King of Kong

Last night I watched "King of Kong," the documentary about the guys who hold the world record on all those classic arcade games. It centered around the game "Donkey Kong" in particular. In a nutshell, some guy in the midwest (or so) got really, really good at Donkey Kong, and wanted to be recognized as the world-record holder.

It was a pretty understandable request, since he blew the other score away. But the thing is, the guy with the original score turned out to be really tight with the referees (they were all from the old days), and he doesn't like the thought of someone beating his score. I think his name was Billy Mitchell; look him up if you're interested.

It's a totally fucked up story. In truth, the movie tends to play Mitchell as a villain, but taken at face value some of the stuff he does in it are truly reprehensible. I'd like to hear his side of the story, but I don't feel like looking it up.

Regardless, it was a great movie. Just under an hour and a half, which is pretty much my cutoff for any flick. It was fascinating, in the same way that the sex-doll documentary was, but nowhere near as creepy. That shit was just totally fucked.