Movies Ben Hasn't Seen: The King of Kong

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Movies Ben Hasn't Seen: The King of Kong

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I'd like to go on record that every time Ben has demanded that I see a Youtube video, television show, movie or ... well, he doesn't read, but... any piece of media, I've done so.

On the other hand, Ben watched "Chasing Amy" when I told him it was my favorite movie.

So there's a bit of a gap. He hasn't seen "The King of Kong." And what's difficult about King of Kong is that it:

1) Is a masterful documentary
2) So jam-packed with distortions, omissions and lies that it renders the entire thing a waste of time

But he hasn't seen it and won't, so it means that an entire 20% of the readership of this site won't have any idea what I am talking about. Namely Ben. I mean Ben.

---

The 1UP Arcade is a new arcade/bar that found an almost perfect location for their place. It's only "almost" perfect because it's perfect for them but not me. Construction downtown has torn up the routes I'd use to get to it. Look goddammit, the "perfect location" -- that's a trust between two parties.

But it's near the baseball stadium, so it's rather perfect.

They brought Steve Weibe in (from the aforementioned "The King of Kong") so he could run something called Donkey Kong class, and attempt a world record.

Image

.... and the thread is ruined.

Sorry everyone. It's ruined.

I used Twidroyd over the weekend to post to Twitter. I took a picture of the set up at 1Up. And now, having gone to the web page for the file I uploaded (it defaulted to something called fucking "Lockerz"), I can't get the URL of the fucking photograph.

What a bunch of FUCKING ASSHOLES.

They had to specifically code it so I couldn't right click and get the image URL and post it here. What a bunch of fucking coward motherfucks. I'm giving them content via the photograph, they are making money off it, and then they desperately and greasily turn off -- one sec, I'll just look at the HTML.

Ah, they removed the .jpg part, so phpBB2 won't find it anyway.

Base fucking cocksucking assholes.

Fuck this thread.
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

GRRRRRRRRR
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Post by Flack »

So then you downloaded that file, added ".jpg" to the end of it, hosted it somewhere else and saved the day.

No wait, that was me.

Image
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Post by pinback »

POWNED
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I really was the least valuable person in this thread.
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Post by Flack »

Well that's not true. Not everyone has posted in here yet. Oh, wait, you mean of all the people who posted here? Right, then yes.
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I liked my "grrr" though. That was meant to make fun of me, not just be like more anger or anything.
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Post by Flack »

My wife enjoyed King of Kong. It's not really a "video game" movie, per se, and she's not really a video game person. The last video game she played was the Michael Jackson Experience on the Wii, and the last one before that was Gauntlet on the NES, back when it was new. The King of Kong is less about Donkey Kong and more about just rooting for the underdog (Wiebe) who even his wife describes in the film as a bit of a loser.

Right or wrong, I think we are at a point now where all "reality" television is staged. Some of them are just "sort of" staged while many of them are out-and-out fake. I can't remember who said "never let the truth get in the way of a good story," so I just kind of viewed in from that angle. I know that some of the drama was artificially injected by the filmmakers, but it's still a good story, so, meh. Consider it the Wikipedia of Donkey Kong movies. Just because I don't trust it 100% doesn't mean I don't read it -- same goes for KoK.

Heh, KoK.
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It's in 9 parts on Youtube and I was re-watching bits of it last night. God, Brian Kuh really did come off horribly. He came off so horribly I felt badly for him.
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Post by pinback »

We just watched it. Everyone comes off pretty horribly. What was false?
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Did you watch it off Youtube?
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

pinback wrote:We just watched it. Everyone comes off pretty horribly. What was false?
Mitchell didn't have the record at the start of the movie, Tim Szcerby of Auburn, NY did.

Weibe had the record when the documentary showed him trying to set the record at Funspot.

Mitchell didn't drive off and passive-aggressively avoid everyone in the restaurant, he came in and paid for everyone's meal.

Mitchell and Weibe had played Kong together a year before the documentary started.

The two guys that "broke in" to Weibe's house were let in there by his grandmother. Weibe showed up later and they all played some DK together.

Brian Kuh had a small handgun he used to coerce people with to see the kill screen.
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Post by Flack »

This article links to a couple of other articles (including an interview with Billy) that touches on some of the things Robb mentioned.

http://matthewsteele.wordpress.com/2008 ... ccuracies/

But yeah -- according to all involved (except the filmmakers), the film was edited and cut in such a way to make Steve look like the good guy and Billy to look like the bad guy. The thing is, Billy is a big boy and can stand up for himself, but it's how they went out of their way to make the Twin Galaxies people look shady that bothered a lot of people.
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Post by pinback »

The Jason Scott article which your link talks about and links to is a 404.
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Post by pinback »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
pinback wrote:We just watched it. Everyone comes off pretty horribly. What was false?
Mitchell didn't have the record at the start of the movie, Tim Szcerby of Auburn, NY did.

Weibe had the record when the documentary showed him trying to set the record at Funspot.

Mitchell didn't drive off and passive-aggressively avoid everyone in the restaurant, he came in and paid for everyone's meal.

Mitchell and Weibe had played Kong together a year before the documentary started.
SOURCES??
The two guys that "broke in" to Weibe's house were let in there by his grandmother.
The documentary said it was his mother, not his grandmother.

I did not watch it on Youtube.
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Post by Flack »

pinback wrote:The Jason Scott article which your link talks about and links to is a 404.
Try these:

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1303

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1310
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Maybe they meant this article: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1303

Anyway, yes, KoK is utterly fascinating, but almost completely made-up and the assholes who made it character-assassinated everyone in it, except for their buddy Steve and arguably Walter Day.

Forgetting that it's made-up, did you like it, Pinner? Think it sucked? What was your TAKE on it?
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Post by pinback »

So far, everyone screaming "inaccurate" either just screams "inaccurate" without any proof, or links to 404 pages, or links to AV Club articles in which Billy Mitchell screams "inaccurate" but in such a bizarre, self-aggrandizing way that he makes it even HARDER to believe it's inaccurate.

Does anyone actually have any, you know, facts? Or is it just fun to scream "inaccurate!!"

I thought it was okay. Like I said, everyone in it comes across poorly, either for being a dickhole, being a freaky eccentric, or just being kind of a pathetic sadsack (or a bitchy, intolerant, spiteful wife, Jesus what a bitch). I would have liked it to be more about video games, and less about people calling Billy Mitchell over and over giving him news reports about who's playing what game and who's going into what restaurant. But I guess they tried to drum up as much drama as possible... it's just... yeah, there just wasn't that much drama there, so instead of spending time trying to make it dramatic, probably would have been better to get deeper into the subject.

Anyway, I ended up disliking everyone in it, and will never play old video games ever again.

But it was okay.
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