It may be hard for you to believe, but a very passionate group of game players are still contesting video game records, new and old, and vying to become champion in their particular game of skill in order to be immortalized in the on-line video game record bible “Twin Galaxies”.
Go check it out.
Maybe it’s time to limber up those fingers and go for the record. Every great wrestling match is predicated on a simple concept that holds for the ages: A ‘babyface’ (good guy’) with a seemingly overwhelming challenge vs. a ‘heel’ (bad guy), who has the cards stacked, usually unfairly, in his favor. As humans, we have an innate need to create an emotional investment in our favorite character, which in turn makes the outcome of the contest be something that we care about seeing.
That tried and true formula is fully rendered in a great documentary that I regularly watch called “The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters”. Instead of wrestlers though, we’re dealing with elite-level, arcade-version Donkey Kong players facing off for the world record. As well, and unlike a wrestling match, our outcome is not predetermined and this reality adds oh-so deliciously to the drama as it unfolds.
Now, bring in the chief combatants in our story: social pushover Steve Wiebe, a stuck in second place, life-long loser that just can’t seem to get a break in life vs. chicken-wing sauce kingpin Billy Mitchell; he of the hypnotizing mullet and Charlie Sheen-type zeal.
Here we’ve got classic good guy vs. bad guy at its finest!
Watch how Wiebe finds great difficulty becoming accepted into the ranks of high level players even though his skill and scores are right up there with the best of the best. Billy Mitchell and his team of disciples manage to cheapen and disrespect Wiebe throughout, holding him back, and in turn making the viewer desperate for a little ass-kicking payback. Can Wiebe come through? The answer will surprise you. The climax is better than any made for Hollywood movie, and will keep you on the edge of your seats.
It doesn’t matter if you like video games or not, the emotional pull of this story cannot be denied, and I guarantee that you will dig it. “King of Kong” gets my five silo rating. There’s the full movie up above but the DVD has some great extras that get right to the root of some true video game nerd-dom. For the Silo, John McIntosh.
A backyard movie night with one of those Blu-rays that are courteous enough to program a drive-in style evening, featuring two movies with an intermission.
The first film, PSYCHO FROM TEXAS (1975), was new to me. It’s about a criminal drifter named Wheeler who arrives in small town Arkansas to take on a kidnap/ransom job. The victim turns out to be the very same kindly old man who treated Wheeler earlier that day to a free Coke *and* a cup of coffee.
But we immediately find out that Wheeler is as cold as they come, and he doesn’t care what the old man did for him, he is actually looking forward to killing him once the money comes through. It turns out Wheeler’s Texas psychopathy stems from having a shitty mom who would beat him in between getting fucked by random dudes who pay her in stockings.
Filmmaking-wise, this is total amateur hour, featuring clumsy transitions and mostly bad acting, even the music suddenly changes back & forth between scenes. After the first half-hour, it meanders with an endless foot chase that is alternately funny and tiresome.
There are also whiplash-inducing shifts in tone, going from dumb good ‘ol boy comedy (complete with country bumpkin music) to ultra-grimy sleaze (Linnea Quigley appears in this, and I don’t think her visual discomfort is all acting, either).
But I can’t deny that I found the overall story kinda intriguing, and the filmmakers sure as hell knew how to end a movie on a high note. I’ve been re-reading the Parker novels recently, and Wheeler reminded me of one of those despicable sadists that Parker occasionally worked with (and who usually ended up fucking over Parker and his partners).
Plus, I’m a sucker for regional drive-in fare; I always felt these movies were better representations of their time & place than bigger budget fare. Probably because they couldn’t afford sets and back-lots. There’s a scene where a sheriff is explaining how a young boy found a very important piece of evidence; the boy is Black, and the sheriff begins to say “You know that young n-” and the print suddenly jump-cuts a couple seconds ahead to “…boy from so-and-so found…”, sparing us that very real Arkansas-in-the-1970s moment. I had to laugh.
Also, Wheeler drives a pretty sweet Dodge Dart Swinger 340, which is something I thought you would appreciate, if you were me.
There was a 13-minute intermission with classic snack bar ads and trailers for movies like COP KILLERS and THE GRIM REAPER (U.S. cut of ANTHROPOPHAGOUS), before moving on to the second feature, THE GATES OF HELL (1980) which is the U.S. cut of Fulci’s CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. There are much better-looking versions available under the original title, but I appreciated the grind house charm of this scratched up print (I’m pretty sure this was the same print I’ve seen at various all-night marathons).
https://youtu.be/06c1xXYlu5Y
I’ve rambled about this one before; it’s not my favorite Fulci, but it’s good times all the same and it was fun to watch it outside at night, wondering if the creepy sounds I heard behind me were possums, gatos, or some evil zombie priest who wants to bring about the end of the world. (And yet, despite the bleeding eyeballs and puked-up entrails and living dead walking around, that priest *still* refuses to acknowledge his colleagues molesting the altar boys behind closed doors.) For the Silo, E.F. Contentment.
Note this review contains adult language and suggested themes.
AIR (2023): In 1984, shoe company Nike was barely keeping its head above water (they were third behind Converse and Adidas), when their talent scout Sonny Vaccaro got a wild hair up his ass about this up-and-coming b-ball phenom named Michael Jordan. He believed that he would be the key to Nike surviving *and* beating the competition. Hold on to your fuckin’ hats when I spoil this by telling you, yes, Jordan signed with Nike and the resulting shoe line known as “Air Jordan” went on to gross billions for everyone involved.
As to why I would be interested in watching some rich mofos get richer over some fuckin’ shoes that are most famous to me as being the kind of shoes people would shoot each other over, well, I wasn’t, not really anyway.
Sure, it’s directed by Ben Affleck, who I think is actually a good director (I still haven’t seen LIVE BY NIGHT, though), and it stars Matt Damon and a bunch of other people I didn’t know were in this. But still, why would I care to watch a movie about how a shoe that people would pay money hand-over-fist while neglecting their rent or child support payments — while goofing on the cheaper footwear worn by those who own a house and take care of their kids — came to be?
I wouldn’t.
But I had a very nice steak dinner that I washed down with an entire bottle of Cabernet (I buy my sneakers at Big 5), and I certainly couldn’t drive in my condition. So I took a Lyft to a nearby movie theater where I sure as fuck wasn’t going to watch the fuckin’ plumber cartoon, so AIR it was.
It’s really good!
I think Tom Cruise really did something to Hollywood with his Xenu magic; from TOP GUN: MAVERICK onwards, I’ve been surprised by the increased frequency of old-school popcorn good times that have been hitting the big screen, like DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES. This is the latest; a JERRY MAGUIRE for those who ain’t got time for the lovey-dovey bullshit or that weirdo kid with the head-weight obsession.
You will have to get any potential chips off your shoulder about the worshipping of athletes, as well as let go of any issues with the capitalist system of these great United States, if you intend to find any enjoyment from this. Because I don’t know what fantasy version of this film you are hoping for that would shit on both those things as some kind of cynical treatise, but this ain’t it.
Instead you have an audience-pleaser starring Matt Damon as Vaccaro; I’m looking at him and thinking “Hey, I might be OK because Jason Bourne and I are both in the same shape” and then everybody else in the movie proceeds to call him fat. He’s obsessed with signing Jordan, and tries to convince Nike co-founder Phil Knight (Affleck) to pony up all the endorsement budget on him only, and it’s all very entertaining and even funny at times, for what amounts to people talking in offices of various sizes.
I was surprised by some of the actors who popped up in this, but you won’t be, because either you saw the trailer or because you’re about to read the following: Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Jay Mohr, Chris Tucker (who seems to have a good thing going for him by only showing up every ten years or so to play a supporting role in critically acclaimed films), and Chris Messina, who by virtue of having co-starred with The Adorable Amy Adams *twice*, makes him A-OK with me.
The movie worships Michael Jordan, which makes sense considering the context.
Here’s a man who is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, who took a struggling shoe company with him to the stratosphere, grossing billions upon billions. Shit, why *wouldn’t* this film suck him off and portray him as some kind of religious entity, even going as far as to not show his face, as if he were the Prophet Muhammad?
I’m fine with all that. What I’m not fine with is that at no point did I get to hear him say “Fuck them kids”, and that’s how a movie *doesn’t* get five stars on Letterboxd. For the Silo, E.F. Contentment.
Have you seen this movie? Are you planning on watching it? Leave us your comments below.
I used to watch more foreign films. In my idealistic twenties I guess. But lately I’ve gotten lazy, and when I sit down for a movie the last thing I want to do is read subtitles. I do make some exceptions however. This is fortunate, for there are some truly exceptional films out there not made in English. And really, after five or ten minutes I completely forget I’m reading anyway.
A few years ago, I caught two incredible French films on Netflix Canada that I still highly recommend. The first is 2010’s Les Emotifs Anonymes (Romantics Anonymous), a genuinely delightful romantic comedy that follows the formula to some extent, but also transcends it with the originality of its script and the utterly captivating performances of its leads.
The formula I’m referring to is this: two attractive people meet, there is instant chemistry, and then numerous obstacles appear to twist and turn the plot and thwart their progress in realizing their love. The difference here is that the male and female protagonists look like real people, and the principle obstacles at play are their near crippling anxiety disorders.
How refreshing it is to watch a female lead (the luminous Isabelle Carre) who is truly “pretty as a picture,” but with imperfect hair and very-little-to-no makeup, make sparks and then run away from a co-star (Benoit Poelvoorde), who looks like the quintessential everyman, and, simultaneously, like a quirky and charming French gentleman.
This is a laugh out loud comedy that may have you, by the end, falling in love with one or both of these marvelous, messed up characters and doing some deep, warm smiling in the process, something I value most highly.
The second film, Coco Avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel), goes back to 2009 and stars French beauty Audrey Tautou (Amelie, Dirty Pretty Things) as the now iconic Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel.
In this outstanding bio-pic we watch Chanel transform from a smart but bitter young woman in late 19th century France who must overcome obstacles of her own—in this case gender and poverty, two major impediments to success and independence at that time—to realize her dream of something greater. We watch that dream, vague at first, take greater definition and clarity until Chanel is revealed as the creative and business genius whose name would become a household word and whose designs would literally revolutionize women’s fashion in the west.
Gone are the restrictive corsets http://www.marquise.de/en/themes/korsett/korsett.shtml and meringue-y feathers and frills; Chanel was inspired to make clothes for women that were simple, elegant, modern and, perhaps most revolutionary of all, comfortable to wear. Tautou herself, as Chanel, becomes more compelling and beautiful as her character gradually realizes her destiny. And I would be remiss not to mention another dynamite performance by Benoit Poelvoorde, whose demeanor is so different in this film that I didn’t even recognize him as the same actor. Of course he has a mustache here as well—devious disguise.
This story solidifies Chanel’s stature as the woman who changed the direction of western fashion and created couture. How many artists have such a profound effect on their culture, let alone in their own lifetimes? Chanel continued to work until her death in 1971. Both films can be found by searching their English names on Netflix or, if you’re lucky, at your local video store. For the Silo, Alan Gibson.
One of Will Ferrell's most original roles, from 2001's ZoolanderFebruary can be hard, but March might be even harder. March is like exam week in the University of Winter: you’ve already had a really long haul and now you just have to steel yourself and push through to the end. There is drudgery in any life I guess, but I believe in taking breaks, and a funny movie can be like a 90 minute tropical holiday.
Reclining recently, cozy on my couch, I found myself contemplating two actors who seem to have their fingers on the comic zeitgeist. So the next time you’re at your local video store, or cruising Netflix for a digital vacation, keep an eye open for their films and beat the blahs while you warm your cockles.
The first is Michael Cera (pr. like Sarah), a quirky kid from Brampton with incredible comic timing who makes intelligence cool and softspoken wit accessible to a new generation. He got his first acting gig in a Tim Horton’s commercial (Wikipedia disclaimer), but I became aware of him watching Arrested Development, one of those truly brilliant television series that comes along now and then, creates a cult following and wins every possible award, but never generates the popular groundswell necessary for longevity on network TV. An Arrested Development movie is slated for 2012 release however, in case you’re interested…
You may have also seen Cera in Jason Reitman’s Juno (yes, that is the son of comedy legend Ivan Reitman), which generated big buzz in 2007, winning the Oscar for best screenplay and receiving a total of four nominations.
Diablo Cody’s script begins with a barrage of hipster language that put me off at first, but the story quickly evolves into a touching and comic tale about a very interesting teenage girl coming to terms with an unplanned pregnancy and the people it brings into her life. And Cera is perfect as Bleeker, a smart, quiet kid who might be relegated to a painful highschool nerdom if he wasn’t so sure of who he was.
Michael Cera’s become a big star in the last five years (he’s just 22), headlining a host of oddball films tailor made for his unique persona, which makes me think of Bob Newhart as a hip, skinny teenager. Titles like Superbad and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a contemporary comic-book of a film in which the young hero must defeat his lady-love’s seven evil ex-boyfriends, have been very successful vehicles. But my absolute favourite is 2009’s Youth in Revolt.
With a remarkable screenplay based on C.D. Payne’s novel Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, this film is up there in the intelligent-teen-movie stratosphere formerly inhabited solely by director John Hughes in the 1980’s (Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). But Youth in Revolt is distinctly more literary, with an artful style and darker edge for the new millennium.
Cera plays a precocious young man who must create a dashing, sociopathic alter ego to accomplish things his normal, mild-mannered self could never do—kind of like Fightclub except, in this case, ego and id work in tandem, side by side, in full awareness of one another.
There are so many reasons to love this movie, but for me Cera’s performance is at the top of the list. One of the only criticisms I’ve heard of this young star is that his characters are so similar, film to film, like Woody Allen without all the mania. But in Youth in Revolt, we get to see Cera really act. His portrayal of Nicholas’s Twisp’s alter ego, Francios Dillinger, is one of the most enjoyable performances I’ve seen. Ever. The transformation is subtle but total, and utterly believable. And the white pants…but I won’t say too much.
Will Ferrell is the other guy working right now who really does it for me. To take a momentary detour, Bill Murray has a cameo role in 2009’s Zombieland that sets up the way I think about Ferrell. When Emma Stone’s character recognizes Murray as himself she cries, “This guy has a direct line to my funnybone!” Will Ferrell has become that actor for me.
I remember an appearance he made on ABC’s The View a few years back. He was just sitting there in a jacket, sporting that little fluffy perm of his, and one of the hosts asked him how he’d been doing. “Fine,” he said. “Just fine.” Then there was a beat, and everyone started to laugh. Someone even commented on it. “You don’t even have to do anything and I laugh.”
Now, why is that? What is that? Was it the way he pitched his voice, the terseness of his response, the barely perceptible glimmer in his eye, or the relative stillness with which he held his body? The answer, I think, is yes: it was all of those things. But there was something else as well, an almost palpable comic energy that he generates, an X-factor that is greater than the sum of all those parts. Sometimes I just look at him and I’m done.
Ferrell became famous on Saturday Night Live and has gone on to become one of the most recognizable actors, comic or otherwise, of our time. He has reached a rare echelon. His name is pretty much a household word.
His magnum opuses, if you will forgive the term, are probably Anchorman, Talledega Nights, and Semi-Pro—three films that could be considered a kind of trilogy, if you think about it. They all feature many of the same (A-list) actors, and in each one Ferrell plays a similar character: a charismatic doofus in love with himself but largely ignorant about anything of genuine substance. They are all funny films, sometimes gut-bustingly funny. But I recently saw him opposite Mark Walberg in The Other Guys, another star-studded comedy in which the two leads play cops with unbalanced personalities. And this one is a little different.
It’s another big-budget comedy; action-comedy really. And we get to see Ferrell lying on the ground at one point, screaming non-sequiturs at the top of his voice in a style that has become one of his trademarks, going right back to SNL and his appearance in the first Austin Powers movie.
But what’s really fun about The Other Guys is the way it showcases that incredible energy Will Ferrell brings to deadpan comedy. Nobody does it quite like he does.
Ferrell has tried his hand at more serious roles, opposite the likes Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman in Stranger Than Fiction, although I never quite believed him in this film, kind of like I never believed Bill Murray in The Razor’s Edge. And while Murray, in his maturity, went on to give us his wonderful interpretation of an aging actor in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, one of the best films of 2003, he did it by using his naturally funny energy; toning it down, sublimating it, until he finally broke through into something, someone, simply sweet, and truly human. It was a subtle piece of work. Whether or not Will Ferrell, the man who gave us Mugatu, can do something like this…doesn’t really matter. Certainly he was born to be funny, and there’s nothing wrong with that. AG
