New in US theaters this week: "The King of Kong," a geekumentary about two Donkey Kong masters trying to set a world record, and the little-understood world in which competitive arcade game trufans try to avoid "being chumpatized."

Here's IMDB, Here's a review at Cinematical, The NYT's Brad Stone raves about it here, here's a piece in the NY Sun, Here's Rotten Tomatoes (goddamn, 97%!).

I was in the ABC News bureau in Los Angeles this afternoon, and producer Ed Cunningham was there speaking to ABC newsers (taping an interview or something, I guess). I overheard him explain that Universal made them append the title, so it reads "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," because studio lawyers believed the first half alone to be too close to "King Kong." Heh.

Haven't seen the film, but I'm googling showtimes right now. Looks awesome.

Reader comment: Justin Garrison says,

I went and saw the movie last weekend at the Nuart Theater in Santa Monica. By far the best documentary I have ever seen, let alone a geekumentary. There was a Q&A with Seth Gordon (director) and Ed Cunningham (producer) after the movie and they talked about the dramatization of the documentary (I forget what studio picked up the rights). They both talked about some actors they liked for the two main roles and mentioned Johnny Depp or Ed Norton playing Billy and Greg Kinnear or Nathan Fillion for Steve. Either way, go see the documentary! It was far more interesting than most of the movies that have been in theaters recently, except Hot Fuzz of course.

It's funny that Universal should go after a movie based on the video game, given that Universal's attempt to restrict the arcade game Donkey Kong failed, and established the character and the plot as being in the public domain. In case you're not familiar with this case, it's a good one! Link to Wikipedia entry on MCA Universal vs. Nintendo.

I wanted to point out that the Comic-Con episode (#32) of the podcast Geekscape featured an interview with Steve Wiebe, the protagonist in King of Kong. Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:34:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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