29 replies to this topic

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

Anyone watched it??  Any good?


Storyline

In the early 1980s, legendary Billy Mitchell set a Donkey Kong record that stood for almost 25 years. This documentary follows the assault on the record by Steve Wiebe, an earnest teacher from Washington who took up the game while unemployed. The top scores are monitored by a cadre of players and fans associated with Walter Day, an Iowan who runs Funspot, an annual tournament. Wiebe breaks Mitchell's record in public at Funspot, and Mitchell promptly mails a controversial video tape of himself setting a new record. So Wiebe travels to Florida hoping Mitchell will face him for the 2007 Guinness World Records. Will the mind-game-playing Mitchell engage; who will end up holding the record?

[Vaughan]

Saw it some time ago.  My impressions were that Billy Mitchell is a pretty nasty individual - and Twin Galaxies is a joke organization run by weird muppets.

Wiebe isn't part of the in-crowd, so stands no chance.

[ghsqb]

I have it on DVD.
It's pretty interesting, and obviously as classic gaming fans, we are right in the midst of the target audience.
Having said that, the filmmakers took would could have just been a documentary about one guys chase for a Donkey Kong world record, and turned into a pretty decent film featuring all the standard movie archetypes.
It became a "one guy against the world" type of deal, with Billy Mitchell being the villain, and some of his lackeys and a "biased" organization all stacked against the underdog.

This one should be watched in tandem with Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade

[sqoon]

Have it on DVD. It is interesting, but makes me wonder how much hollywoodizing was done. The whole thing comes across as a standard Hollywood morality play, where Weibe is made out to be the guy to root for, and Mitchell is generally presented as a low down dirty dog. Without having heard of either individual before seeing this motion picture, I can see through the reality TV mentality though. As has been said, I have little respect for Twin Galaxies after watching this, and have to wonder about the life (or lack thereof) of the referees who basically watch through days long video tapes to validate scoring records.

[opcode]

I believe they are now filming a feature film based on that. Problem is, I heard the original filmmakers took too many liberties in portraying some of the characters, like Billy. It seems they put him on a very bad light to make him the villain of the story, which I heard wasn't exactly the case.

[Vaughan]

I could well imagine Billy might have started a campaign to discredit the film.  But what excuse can Twin Galaxies have?  Man, what a group.....  

[RKGames]

I enjoyed the movie! it's worth watching, I agree with opcode's comment where they do a good job of painting billy in a very bad light, but makes you wonder if it's all that true?  I believe a surgeon named Hank broke the record and is the current king of kong last i read?! I'm sure google will confirm if it's true or not.  I also recall hearing about a pacman documentary called chasing ghosts. anyone every see that?

[HatefulGravey]

I own the movie and love the film as a whole. There are some that say they went too far to make Billy out to be the bad guy, but watching other interviews with the guy I think they got him about right.

The movie was the start of my learning to dislike Twin Galaxies. The movie gives a look at the people that run that organization that did nothing to make me think of them in a positive light.

I agree that Chasing Ghost should be seen with this movie. The combination might make you a little ashamed to be seen in the same group as some of these guys though. You know, the ones that live in their parents house, collect spiders, and have never had a girl friend. Its a bit scary to see what became of a few of these guys.

Oh, and Chasing Ghost isn't about Pac Man, its about the people that were in the Life shoot they talk about so much in KoK. It is streaming on Net Flix right now. There is no DVD that I know of.

[RKGames]

HatefulGravey, on Sat Jun 30, 2012 8:37 PM, said:

I own the movie and love the film as a whole. There are some that say they went too far to make Billy out to be the bad guy, but watching other interviews with the guy I think they got him about right.

The movie was the start of my learning to dislike Twin Galaxies. The movie gives a look at the people that run that organization that did nothing to make me think of them in a positive light.

I agree that Chasing Ghost should be seen with this movie. The combination might make you a little ashamed to be seen in the same group as some of these guys though. You know, the ones that live in their parents house, collect spiders, and have never had a girl friend. Its a bit scary to see what became of a few of these guys.

Oh, and Chasing Ghost isn't about Pac Man, its about the people that were in the Life shoot they talk about so much in KoK. It is streaming on Net Flix right now. There is no DVD that I know of.

Coool, thanks for the info on chasing ghosts, i guess i was just hoping it would be about pac-man time to sign back up to net flix streaming!

Russ

[Austin]

To an extent, I even like Chasing Ghosts more than King of Kong. It's more about the players themselves, the games they play, and where they are today. There's very little drama involved in comparison, so it feels more "real" to me. It's interesting.

[Yurkie]

Good Topic. It gives me a opprotunity to plug a video game documentary that I love and have watched about 5 times. It is about a guy attempting to beat the Missile Command Arcade High Score.

I think King of Kong falsly protrayed everthing.

High Score is the title of the documentary and it can be viewed here

http://www.hulu.com/watch/135697

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

DAMN!
Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States

Yurkie, on Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:19 PM, said:

High Score is the title of the documentary and it can be viewed here
http://www.hulu.com/watch/135697

[Asaki]

I have the DVD (got it loose for a dollar on Blockbuster's last day), haven't watched it yet.

I tried watching Chasing Ghosts, but Netflix screwed up, and every time after that that I tried to load it, it didn't want to. I'll have to try again sometime, I liked what I saw of it.

[Vaughan]

cOLeCoHiTMan, on Sun Jul 1, 2012 5:20 AM, said:

DAMN!
Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States

Yurkie, on Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:19 PM, said:

High Score is the title of the documentary and it can be viewed here
http://www.hulu.com/watch/135697

Yeah, got that too.  Shame, was looking forward to that.

[Pixelboy]

I don't mind the discussion itself, but what's this doing in the ColecoVision sub-forum?

[Curious Sofa]

I personally have to disagree that the filmmakers' supposedly falsely portrayed Billy Mitchell.  I'm not saying they didn't lean things in a certain way, but holy tamales, that guy is really a piece of work.
You can say they cast you in a poor light, but it wasn't as if they were taking tiny snippets and piecing them together.  He looks bad after watching him talk for a few minutes straight. IMO, that's a pretty good indication that the guy _is_ bad, or perhaps he's gotten better and simply _was_ bad at the time.

I don't think the way Twin Galaxies was run was actually all that bad.  Not by any means bulletproof, but I've seen worse.  They were working on improving, they made mistakes, but their intents were good.  And plus, Walter Day is _the man_.    Okay, a bit of a muppet, but I still like the guy.

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

sorry...  used the loose connection.... donkey kong

Pixelboy, on Sun Jul 1, 2012 8:55 AM, said:

I don't mind the discussion itself, but what's this doing in the ColecoVision sub-forum?

[Yurkie]

Pixelboy, on Sun Jul 1, 2012 8:55 AM, said:

I don't mind the discussion itself, but what's this doing in the ColecoVision sub-forum?

I wondered the same, but since you can pretty much hear crickets chirping from it being so dead, I thought "off topic" better than "no topic"

[rmaerz]

Read my interview with Dwayne Richard upcoming in issue 3 of Retrocade Magazine. I think some of you may be shocked at what he has to say with regard to King of Kong.

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

Is Billy Mitchell related to Joe Dirt?

[Vaughan]

Here's a video posted in 2012:



It's basically 20 minutes of people a) Pretending rumors without evidence are "Facts"; b) Showing a crazy ignorance of what makes a marketable documentary; c) Whining.

I actual feel even more sorry for these people now.  They're apparently worse now than before.

[SILKIE]

One of my Favorites!

Check out (Chasing Ghosts - Beyond the Arcade) Also.

If you can't find it anywhere? PM me.

[SILKIE]

BTW. If you haven't seen DR.KONG look for it.
It is the short DOC about Hank Chien the new DK record holder.

If you can't find it?
PM me as well.

[Greg2600]

I watched that You Tube movie.  Other than the King of Kong's omission of Tim's record, I really don't know what they are complaining about?  It's not a documentary, any layman can understand that.  Chasing Ghosts was a true doc, and a fantastic one at that.  King of Kong was a hybrid, but I don't recall the producers really marketing it as this kind of hard hitting documentary.  Again, anyone could see how ridiculous and over the top it was.

[playazclub]

Not to venture even further from Coleco topic - if you like pinball games - check out Special When Lit on Netflix.  As for KoK, I thought it was well done and yes, there may have been editing without the benefit of context, I felt several of those people involved like the Brian Kuh(sp) were total Dbags who spent much of their youth being bullied and now they found themselves in the clique-