It was inevitable that I would go catch an opening weekend screening of an underdog documentary set around the world of competitive classic arcade gaming. I speak, of course, of the recent release "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" After all, I attend the HAAG Expo every year, used to own a few classic arcade machines myself, and still fire up MAME to enjoy the feeling of simplistic gaming at it's finest. Of course, when I saw that the Alamo Drafthouse that was about a mile and a half from my apartment would have the only ticket in town, and would be hosting a Donkey Kong tournament with first prize being an actual Donkey Kong machine, I was in like Flynn.
Of course, before describing my DK exploits on the big screen, let's examine the movie. Set around this one poor schlub's multiple attempts to break the record at Donkey Kong, set 20+ years prior by the "villain" of the film, Billy Mitchell. Of course, you have to realize that this film wouldn't be nearly as interesting if one of the characters wasn't classified as a villain, and his footage framed to make him look like one, but Billy himself doesn't do much to dispel the image of him being a complete douchebag. He compares his statements on classic arcade gaming and hot sauce to statements on abortion, acts like a complete ass to our underdog hero Steve, and is 'the inside man' to Twin Galaxies, the official sanctioning body of arcade high scores.
Enter Steve Weibe, the underdog extraordinaire, who hasn't succeeded at much (except getting a rather cute wife), and who sees the decades-old Donkey Kong score as his path to greatness. Of course this story can't be cut and dry, served up with a training montage and a knockout of Clubber Lang at the end, as we have to have some backroom insider deals and shenanigans going on. In the end, what we're left with is a tale reminiscent of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", with underdog Steve being thwarted at every turn by the political machine of Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell. The climax of the film doesn't come with Steve breaking the record at a major event, but rather gaining the acceptance and respect of the classic gaming community. Of course, we couldn't leave it at that, and in what feels like a postscript to the film, Steve Weibe's record-breaking game is described just before the credits. The film ends without seeing the moment of triumph, as the record-breaking game took place after principle photography for this documentary ended.
Now flash-forward to July 2007. Steve Weibe's record falls after only 4 months, as Billy Mitchell breaks the record with a score of 1,050,200 points. Now you have to realize that Donkey Kong is a hard as hell machine, and to have any hope of reaching this type of score you have to actually reach what is called the "kill screen", where the machine runs out of memory and levels and the player just dies. But not only do you have to reach the kill screen, you have to rack up as many bonus points (be it destroyed barrels or timer bonuses) as possible. Well, not only has Billy offered up classic gaming glory, but he's also offering $10,000 to anyone who beats that score. So get hopping, nerds. Maybe one day you can be in the record books and have a wife who looks like she just fell off a display platform at the boat show like Billy...
You all are probably wondering how I did in the Donkey Kong tournament. Well, I didn't even qualify for the final round. Never my best game, it took a game of 5 minutes to qualify for the round in which you compete for the machine. Which is fine, I don't have room for an arcade machine in my apartment anyway (and no longer have a truck to transport it...and don't want to carry it up to the third floor). Perhaps if they ever have a Dig Dug contest, I will have a better shot. And if there's ever a Robotron or Track & Field contest, you know I'm sponsoring Ulysses for entry there....
You can cut the tension with a knife...
What to do with the old anti-commie classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Why, remake it with Nicole Kidman and 70% more flash and quick cut editing. But what about the metaphorical narrative? Recast it, while retaining liberal (in the classic sense) values, with a naturalist tone. I am on board with everything but the editing.
It's certainly not necessary for the casual viewer to have seen both predecessors to this version of a story about people being "replaced" by duplicate, but zombified, versions of themselves. Unlike the usual gorefests that are straight-ahead zombie movies, the sentient and purposeful actions of the pod people begs us to consider the effects of their forcibly pacified nature. Half a century ago, we were called to ponder the life of utter conformity in the mold of Communism. This time the issue is broader, as there is still a remnant part of the thinking world that sees the perfectability of man as possible - that continues to see him as a blank slate, needing only to be educated correctly (read: castrated and lobotomized) in order to be fully realized.
Am I reading too much politically and philosophically into this sci-fi adventure? Of course I am!! That's precisely what science fiction - indeed, perhaps all of fiction - is for. Forget the science here, as one usually must with stories that aren't really about the literal source of the problem, but its implications and solutions. Everything here is metaphorical, so the movie jumps right in and gets at it from the beginning. So much so that I almost felt like I walked during the middle. Granted, the movie starts with flash cut scenes that you surmise come from later in the film, but I'm actually referring to the starting point of the chronological narrative.
Let's point a few things out right here *spoilers*: This mixed chronology happens throughout the film, albeit in very tiny doses. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel periodically launches you 10-15 minutes ahead of where you are in the movie, most often where there is about to be some action, but I don't think this technique is as effective as he thinks. Frankly, it serves no purpose here but ostensibly to keep the film moving quickly, but that is totally unecessary since he has already committed to throwing you in head first with very little exposition. In fact, this movie could have used a bit more brake. He's not helped by the fact that Nicole Kidman, an enigmatic screen presence in most of her movies, is not up to the task in her 10-15 minutes of early implied biography of convincing you she's had a life to this point. Her backstory is unspoken and foggy, but, thankfully, irrelevant. The part of the plot that alludes to her previous marriage and son's relationship with his father beckons us, but never materializes. It, and therefore she, feels very insubstantial. She's actually kind of a gaping black hole at the center of the movie.
(Obligatory note to Thrillhouse: there is plenty of NK running around in very tight sweaters and skirts. To that end, you MUST go see this movie. Of course, your fellow moviegoers will be disturbed by your slack-jawed drooling during scenes of a woman in distress, but since when has that ever stopped you before?)
Another problem I had with the movie, but which slightly clears itself up later on, is the mixed dimensions of perspective. During the very first part of the movie, developments are presented cinematically with the TV screen crawl of the kind familiar to anyone who's flipped on the news networks during any sort of crisis, real or hyperbolized. Unfortunately, the proliferation of the latter kind have conditioned us to dismiss crawls as increasingly hysterical and unwarranted (do I really need a news crawl to tell me that Britney Spears has appeared yet again at a club with a bad weave and bra-less? No, Fox News, I do not.) This feature is supposed to have the effect of immersing the viewer in a first-hand sense of the experience. Yet the director chucks this angle very shortly into the movie and I found myself wondering why he went there at all. Quick exposition, I suppose?
But let's get down to brass tacks. There's a scene somewhat early on where Kidman's character debates a Russian diplomat at a party about mankind's true nature. Maybe the fact that this character is a Russian is simply an honorific nod to the original, or maybe it alludes to one of the many historical attempts at the cleansing of man's selfish primal urges to the betterment of civilization. In any event, his characterization of the life of man is similar to Hobbes' (and, as any reader of my review of The Village will recognize, my own): nasty, brutish and short. His discourse here all but flashes in neon as a "think of this throughout the movie" sign, coming as it does out of the blue and in a totally irrelevant plot line. Dr. Bennell (Kidman) defends men based on the ethical, philosophical and political advances of the last few thousands years - crucially neglecting (IMHO) to mention at what cost they were gained and from what urge they were spawned.
What I did find intriguing about the movie is that the thesis Kidman's character clings to with such conviction is actually the one that is subverted in almost all of her actions. I was a bit perturbed that, in the final scene, we hear the Russian's argument voiced over again, as I hate being beaten over the head with a movie's message. But it was for good measure that the viewer remember that all of Bennell's high-minded assumptions about humanity are tenuous.
And the plot doesn't bear out only the pessimistic aspect of the Russian's argument. That Kidman's character goes to such heroic lengths on behalf of her child is a testament to the primal maternal instinct. That isn't really the kind of thing that is taught. She is a formidable fighter precisely because there are some things that are dearly worth fighting for and almost invariably, those things don't have to be explicated. We walk around with them in our subconscious back pockets every day.
So what is worth fighting for? Well, in the background throughout the film, we hear occasional references to world events that we surmise are the result of this cosmically fortuitous pacification pervading heads of state, while in the personal milieu, we see nothing but devastation and violence. What a perfect encapsulation of the tyrannical regimes around the globe that hide their dirty oppressive secrets, torturing and imprisoning political dissidents while dazzling their ill-informed, moon-eyed admirers (Oliver Stone, Cindy Sheehan). In fact, one scene is explicitly comical in that it shows on a television in the background George Bush and Hugo Chavez physically embracing each other in the spirit of their new agreement. But this classic liberal found himself thinking, "On whose terms does that happen?" Conciliation and agreement for its own sakes is utterly meaningless. Free will stands throughout this movie as the most laudable of human qualities, and the free will of man, personally or politically, to decide his priorities necessarily includes the possibility of conflict. In short, the larger philosophical answer to Rodney Kings question is no, we can't all just get along - at least until we can all agree on the same political and philosophical premises. Nobody even knows what that looks like yet.
I'm open to different interpretations of this film, but I think it shines as a statement that man, while having risen to some degree from the ashes of his Neanderthal savagery, has his primal desire to thank for guiding him along the way. Our instincts are not what we escaped when we assembled civilization: they are what we utilized and channeled to create it, and what we continue to draw from to defend it today. Liberty and free will are the powerful pincers in our arsenal and this movie well defends the idea of keeping those intellectual weapons sharp.
Things might look a little different under the hood. Do not be alarmed.
Dummy. There's better explosives deals in Israel.
Question: what does the following quote -
"Make me grow Braniac fingers, but with more hair!"
(Captain Beefheart, "Debra Kedabra", Bongo Fury album, Zappa/Beefheart/Mothers, live at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, TX 1975)
- have to do with Britney Spears?
» Chron: Spears hurls baby bottle, threats at paparazzi
Ya know ... little by little, she's starting to win me over.