Vigo

Seriously the review is just weirdly aggressive and mean.

This is her:



Hm - I was really not expecting that.

-Al

Also she just doesn't get the basic point to the documentary, it's bizarre:

From her review:

She can't seem to get past the idea that they're playing video games. And somehow misses the obvious point that the video game represents something much larger in the player's lives. (And that this idea can be extended to all people, in a variety of pursuits.)

-Al

I knew a guy who broke 16 world records in a day for classic games. He was flown out to California to see the premier of the movie and said he hated it and it makes all the classic gamers look like morons...
























he works at a gas station

I really want to see this movie. I'm assuming it's on DVD, so I might go pick it up tonight if I can find it.

Agreed - while raw, I thought this movie did an awesome job of capturing people with this personality type.

My brother is just like this - he finds something and latches onto it learning every variation, joining communities, and living and breathing it until he finds something new.

She probably had a traumatizing older brother who also played video games all day.

I teared up.

Post was from 2007. Oh snap...

They played head-to-head years before.



I think it's pretty LOL to say "I saw what I saw - over ONE full hour out of several HUNDRED hours of footage. I don't trust those people from Twin Galaxies, who were portrayed as tools in the movie, to give me the real story." There are other sources anyway.

When you have hours upon hours of interview footage of somebody, I really don't think it's that difficult to show 5 minutes from it and make the person look almost however you want. I'm sure I would say some wacky things during a 10-hour interview, being asked question after question about various things and being encouraged to ramble on about whatever.

I watched this recently on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQZ9wXO8RVs

I watched this last night and liked it a lot, but I'm also glad I read the thread to get a better idea of the reality behind the events and also about what happened after the movie was released.

Grunching because I don't want spoilers:

I'm 10 minutes in and I can already tell this movie is going to make me depressed.

As far as I can tell, this movie should not be considered a documentary. It actually seems to be largely scripted.

Yeah I'm sure Billy Mitchell had lines and he stuck to them knowing it would destroy his reputation. I mean you could say slanted yes. But all documentaries are slanted to some degree. But scripted? No.

Billy Mitchell could have any woman he desires.

Billy Mitchell takes what he wants. No one is going to outhustle Billy Mitchell. NO ONE!

hes so awesome. usa tie always

i loved when billy was like GUESS WHAT INITIALS I ALWAYS PUT INTO THE GAME? the reporter is just like uhhhhhhhh.... so billy points to his tie. the reporter's like "uh.. T-I-E?"

hahahha

Johnny Depp can only hope he can approach Billy's level of charisma and charm if he winds up playing him in a movie.

Very long article here with an analysis on the truthfulness of the film. There are Cliff Notes linked to at the beginning:

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1310

The guy at that link made a series of documentaries (ax to grind blah blah) on the history of BBSes (old-school dial-up Bulletin Board Systems). They're available free, no copyright. I watched the first episode and it was decent. I wasn't a part of that sub-subculture, I think I signed onto one once to get computer game hints. But old-school PC culture fascinates me so I'll definitely be watching it all (plus I'm on a big docu kick after watching KoK). There are similarities with some AOL chat rooms/communities, so I do have an idea of what it was like.

The guy is now making a documentary on text adventure games which I'm looking forward to.

Isn't the time right for somebody to make a long and comprehensive video game history documentary? I'm talking Ken Burns style. Think about it...15 hour-long episodes on HBO, aired at 10 PM Sundays after whatever show they have going. Each episode focuses on a different aspect/company, etc. I can't imagine it being an unprofitable endeavor.

thanks for the link. If you don't want to read this guys backstory, search for 'So now we come to King of Kong'.

I was big in the Commodore pirated games scene. Had my own BBS, could dial long distance for free, knew some of the big crackers. Pretty exciting for a while, but there's only so much you can do with direct connections over 2 phone lines. I got bored with it for a while and my games collection got stale in a matter of months. You pretty much had to stay on top of it every day - which for me meant staying up all night in high school, until the other BBS lines were free. Studies suffered.

reading this first is the way to go

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

also tradewars ftw

Wait Walter Day is the dude's main source for this? The guy who was in Billy Mitchell's hip pocket for the whole show (except for one little crisis of conscience he seemed to have at the end). You consider that unbiased?

Nothing in those bullet points screams complete breach of the truth to me. Just typical stuff they all do to make it more entertaining. I'm sure Jason Scott's documentary would have been boring as hell. I seriously doubt the essence of Billy Mitchell was misrepresented, or that he was pulling some shenanigans with Twin Galaxies. I mean look at the guy.

Yes, the documentary that has more holes than content paints Day as being untrustworthy, but it must be true because it was on the TV!

It's pretty much common knowledge that this "documentary" is more fiction than fact. If you look up the hard data, you see the Steve was already the world champion for years.