Monday, April 21, 2008

Week 43: The King of Kong: A fistful of Quarters


Pictured: Donkey Kong Legend and
First-Class A-Hole, Billy Mitchell

Warning: if you have a strong aversion to the desperate smell of adult virgins, the Motley Queue highly encourages you to avoid this film. However, if you love the idea of startlingly outrageous nerds waging the nerdiest of nerd wars as they battle for the title of World Champion Donkey Kong player, then pull up a chair my friend; you are in for a treat.
In my history of watching documentaries, I have to put Spellbound, Supersize Me and now King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters in my top three. This is one of the most mesmerizing movies I’ve ever watched. Motley Husband and I were glued to the screen as nice-guy nerd, Steve Weibe, humbly goes about winning the highest recorded score of Donkey Kong ever while his poor children stand over his shoulder and beg him to make eye contact with them.

Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed rock star of the championship gaming circuit and former Donkey Kong champ, Billy Mitchell, has been holding onto a videotape of himself allegedly recording an even higher score.

What follows next is a bitter battle over the championship title in which legions of nerds loyal to Billy Mitchell set out to discredit and humiliate Steve Weibe. I’m not kidding you; it even involves sending secret agents to Steve Weibe’s garage to take apart his Donkey Kong machine to see if he tampered with the motherboard.

What else makes this movie so great? Two words: Billy Mitchell. If you don’t remember what 1982 was like, don’t worry. Billy Mitchell is still living there, right down to his mega-mullet and high-waist jeans. Someone should give this douche a talk show if for no other reason than to give him more of an audience for talking about how great Billy Mitchell is.

I won’t spoil the results of the final battle between Weibe and Mitchell, but let’s just say that the air was thick with the smell of Aqua Net, comic book ink and loneliness. I can’t stress this enough: rent King of Kong right away. You won’t be disappointed.

On a related note, this blogger would like to mention that she once held the high score on the Centipede machine in the lobby of Studio 35 Cinema and Drafthouse here in Columbus. Does that make me an uber-nerd? Possibly. But nonetheless, I’d like it to be mentioned in my obituary just the same. I mean, c’mon, high score!

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