A Documentary of Epic Proportions

As I explore the scope and theme of this blog I offer to you all a review of an exceptional documentary. It is a tale of epic proportions (as stated in the title of this blog) that stems all the way back to 1981. Two competitors face off in a classic competition where the margin of error is minuscule and the notoriety enormous. I am of course talking about the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, the no holds barred tale of Billy Mitchell against Steve Wiebe.

What began as a documentary that just screamed NERD from every frame of its being, slowly evolved into much more than that. Billy Mitchell was widely regarded as one of the best of the best at arcade video games. He got a perfect game of Pac-man and held for a while the highest score in Donkey Kong. No one came close to beating him, until one man from Redmond, Washington dared to dream. Steve Wiebe began to practice and filmed a record breaking score of over one million points. Thus began one of the greatest rivalries of all time. From Billy's underhanded attempts to discredit Steve's performances to refusing to show up and play Steve face to face, the infamy of Billy Mitchell became well known. Never in a documentary have I so passionately rooted for one side and against another (that includes hating you, Michael Moore).

So even if you only have a passing interest in video games it is worth watching King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. If you don't get excited when they start playing Eye of the Tiger when Steve begins training for the Guinness event then you have no pulse.