The Screengrab : the king of kong

“King of Kong” Update: Steve Wiebe Retakes the Throne…Sort Of

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

When last we checked in with the rivals for Donkey Kong supremacy from the rollicking documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, mulleted, purple-shirted hot sauce magnate Billy Mitchell had reclaimed top score honors from rival nice guy Steve Wiebe. But it ain’t over yet!

Wiebe is planning to take another shot at the high school at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo, which takes place in Los Angeles on June 2-4. But according to Twin Galaxies, the Official Electronic Scoreboard, Wiebe has already taken another step toward Donkey Kong supremacy. “On April 24, Twin Galaxies announced that Steve Wiebe has officially taken the Donkey Kong Junior World Record. The new World Record mark was accomplished on March 14 and verified by Twin Galaxies Chief Referee David Nelson. Steve's new World Record mark of 1,139,800 points takes the Donkey Kong Junior crown from fellow Washington state native Ike Hall, who was crowned the DKJ World Champ in August 2008 with a score of 1,033,000, taking the crown that Billy Mitchell had held on the game since 1985.”

Walter Day, who you’ll remember as the gentle, bearded fellow in the referee shirt who oversees all the videogame records, calls Wiebe’s achievement “a profound performance… Even though the World Record was able to creep up by only 86,000 points in those 25 years, Steve has managed the unimaginable and has lifted it another 106,000 points by scoring 1,139,500 points.”

You can watch Wiebe’s attempt at retaking the top Donkey Kong score on the G4 Network on June 2nd. I mean, if you have nothing better to do.

2008 in Review: Scott Von Doviak's Top 10 Unwatchables of the Year

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

As your resident movie janitor, I could hardly wrap up the year without a rundown of 2008's greatest crimes against cinema. As always, I see them so you don't have to.

10. STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS

I have little to add to my earlier rant. The sad thing is, there are still a few George Lucas zombies willing to defend this star dreck.

9. STEP UP 2 THE STREETS

A movie that raises many questions, not least of which is: “There was a Step Up 1?” A teenage street dancer (Briana Evigan, the next Demi Moore, if we needed one) is forced to enroll in an upscale school for the performing arts, leaving her old crew to accuse her of NOT KEEPING IT REELZ. This can only be settled with a dance-off! A thoroughly unconvincing dance-off that looks like an outtake from Night of the Living Dead: The Musical.

8. MAX PAYNE

Here we have a ludicrous new film genre (coincidentally featuring Ludacris): the videogame noir. Based on a first-person shooter game that was influenced by Hong Kong action movies and the "bullet time" effects of The Matrix, Max Payne is at least three steps removed from any semblance of originality. It boasts a stylish surface, but there's nothing new beneath it.

7. THE RUINS

Reviewed here at the time of its release. At least, it was in theaters when I started writing the review; I think it had been pulled by the time I posted it. A gripping, intense read becomes a dead teenager movie with laughable CG effects.

6.TYLER PERRY'S THE FAMILY THAT PREYS

Within the first five minutes of The Family That Preys, four different characters utter some variation on the line, "I need a drink." By the end of this latest Tyler Perry opus, I could definitely relate. Family is a mean-spirited endurance test populated by some of the most unpleasant movie characters in recent history. Perry prides himself on leaving out the sex and violence and making movies the whole family can enjoy. It's hard to imagine families enjoying this one, though; they're more likely to be traumatized when they aren't bored out of their minds.

5. FIRST SUNDAY

So bad that I’ve already covered it here as part of the Unwatchable series. Nuff said.

4. FOUR CHRISTMASES

Here's a movie that spends an hour showing how unpleasant family can be and how grotesque small children are before doing a complete U-turn into sickening sentimentality and hypocritical moralizing. Director Seth Gordon, who made last year's terrific documentary The King of Kong, turns out to be just another sitcom hack. Witherspoon is so chirpy and strident, it's not clear that anyone told her this was supposed to be a comedy. To say that Vaughn is phoning it in these days would be an insult to telecommuters everywhere. Four Christmases with this bunch is four too many.

3. PRIDE AND GLORY

There's nothing wrong with a gritty cop drama, so long as it has something to offer besides grit. Pride and Glory provides murky images, shaky camerawork, a muddy soundtrack, blood by the buckets and profanity by the bushel. It's easy to see why director Gavin O'Connor buried his movie under all this sludge; scrape it away and there's nothing but the most generic "bad cop" movie possible underneath.

2. TRAITOR

Don Cheadle is the world's most boring Muslim - but at least he's not evil like all the other ones! There's very little suspense in this dull, talky thriller, but there is a laughable twist ending for the ages.

1. THE LOVE GURU

Everything you’ve heard is true. This isn’t a case of mass hypnosis or the critical brotherhood sticking together – it really is that bad. Mike Myers described this comedy about a self-help guru’s attempts to help a hockey player win a championship as “a delivery system for some wonderful ideas.” Actually, it’s a delivery system for dick jokes, each one dumber than the last.

Morning Deal Report: Unleash the War Monkeys

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

I’ve been handling the Morning Deal Report duties here for a few months now, and aside from all the comic book adaptations and unnecessary sequels, there’s one thing that’s been bugging me: Where are the monkey movies? Fortunately, Dark Horse Films has heard the call and answered with War Monkeys. “The horror comedy follows two janitors who, during a Christmas holiday, get trapped in an underground research facility after accidentally unleashing military-trained Rhesus monkeys,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Now that’s my idea of a Christmas movie.

Speaking of which, I was saddened to learn that King of Kong director Seth Gordon is the fiend behind Four Christmases, the ubiquitous trailer for which I may never be able to scrub from my brain. Perhaps he can make it up to me with Suicide Squad, “which follows a desperate con man, out on the latest of many paroles, as he recruits a crew of amateur criminals to rip off the Kentucky Derby,” THR reports.

The World’s Most Annoying Man is on the way. According to Variety, Disney will produce the comedy about “a man who is forced to travel cross-country with his annoying brother in order to get to his own wedding.”

Related:
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: The Unseen Cut
King of Kong: The Saga Continues

2008: First Quarter Wrap-Up

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It’s not that I didn’t see this coming.

By my reckoning, 2007 was a pretty solid year for movies, so I suspected 2008 would bring a cyclical downturn in cinematic quality (accompanied by a distinctly fishy, low-tide smell wafting from our nation’s multiplexes). And, yes, I know we’re in the Horse Latitudes of the movie-going year, before the summer blockbusters and the fall Oscar contenders...but, seriously, has anyone seen anything really good yet?

By this time last year, I’d already seen four of the movies that wound up on my 2007 Top Ten list: the fine, Oscar-neglected Zodiac, a sneak preview of Knocked Up at the South-By-Southwest Film Festival, along with two outstanding documentaries, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and the lesser-known but equally awesome roller derby-umentary Hell On Wheels.

Even the first quarter cheese I saw last year was pretty entertaining: the silly sexploitation of Black Snake Moan, the gay-panic-at-the-disco iconography of 300, and the A.D.D. chaos of Smoking Aces, a fake Guy Richie movie I enjoyed at least as much Snatch.

So far, at the quarter-mile mark of 2008, the only truly Top 10-caliber flick I've seen is Full Battle Rattle, a SXSW Special Jury award-winning documentary (reviewed here by Mr. Von Doviak on March 17) about a simulated Iraqi province in California’s Mojave desert, populated by Iraqi-American citizens and U.S. Army “insurgents” in a full-immersion training scenario where soldiers practice both their combat and diplomacy skills before heading off to the real war in Iraq.

As for the rest of the year-to-date...feh. Cloverfield had moments, but no characters. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Penelope and 21 were all pleasantly unobjectionable but instantly forgettable, and I Am Legend’s deserted Manhattan streets were compelling until the director filled them with boring video game ghoulies.

But, hey, maybe things are looking up for 2008...only three more shopping days ‘til Zombie Strippers!

Clique Picks “Hick” Flick

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Normally I wouldn’t consider this the most newsworthy item in the world, but for some reason I just couldn’t resist that headline. Anyway, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “Producers Steven Siebert and Christian Taylor have optioned the best-selling novel Hick by first-time author Andrea Portes.” It’s a coming-of-age story that “was recently named among the best adult books for high school students by the School Library Journal.” The most curious part of this story is the note that the producers “hope to mold the project with a lead character in the vein of Addie Loggins of Paper Moon and Iris Steensma in Taxi Driver. " Whoa, whoa, time out here. That’s a mold? Addie Loggins, as we recall, was a scrappy little Depression-era con gal. Iris Steensma was a Times Square hooker who blew Harvey Keitel. Might want to narrow down that casting call, folks.

While we’re here, let’s take a look at some other recent script sales of note:

-- Columbia has picked up Battle: Los Angeles, “a huge event movie that can be done at a modest scale,” according to producer Neal Moritz. It focuses on one Marine platoon in the midst of an alien invasion.

-- Fanboys screenwriter and personal friend of the Screengrab Ernie Cline, who has certainly suffered enough, got a bit of good news. He’s sold his script Thundercade to Lake Shore Entertainment. It’s another idea right in Cline’s pop culture wheelhouse, concerning “a video game junkie facing a midlife crisis who learns that a young punk had broken a record he set as a teen. He and two lifelong friends embark on a quest to reclaim his place in video game history and win the world's ultimate gaming championship, Thundercade.” Lest you suspect Cline of ripping of The King of Kong, be advised that Thundercade actually predates the documentary (and with any luck will torpedo the ill-advised fictional remake).

-- And finally one that really hits us where we live. MGM picked up Bobism, “in which a shy college kid learns that his blog will be the basis for a utopian society in 1,000 years. He also finds out that aliens from the future want to kill him and prevent that utopia from happening.” You laugh, but this actually happened to us.

SXSW Review: Second Skin

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:00:00 GMT

In a way, Second Skin is the dark flipside of last year’s SXSW hit, The King of Kong. Both documentaries are about people who spend way too many hours playing videogames, but this one is a much more downbeat, dispiriting and at times tedious account. Say what you will about the denizens of the Funspot arcade in Kong, but at least none of them came to believe they were Mario or Pac-Man, and a few of them actually saw daylight on occasion.

Second Skin concerns a much newer, more sophisticated form of computer gaming, awkwardly abbreviated as MMORPG: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. These are vast virtual environments populated by people from all over the world, in the form of elves, knights and various strange beasties. The most popular such games are World of Warcraft (or “WoW,” as its residents term it), Everquest and Second Life. All players start out with nothing and must gradually build up their skills, arsenal of weapons, magic spells or whatever else it takes to improve their standing in the virtual world. Most players belong to guilds, some of which consist of hundreds of members who communicate with each other through the game, sometimes meet in person and even fall in love.

That’s the happy side of Second Skin: a lot of different kinds of people play these games and aren’t swallowed alive by them. Kevin and Heather meet through the game and strike up a romance, but the strains of a long-distance relationship and incompatible lifestyles that jeopardize their love story have little to do with battling dragons or raiding caverns. The “Fort Wayne boys” hole up in a house together and play for days on end, until real-life relationships and obligations start to take precedent for some (but not all).

Then there’s Dan, a gamer who becomes so addicted he loses his job and everything he owns; his only goal is to keep the electricity on so that the game never ends. He considers suicide and eventually he ends up in a rehab center for gaming addicts, but a bad back and worse attitude make his slow climb back to reality a painful one.

Second Skin grows repetitive and numbing after a while; it could easily lose thirty minutes or so from its running time. There’s a lot of pontificating about what it says about our world that so many people would prefer to live in a virtual one. The real problem with the film probably stems from the fact that these people spend so much time in their game personas; for the most part, their actual personalities aren’t that compelling. Second Skin isn’t without interest, but in the end it’s a movie that makes you want to go outside, see the sun and get some fresh air.

"King of Kong": The Saga Continues

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Forget about that possible dramatized remake of The King Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. (The latest highly improbable rumors have Tom Cruise and Greg Kinnear in the lead roles.) Since the documentary’s release last summer, the story of Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell and the battle for Donkey Kong supremacy has taken a few more twists and turns, and before long there might be enough material for a sequel. For a Few Quarters More, anyone?

Last week’s release of the Kong DVD provides an update on the high-scoring action. (If you have yet to see the movie, stop reading now. Otherwise, continue after the jump.) As you’ll recall from the closing minutes of the documentary, underdog Wiebe recaptured the Kong crown from longtime champ and hot sauce magnate Mitchell in August 2006, just in time for the filmmakers to make their submission deadlines for Sundance and Slamdance (where the film premiered a year ago). Wiebe’s new high score of 1,049,100 was verified by Twin Galaxies, overseen by official gaming scorekeeper Walter Day.

As it turns out, Wiebe’s reign was brief. On June 13th of last year, Billy Mitchell reclaimed his crown with a score of 1,050,200. On the official King of Kong website, Wiebe announces his intentions to go back into training and take another shot at the title. This new information is but one of the cornucopia of extras on the DVD, which also features extended interviews with the movie’s gallery of game geeks, two different commentary tracks and archival footage from the golden age of Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Burger Time. (Burger Time had a golden age? Who knew?)

Of course, the main obstacle to a sequel is that seemingly everyone who appeared in the doc has since emerged with his own version of the onscreen events, and many of them aren’t too happy with the filmmakers’ vision. Mitchell himself, who claims to have never seen the movie, shared his thoughts with MTV, as did referee Robert Mruczek. Twin Galaxies honcho Walter Day has also issued his official statement in six parts. With all of these contradictory accounts and conspiracy theories, that fictionalized remake may end up being directed by Oliver Stone.

One guy who seems to be fine with his portrayal in the film is Missile Command champion and Twin Galaxies nemesis Roy Shildt, aka Mr. Awesome. You may recall his coinage of the term “chumpatized,” or his impassioned declaration that “no punk bastard ever got a gnarly piece of poontang by being sensitive and considerate.” The DVD includes an extended clip of Mr. Awesome shilling his comic book autobiography, featuring his tips for picking up women; as a gift to you, our loyal readers, you can watch it right here:

DVD Digest for January 29, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week finds more titles from the late-summer/early-fall dumping ground coming to DVD, but a handful of gems as well.

DVD of the Week: In a slow week for classics on DVD, the most noteworthy new title is Seth Gordon's documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (New Line). I wasn't allowed to have a video game system growing up, and because of this I often had to sit patiently on my friends' couches while they would finish up the games they were in the process of playing on their Super Nintendos or Sega Genesises (Genesi?) when I showed up. As such, I wasn't exactly eager to see two hours of competitive gaming, but The King of Kong quickly won me over. At heart, it's an unlikely sports documentary, with all of the drama and unforgettable characters that genre's best films contain. As the movie morphs into a de facto showdown by the reigning champ, the showboating gaming legend Billy Mitchell, and the good-guy challenger Steve Wiebe, Kong becomes uncommonly involving. Little wonder that Hollywood wants to turn the story into a feature film, but why wait for the fictional interpretation when you can see the genuine article?

It's a big week for flms that premiered at Sundance 2007, with other notable new releases this week including: Spellbound director Jeffrey Blitz's debate-themed indie Rocket Science (HBO); John August's The Nines (Sony), starring Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis; and the terrorism-themed horror film Right at Your Door (Lionsgate). In addition, this week sees the release of the Kevin Kline sex-trafficking thriller Trade (Lionsgate), the J.Lo-produced Feel the Noise (Sony), and the direct-to-DVD offerings Canvas (Universal) and Charm School (Sony). And if you're a glutton for punishment, check out Cuba Gooding Jr. in Daddy Day Camp (Sony, also on Blu-Ray), a sequel so dire that Eddie Murphy opted out of it.

TV shows coming to DVD this week: Glenn Close in Season 1 of Damages (Sony, also Blu-Ray), the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), and Emergency! Season 4 (Universal). The only major classic films coming to DVD are El Cid, getting released in two separate editions by the Weinsteins, and the obligatory 15th Anniversary cash-grab edition of Groundhog Day, coming out just in time for... well, you know.

Finally, there's the strange case of Warner's The Invasion. The Nicole Kidman-starring SF flop was originally scheduled to be released three weeks ago, but after Warner decided to commit solely to Blu-Ray, the film's release was delayed until this week. So if those of you who read my column of January 8 (thanks, by the way) wondered why The Invasion wasn't in stock at your local video store, now you know.

Top 10 of 2007: Scott Von Doviak

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:30:00 GMT

People say I’m a weenie for thinking this, but I feel these year-end top ten lists should be handled like the Hall of Fame: there should be a five-year waiting period in order to avoid any embarrassing blunders. Believe me, I have a record of top tens dating back to 1999 preserved forever on the Internet, and never fail to experience twinges of regret, shivers of shame and head-scratching moments of pure bewilderment when I look back at them. I’d feel much better right now if I were compiling my favorites of 2002, but rules are rules, so here are 10 movies I hope I won’t feel terrible about praising when 2012 rolls around:

10. Zodiac

For about three-quarters of its running time, David Fincher’s serial killer procedural is about as engrossing, stylish and smartly assembled as mainstream cinema gets, expertly evoking the 1970s (Mark Ruffalo, in particular, transforms himself into a broody ’70s actor in the De Niro/Pacino mode) and humanizing a story that could have been run-of-the-mill exploitation. It’s penalized a few notches here for running out of gas in the final reels: those scenes between the obsessed investigator and his long-suffering wife were already old and tired in the ’70s.

9. Juno

The first five minutes of Juno are so overloaded with quirkiness, it’s as if director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are desperate enough to make an immediate impression that they’ll settle for making a bad one. That the movie is able to not only recover but go on to become an affecting (and very funny) story about real people making difficult choices is a tribute to their talent, and especially that of Ellen Page in a star-making performance as the titular pregnant teen.

8. Knocked Up

Why settle for one unplanned pregnancy comedy when 2007 was fertile enough to produce twins? You could quibble about gender politics, but then you’d miss out on some of the year’s biggest laughs courtesy of the ever-expanding Apatow Comedy Empire. (Honorable mention: Superbad. Not so much: Walk Hard.)

7. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Speaking of movies that recover from the opening five minutes, here’s one that treats you to the sight of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s heaving, flabby buttocks obscuring some delightful Marisa Tomei nudity (don’t worry, though – there’s plenty of that later). In what is not so much a comeback as a rejuvenation, octogenarian Sidney Lumet has crafted a twisty tale of familial betrayal enlived by a Hoffman performance so vivid, you can smell the desperation.

6. Breach

Billy Ray makes his own special brand of what one friend of the Screengrab refers to as “guys in suits” movies. Like Ray’s debut Shattered Glass, Breach is a low-key yet subtly gripping thriller about a man whose life of lies crumbles within the institution that has defined him. In this case, that man is contradictory CIA agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper, never better), a deeply religious, sexually kinky traitor to his country. No 007-style glamour and action here; the suspense emerges from the mundane but meticulously detailed life of a Cold War spy trying to stay one step ahead of his colleagues.

5. Deep Water

Sure, having too much money and free time sounds like fun, but that way of life is not without its pitfalls. This fascinating, disquieting documentary details a 1968 solo sailboat race around the world, and the amateur sailor, Donald Crowhurst, who pinned his family’s future on the whim of winning it. Pieced together from newsreels, Crowhurst’s original 16mm film and contemporary interviews, what begins as a bracing tale of men against the sea becomes a full-blown descent into madness.

4. Killer of Sheep

I am assured by publicists that Charles Burnett’s 1977 thesis film counts as a 2007 release, so there’s no reason not to include it here. This stark slice of inner city life finds drama in the smallest moments; even the routine purchase of a used motor becomes an exercise in heartbreaking futility. Never stooping to heavy-handed message-making, Sheep packs an emotional wallop in the end.

3. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Don’t wait for the inevitable scripted remake of this simple tale of two men vying for the world’s record high score in Donkey Kong. It won’t begin to capture the wit, drama and humanity of Seth Gordon’s outrageously entertaining documentary. Pitting an ’80s relic coasting on past glories against a regular guy with a history of failures in life, overseen by an indelible gallery of game-geeks and marked with unexpected developments and reversals of fate, it’s the most purely joyful movie experience of the year.

2. No Country for Old Men

For much of the decade Joel and Ethan Coen looked like they were heading down the long road of diminishing returns, but they came all the way back with this transcendent thriller set on the Texas border. The most faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel imaginable, it still couldn’t be anything other than a Coen Brothers movie. The brilliant suspense sequences and Javier Bardem’s chilling turn as a malevolent killer are the obvious attractions, but it’s the final lyrical moments that linger when the lights come up.

1. I’m Not There

Less perfect in every way than No Country, this fractured Bob Dylan biopic is nonetheless my pick for movie of the year. Scrambling the singer-songwriter’s legend and bouncing it off a series of funhouse mirrors, director Todd Haynes delights in the ever-more distorted reflections that result. Six different actors embody various aspects of the Bard, none more memorably than Cate Blanchett, who virtually channels Dylan’s hipster-dandy incarnation. It’s a dazzling mind-fuck for hardcore Dylan fans and perhaps a complete trainwreck for anyone else, but as a biography of an artistic sensibility – warts and all – it can’t be topped.

Austin Goes for "Blood"

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:30:00 GMT

Did you know there’s an Austin Film Critics Association? I live in Austin and this is news to me. Nonetheless, the AFCA has weighed in on the year in movies and handed its major awards to a film that won’t reach area screens until 2008. According to Variety, There Will Be Blood takes the honors for Best Film, Director (Paul Thomas Anderson), Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Cinematography (Robert Elswit) and Original Score (Johnny Greenwood). Ellen Page and Allison Janney collect acting kudos for their work in Juno, while Javier Bardem continues his rampage through the awards season with yet another Best Supporting Actor nod. It’s good to see The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters get some richly deserved recognition in the Documentary category, but couldn’t the Austin Film Award bestowed upon Grindhouse be put to better use? Sure, that carpetbagger Tarantino made effective use of local landmarks like Guero’s Taco Bar and the Texas Chili Parlor, but Robert Rodriguez has been coasting on his favorite son status for too long. Consider this a belated vote for the homegrown Hell on Wheels, Bob Ray’s surprisingly compelling documentary on the contentious Austin roller derby scene. It’s wheeling its way through the film festival circuit, so keep your eyes peeled.

Greg Kinnear Would Jump Many Barrels

Peter Smith — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:00:00 GMT

The King of Kong is awesome. The story of down-on-his-luck everyman Steve Wiebe and his descent into the seamy underbelly of videogaming competition is hilarious, heartwarming and horrific at points thanks to the heretofore-unknown levels of nerd-dom that brood in America's heartland. It isn’t too surprising that that there are plans to make a fictionalized version of the story but, as Will Ferrell apparently told director Seth Gordon, no adaptation could possibly be as funny as the reality. But if it's going to happen, we here at the Screengrab can hardly think of a better candidate to play silver-screen Wiebe than Greg Kinnear, which is cool considering he's down to play the part according to MTV. Kinnear has the perfect sad-faced chops to play a suburban dad who always wanted more from life. Now all they need to do is to clone Brion James and get him a sweet wig to play Billy Mitchell. — John Constantine