Movie Details
| Title: | Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade | |
| Director: | Lincoln Ruchti | |
| Year: | 2007 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.16.07 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.16.07 | Alamo Lake Creek | This Screening is part of event: Austin Film Festival 2007 Watching this on an old prijector using half an Alamo Lake Creek screen. yay, AFF. Anyway, this is about all the old video game record-holders from the early 80s and where they are now along with Twin Galaxies guy Walter Day. For those that have seen The King of Kong, this film fits nicely as a companion, filling out a bit more on the other people in that Life Magazine photo and offering a slightly different perspective on people like Billy Mitchell and Steve Sanders. Donkey Kong is no more centered on than any of the other classic games and Steve Weibe isn't here at all, but you do get to find out fun facts like Twin Galaxies referee Robert Mruczek pinup art collection and how one of the guys ends up as a sleazy pimp. While this was a funny doc just like King of Kong, I felt the humor in this one was much more malevolent toward its subjects. True, it IS pretty easy to laugh at these guys (who were geeks then and - Surprise! - are mostly still geeks today) but where KoK managed to find heart and an identifiable basic human goal underneath the retro geekiness, this film seems content with just showcasing how funny/pitiful these characters are. Still well worth watching for anyone ever into video games or movies like Joysticks, but I dunno... King of Kong wins. |
