billy mitchell must die

Erika and I watched King of Kong last night and it was disturbingly good. I had first gotten the hot tip on the movie from Doug, purveyor of all things bizarrely pop culture. He is the one who turned me on to the fact that the earth is hollow and their is an ancient alien civilization living at the earth’s core and for only $18,950 you, too, could sponsor AND crew the Russian IceBreaker YAMAL on a journey to the core of this hollow earth. With credentials like that, I usually jump all over anything Doug suggests. But, for some unknown reason, this documentary about competitive classic video gamers never made it’s way into my DVD player. Then, the librarian in the family blogged about it and I knew it was time to add it to my NetFlix queue (true, I cancelled NetFlix in favor of Blockbuster Online – but, I am embarrassed about this fact and insist on referring to my Blockbuster Online account as my “NetFlix”).

The film uncovers one of the most bizarre subcultures I have ever been witness to – magically humanizing the (usually more than) slightly “unique” participants in this classic tale of a little guy with stubby legs taking on the giant ape shaped establishment.