Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Movie Review: The King of Kong


This movie is really, really great. I highly recommend it. Even if you don't love Donkey Kong, it's one of the best documentaries you will ever see. I even forgot it was a documentary for a while and got sad because I realized that there might not be a happy Hollywood ending.

Billy Mitchell, video game world champion, is a really great villian, with some super great lines. As about 15 people gather around to watch a video tape of Billy playing a video game, he claims "Helen of Troy didn't get this much attention". Amazing. There's a picture of him above, hardily approving his own brand of hot sauce.

It also helps to have the best theater in the world a few miles from your house. I can never leave Austin because the Alamo Drafthouse is so great. Not only do they have the best popcorn, cheesesticks, hamburgers, and homemade chocolates, but they hooked an actual Donkey Kong game up to the screen and let people play while the audience cheered them on during the pre-show. Anyone who could make their game last for 5 minutes (which is actually hard to do) got to be entered for a chance to win the machine. It was great fun.

3 comments:

Erin said...

Ange,
if you read this, you and Ren HAVE to see this! i think being such an eighties girl, you would appreciate it - as would Ren since he actually was doing his living in the eighties. It is really, really good. I think it is only playing in three cities right now, but hopefully that will change.

holly said...

hot sauce, check.
is that the little guy from elf?

Wes W. said...

That is not tiny star Peter Dinklage. But it does look a lot like him. Except Billy's full size.