I am becoming more of a documentary fan. Recently, I watched Seth Gordon’s King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It is about people that try to set records of old style video games that I grew up on. Once upon a time, these games only appeared in bars, restaurants and arcades as stand alone machines. This 80 minute film focuses on the record set by Billy Mitchell for the highest score in Donkey Kong that has stood for over 20 years. The challenger, Bill Wiebe, who sees himself as a loser, sets out to set a new record, first on his machine in his garage and then later at public tournament. What is most interesting about the film
1. It shows that people will compete to be the best at anything. We will do almost anything to get fame and how important fame is in our culture. We can get our respect and self esteem by being successful at anything. It can give us that bounce! that can carry us to success in other things or enable us to let go of our failures.
2. Most competitive processes there is politics and room for corruption. Billy, the current champion is the favorite of the ruling body who judges these things. In fact, one of the original taglines to the movie was to be: ” The highest form of corruption at the lowest levels.”
3. Some people like Steve see themselves as losers when they come in second place. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should try to win and that we usually don’t remember who came in second…but being second, does not mean we are branded a loser.
Watch the movie. You will enjoy it!
