Oldskool: King of Kong

September 17th, 2007 by tim finin

King of Kong is a new documentary on the world of competitive arcade video machine players. It tells the story of the quest by Steve Wiebe, a middle school science teacher, to beat the record for the top score in Donkey Kong, one that was set over 25 years ago by Billy Mitchell. Steve, based in Seattle and Billy, out of Hollywood Florida, have a continent between them, but also between their approach to the game and life. Steve’s sweet family man persona is contrasted with Billy’s man-in-black WWF villainous image. It’s quite a story.

The movie is still in limited release, but is playing at The Charles in Baltimore and E street cinema in DC. The uniformly positive reviews caught my attention and I get a chance to see it tonight. I was not disappointed. It’s a great movie, teling an inspirational story about human values against a backdrop of retro video gaming.

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