The King of Kong (2007)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Documentary captures extraordinary laughs, drama and pathos among old-school coin-op arcade game jocks.

Stop what you're doing and go to the videostore. ... NOW!!!!

[Willets Point]

Video store...how quaint.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You're a city-dwelling elitist prick aren't you? You know that 500-square-foot former hallmark store where the shaggy haired, wire-glasses-wearing guy and his friends work? Where the films are arranged by director? Next to the coffee shop? Video Americain? Go there.

[Guest AG/DC]

So, this was real?

We saw a preview on the reel before Once. Nobody in the theater seemed certain whether it was a real documentary or fakey.

[Willets Point]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: You're a city-dwelling elitist prick aren't you?

I was going to object to this, but then I realized that all these things are true.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I swear you must live right down the street from a indie video shop.

Yes, King of Kong is for real. It's alike to many of those obsessive cultural sub-genre things where odd characters rule a world peculiar unto themselves (word freak, etc). This one has all that plus an unexpected dramatic storyline.

I just read the doc was so good they're going to do a fake movie based on it.

[nymr83]

You're a city-dwelling elitist prick aren't you? You know that 500-square-foot former hallmark store where the shaggy haired, wire-glasses-wearing guy and his friends work? Where the films are arranged by director? Next to the coffee shop? Video Americain? Go there.

its the place with shelves full of porn, don't pretend not to know it well.

[Guest AG/DC]

Holy shit. This had no business being this good.

Seriously, you make a film about the competitive world of old-school videogaming, you only hope you can get a real story to emerge, instead of just profiles of dorks. To find so many elements of great sports film --- the champ hiding behind a persona and intimidating people with it, the challenger a broken man whose wife alternately wants him to pack in the frustration and to go out there and show the world the man she knows he is, the champ strutting in with his wife's boobs leading the way --- is all gold.

I won't even say it's shot or edited that great, but the narrative he finds and develops... gold. Yeah, if this didn't actually go down this way, Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell would have scripted it.

Edited May 11, 2008 by Guest

[A Boy Named Seo]

Just saw it today (Netflix, no video store, sorry), and loved, loved, loved it.

Edgy's paragraph synopsis is perfect.

See it.

[metirish]

Added to my Netflix queue .

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

Fantastic movie. Kill screen coming up.

Oh, and your 1-10 ranking system is a little off. Robotron is the shit.