It's not even really about Donkey Kong

If the personalities of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters weren't real, Christopher Guest would have invented them. The film is out in DVD this week (I don't know how I missed it when it hit theaters this summer), and it's absolutely my favorite documentary since Jesus Camp. OMG, I love it so fucking much. It made me believe that video game scores matter, and I don't think that anything matters, really.

After the jump, some explanation and a clip or two.

The King of Kong finds out what happens when record-holding classic arcade-game champions get dethroned, stop being polite and start getting so real that you'd swear they weren't. The champ in question is Billy Mitchell.

In addition to looking like a composite of Paul Mitchell, General Zod, Jesus, Antonio Banderas, Shaun Cassidy (the former three are according to his friends and family, as revealed in one of the bonus scenes on the packed DVD) and a big pile-up of teeth...

...Billy provides infinite amusement with his frequent bursts of self-importance. Apparently, Mitchell's status as the first man to play a perfect game of Pac-Man and the various other arcade-game records that he started holding in his teens have given Mitchell an inflated sense of self. Go figure! Among my favorite favorite FAVORITE things he says over the course of the doc are:

"If I have all this good fortune, if everything's rolling my way, if all these balls have bounced in my favor, there's some poor bastard out there who's getting the screws put to him. Huh ha ha ha!"

"Brian Kuh is there. He knows everything to do with the tape. He knows to guard the tape with his life. I explained to him, he could lose his life, but don't lose the tape."

"Not even Helen of Troy had that much attention!" (He's, of course, referring to the amount of attention one of his record-breaking scores brought from a gaggle of reverent gamers.)

"The all-around most-seasoned person in the hot sauce/chicken wing industry? Yeah. For Sure. Me."

"No matter what I say, it draws controversy. It's sorta like the abortion issue. If you're for it, you're a son of a gun. If you're against it, you're a son of a gun. I'm not God. I don't have all the answers. So I have to be careful how I share my opinions."

In the last quote, I honestly believe that the person who can get the most use out of the "I'm not God" reminder is himself. Oh yeah, he's also a hot-sauce entrepreneur because DUH, of course he is!

While I could watch a plotless profile of Billy Mitchell for days without interruption, Kong finds tension by way of Steve Wiebe, a teddy bear of a guy who beats Mitchell's world record after spending his hours of unemployment in his garage, playing Donkey Kong.

Wiebe's a musician, an athlete, a teacher, a father, a husband. He's good at being a lot of stuff on that list, but he's not great at anything. As the heart of Kong, Weibe's story transforms the film from being a video-game documentary to being a portrait of the plight of the renaissance man. I honestly don't have it in me to strive to be THE BEST at any one thing (I've resigned myself to being flawed), so I don't relate to Wiebe's story, per se, but the film is so tightly assembled that it didn't matter -- I cared about Wiebe's rightful record and felt his pain as Mitchell and his disciples (including Twin Galaxies, the "official electronic scoreboard") attempted to invalidate Wiebe's score and put him through hell to prove himself as the best. Mitchell gets extremely ugly and devious and maybe the most fascinating in the movie is that he doesn't have the self-control to prevent himself from openly plotting the take-down of Wiebe even when cameras are pointed at him. A search to witness extreme human behavior is pretty much what drives my pop-culture fascination, and because of this, Kong left me gobsmacked.

I love it enough to do a full recap, but I don't want to take away the joy of watching this from anyone. If any of this has sounded remotely interesting so far, please Netflix this shit because I couldn't possibly do justice to its greatness.

However, I do have a few more supporting points of awesomeness:

1. A folksinger performs a wistful song about Mitchell's Pac-Man annihilation that includes the line, "Blue man in the corridor singing the blues / A perfect game goes down / Billy's on the move."

2. The founder of Twin Galaxies, Walter Day is a ref...

...a folksinger (there's a lot of folk music in video games, didn't you know?)...

...and a believer in transcendental meditation...

Seriously!

3. We are introduced to Mr. Awesome (he has another site that has the URL of shockandawesome.com). One of the DVD bonus features is a weird homemade video thing he did in the late '80s, in which he reveals that he posed for Playgirl and made sure to include his phone number. If you are having trouble meeting women, he recommends you do the same. "For any women that need sperm and don’t have the money for a sperm back, consider giving me a call," he says without irony. He also name-drops "the rock star Madonna Ciccone." Seriously!

4. Another peripheral character whose name I can't remember plays Marbles with his feet, calls his game of choice (I think it's Joust II) "gay" and goes on to use the phrase, "I don't give a tinker's damn!" in the bonus features. Seriously!

5. This woman, Doris Self (R.I.P.), is gangsta:

6. Steve Wiebe's tears will melt your heart.

7. And finally, these two clips of Steve's kids and their reaction to his gaming made me laugh harder than I can remember laughing at a movie in so long.

I knew King of Kong stole my heart when the phrase, "Wipe my butt!" was subtitled on my TV screen.

Comments

[ridwah]

I'm so bummed that I passed up watching this on the big screen. Now I want "WIPE MY BUTT" to be my ringtone.

[Katy]

What would make this even better would be if Derek is, like, 8 years old. "I'll wipe your butt in a minute, buddy!" Of course he will.

[Kath]

Gross - that kid sounded old enough to wipe his own butt to me.

[bosshogg]

This is one of the clearest cinematic representations of Good vs. Evil that's ever been made. Highly recommended.

[Bobby]

omg this was toward the end of my netflix queue and i'd probably never ever get to it, but now i'm moving her right on up to watch this weekend. now i'm so excited!!

[Miss Lisa]

Thanks for reminding us of this movie! It's been on my "must-see" list for a long time. Now I'm properly motivated to watch and enjoy. BTW, my parents saw Juno yesterday and my dad says the lead character reminds him of me as a teenager. So now of course, my ego demands that I watch it. I hope she's not too obnoxious.

[brian]

I can't believe you didn't include the sound clip when Billy answers the phone by saying, "World Championship Headquarters," as well as the now famous "Donkey Kong Kill Screen coming up" by that mutant sycophant Brian Kuh.

I would recommend taking a look at Twin Galaxies' response to the film. It turns out quite a few things were misrepresented. They're not that bad, but the score that Billy got on the videotape was taken down two days later, making Steve the champion for nearly a year before he went back to try for the Guinness record. Also, Steve and Billy had already met prior to the Guinness event and had even posed for photos together. I can understand why these things were not shown as it heightens the tension between the two, but it still should be noted that things did not go down exactly as they are shown.

[Kristen]

Love the write up! I saw this in the theaters back in August or September and just loved it. It's one of my top five movies of 2007 for sure.

Oh, I want to talk more about it, but I'm afraid of spoiling people!

[duane]

I love that you said he looked like Zod. LOL!

As for Mr. Awesome... wow. I mean, just wow.

[Christin]

I loved King of Kong!

Okay, please do a full write-up? Please? Give everybody three weeks to go rent it, and then do the full write-up for the end of February. It'd be fantastic!

Also, I know you're semi-boycotting Project Runway this season, but Jillian? Is SUCH A CHRISTOPHER GUEST CHARACTER. I swear, the woman is the quintessential Christopher Guest Straight Man character.

[Liz K]

Ok, do you mean to tell me that people videotape the tv screen of them playing video games, send it in, and then it is someone's job to watch it? Holy crap. And I thought my job sucked.

[Haystacks]

these people fill me with sadness

[Washington Cube]

His daughter broke my heart with her wisdom. I see so many bloggers out there using their children to sustain their popularity online. Oh God. He's growing and not as interesting as a BABBBBBEEEE. I NEEEEED A BABBBEEEE. Here is a picture of this week's pee stick.

I am not including Winston in this hot mess. Winston j'adore.

[Dodger]

i knew you would dig this doc. Rich. ummmm there's a donkey kong kill screen comin up if your interested!

[DQ]

I saw a preview of this at the cinema a couple of weeks ago (no, it hasnt even made the cinema here in Australia yet!) and i was convinvced it had to be a spoof documentary. To think it is real, those people were actually real, is more than somewhat scary!

[bigpikchur.blogspot.com]

OMG Rich, I was just writing up my post on this movie, too! Crazy. I'll have to link people here. You saved me some work!
Jules
House of Jules

[J]

just put it on my netflix. thank you!

also, a similar but not as good(-seeming since i haven't seen the donkey kong one) is "word wars." it's "wordplay" without the upper-crustiness.

[jasmine]

Man, I missed this at the Philadelphia Film Fest and my boyfriend just bought it the other day (he made a "pit stop at Best Buy" because he's insane). I can't wait to watch it now!

[bella]

Rich: I've been waiting and waiting for you to see this! All last cycle of ANTM Chantal and her wonky hooded eyes reminded me of Billy Mitchell.

This is my favorite movie ever.

[Jackie]

WOW this looks amazing.

[Monica C.]

Never heard of it, but you make me want to watch it - and I hate Donkey Kong.

[The Over-Thinker]

I love the daughter's wisdom....Steve seems like a bit of a wanker. But a likeable wanker.

[Julia]

I.Just. Can't.

[John]

I just saw this on tv because it myseriously came on the school network, you have to do a full recap of this movie, these people seriously act like they are in a christopher guest movie

[waitress13]

I got the biggest thrill from watching Brian Kuh walking through Funspot trying to make everyone aware of the upcoming kill screen on Wiebe's game, you could tell that his head was about to explode, it was all he could do not to scream at the top of his lungs the utter REVERENCE we were all about to behold . . . this was heightened by the fact that he had never even come close to Mitchell's record and it was killing him, slowly and deliberately.

The sneaky phone calls were pure entertainment.