King of Kong? You Know These Guys?

I am watching King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters for the second time now.  It is running on G4, and I had nothing to prevent me from perusing the channel guide for something to put my peepers on.  I had remembered this movie from the first time I saw it, and I remembered it fondly.  Now I am having an entirely different experience with it.  To begin with the characters are great.  Obviously, these aren’t characters but real people.  Yet they’re they kind of real people that scriptwriters fail to write accurately, actors fail to portray correctly and directors brush with such a broad stroke as to become stereotypes.  I’m bad with the review part…so here’s what Roger thinks:

 "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," a documentary that is beyond strange, follows two arch-enemies in their grim, long-term rivalry, which involves way more time than any human lifetime should devote to Donkey Kong. I am reminded of the butler's line in "A New Leaf" to Walter Matthau: "You are carrying on in your own lifetime, sir, a way of life that was extinct before you were born.

In this corner, the man in black, wearing a goatee and looking like a snake-oil pitchman, is Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Fla., in real life a hot-sauce tycoon (Rickey's World Famous Sauces), who says he is the man who first retailed chicken wings in their modern culinary form in Florida.

 In the other corner, looking like your average neighbor, is Steve Wiebe of Seattle, who got laid off at Boeing the very day he and his wife bought a new house. He has kids, he's likable, and he plays Donkey Kong on a machine in his garage, where we gather he spends hours and hours and hours. He's now working as a high school science teacher.”

These guys are as passionate about gaming as Kobe Bryant is about winning or Lindsey Lohan is about cocaine.  It’s fascinating to see them investigate the legitimacy of a replaced Donkey Kong motherboard to ensure the accuracy of Steve Wiebe’s record breaking and making score of 1,006.600 points.   The importance of this record score on an arcade game consumes all interested parties.  It is the same intensity that drives hall of fame athletes to victory in pursuit of perfecting their craft that motivates these “regular” guys with extraordinary memory, hand eye coordination and muscle control to become the best in the world at Donkey Kong.  It is noble.  There aren’t million dollar contracts or endless women (believe me…I know) to be had in video gaming.  At least not for the players.  Their goals are driven by no more than an internal need to achieve this monumental score.  Monumental because they say so. 

 The impending battle between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell contains all the tension and anticipation of a heavy weight title fight.  Not of a title fight now though, because I couldn’t tell you who is the champ, but I mean a title fight like Tyson vs. Holyfield 2! Like Ali vs. Anyone!  The arcade community has official referee’s, those guys that play really well, those guys that don’t play that well but love the atmosphere and the people there. There are prodigee’s, amateurs, professionals.  There are wiley veterans and loose cannons. 

 It helps that this is about gaming.  There’s a side to video games, which I’ve loved as far back as I can remember, that I didn’t know existed.  I guess I should have payed more attention to The Wizard.  It inspired me to get a Donkey Kong machine.  An inspiration I carry with me to this day.  Check this movie out.  As Ricky would say, It Will Do You No Harm.