The King of Kong (homepage, trailer) was one of my favorites from Tribeca this year; I think it might even be my favorite doc I've seen there yet. That of course rules out some heavy duty films like Favela Rising, and some fun ones - Crazy Legs Conti, or Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating.
King of Kong is about the world of competitive retro videogaming. Or at least it starts out being about that. In English, that means it's about people who spend a lot of time playing Pac Mac, Galaga, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, and of course...Donkey Kong. The first wave of arcade machines, early 1980s.
What you expect to see when someone tells you that a movie is about retro video games is Nerds, capital N. And you will not be disappointed in that. But it quickly becomes something much more broad, and genuinely fascinating; King of Kong is a film about identity, and the way others perceptions of us shape our own paths - or don't, depending on who we really are. It's a film about a rivalry, and how that affects the rivals. It's also a hugely funny film, and depicts some of the most interesting folks to grace the big screen in quite a while.
And the good folks at Picturehouse have seen fit to put it into a few theaters, starting today. Highly Recommended.
(Theaters near me)
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