Although I have multiple levels of geekdom — comic books, movies, Firefly, the works of L. Frank Baum — one thing I’ve never really been big on is video games. Sure, I’ve played lots of them over the years, but never with the fervor or intensity as some of my friends, and there have been very few games that could hold my attention for hours, let alone days, or even years. But a great movie is a great movie, and even if you’re not a fanatic of classic video games like Donkey Kong, the documentary film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is one of the most compelling, engrossing, and all-around entertaining movies I have seen in a very long time.

At its heart, this documentary follows the “sports movie” formula. In 1982, Billy Mitchell set the world record high score on the video game Donkey Kong, and for over 20 years no one else even came close. But in 2005, middle school science teacher Steve Wiebe became a serious contender to take away the top spot. The movie is about Steve’s effort to take the crown and Billy’s machinations to keep it for himself.

There is absolutely no pretense of objectivity here. The film clearly paints Billy as the villain and Steve as the hero, and real life is far more complicated than that. But the movie is no less amazing for that knowledge. Steve is portrayed as a good man who’s had a life of disappointments, and is chasing one last shot at true glory. Billy comes off as a man who has had that glory for a long time and is willing to do some dishonorable things to cling to it. The other, secondarycharacters are also somewhat suspect — there are several gamers in the film who come across as little more than sycophants trying to bask in Billy’s reflected glory or desperately claim some for themselves. Steve has his own cheerleading section, but they’re portrayed more as concerned family and friends than people who are just in it for the spotlight.

While much of this can be called into question thanks to the miracle of creative editing, there are some things editing alone cannot do: Billy holding on to a crucial tape until the perfect time to steal someone else’s thunder or his refusal to compete in a live venue despite his frequent protestations that such a venue is the only legitimate one are not things that a film editor can conjure up without Billy giving him the fuel. Moreso, Billy’s smug attitude and Steve’s decent-but-downtrodden nature seem very genuine. Again, some of this could be editing, but if it is, the editor was masterful in making it all seem real.

My advice is to not watch this as a documentary, not wonder how much is genuine and how much is creative presentation. Just watch it as a movie, and you’ll find an incredible character drama that has you pulling for the hero, furious as the villain, and completely mesmerized by a few guys who wanted nothing more than to play some old-school video games.

In Other News…

We’ve got a lot of new readers here at the Realms, and I just wanted to take a moment to greet them. A few days ago, I gave you guys a little write-up of Dave Kellett’s sublime webcomic, Sheldon. To my surprise, Mr. Kellett not only came across my blog post, but returned the favor with a link to this site from his website, giving me a pretty astronomical increase in page views over the past few days. I couldn’t be more surprised, or more grateful. I also made the official announcement of this website in this week’s Everything But Imaginary column, so some of those readers are here for the first time as well.

To everyone who is visiting Evertime Realms for the first time, welcome! I hope you stick around. There’s plenty of cool stuff here to kill a little internet time — movie reviews, book reviews, comic book reviews, columns, original fiction, podcasts… and starting Monday, my new serialized novel, tentatively entitled Summer Love. I posted the prologue to this new book this past Monday, June 9, so just scroll back a few posts and it’s there for the reading. So look around. Click. Comment. And we hope you enjoy your stay at the Realms.