the time in the boxing world - why should the champ agree to a rematch? That said, the video of Mitchell's "Donkey Kong" high-score sure looked faked to me, I'm shocked the judges accepted it. I was also shocked to find out that someone actually has to watch hours and hours of video-game footage, and relieved to find some people geekier than myself.
RATING: 7 out of 10 rolling barrels.
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It's hard to know whom to root for in this doc. Naturally, you're being steered towards cheering for "the underdog" but when you take a step back you realize that here's a guy with employment issues who's investing huge amounts of time on a 20-year-old video game which he maybe ought to be devoting to either (a) looking for work or (b) his wife and kids.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to Billy Mitchell, "the villain." Who seems to have a rich, confident life outside of moving an 8-bit cartoon character around a TV screen...!
I agree with you about that guy who "certifies" records, though. I can't motivate myself to screen the boxes of videotapes I've got in my garage. And those are years worth of TV shows that at some point I decided were interesting enough to preserve!