Post by VectorX on Apr 6, 2014 21:03:21 GMT -5
Before I start this off, I was wondering if anyone on here has a physical copy of Joysticks. Because what the deal is, I'm getting notes together, as I'm going to make a page for it on the BOTSS wiki, as it had several bottom shooters in the movie. So if someone had it and could scan the cover or dvd itself I'd appreciate it; I have a shot of the title card, which works (bit of a cheesy way to do it via taking a photo of the screen, but it doesn't look *too* awful), although if I could get a scan that would be better. (I could just take it from some web site, but I'm not much on swiping stuff.)
Anyway...well, might as well get that piece of junk out of the way. A friend of mine sent it to me for free (luckily...I guess?), which I always wanted to see it, due to being about video games (of course), along with it having nudity in it (also of course
). And those are about the only good things about it: it's pretty bad, stupid, not much of it was funny for this so-called comedy about a local arcade that a businessman wants to get it shut down, and sadly it took three people to write that tripe. However, as I'm going through it a second time, it doesn't seem as awful as I thought, or maybe that's due to my doing it for historical purposes, rather than as a viewer. I might change my vote from a 3 to a whopping 4 out of 10 on the IMDB once I'm done with it, but that's still pretty low! (And I recall someone on here stating a while back they couldn't even watch the whole thing due to how awful it indeedy is.)
The documentary of The King of Kong is way better though, in regards to two Donkey Kong world champs. There probably isn't much reason to get into it here, although as the Hollywood saying goes, there is no such thing as an unbiased documentary, and that's reportedly true with this one as well. I don't think lead villain Billy Mitchell is as bad as they made him out to be, as right when he shattered Steve's Kong record, as Walter Day confirmed via phone call, there was some distortion to the side of the videotape record Billy made, as Twin Galaxies wouldn't permit copies of game records. Right after Billy confirmed that that was going to be his official entry for the D. Kong record, supposedly in real life Walter shot it down right then and there since it was a copy (but that wasn't shown in the movie). And earlier when Billy told an older lady (the Q*Bert champion) as he gave her a tape it was a matter of life and death to get it to Walter, that wasn't his D. Kong high score tape, I think it was her Q*Bert record or something. Stuff like that was just edited to heighten the mood and all.
Another good documentary is Chasing Ghosts, in regards to a certain magazine spread of several gaming high score champs from the 1980s (which Mitchell was one of them). These people were re-contacted and their current lives (at time of release) were updated. However, as Kong was fun and all, this one seemed depressing to me, with those arcade days being gone, two people involved with a top Berzerk score had a spat for many years, multi world record holder Todd Rogers was living poor in a trailer, Roy Shildt was near-insane with his one Missile Command record supposedly topping others that had multiple records (oh please, grow up), etc., etc. Still good but a little dark to me.
Another one is The Ultimate History of Video Games or something, but I don't really recall it (although if I went through it again I'm sure I'd remember a bit of it as I got through it). It started from the very beginning and going over history through the first PlayStation, if I remember correctly.
There's others out there too that I've never seen, such as the Mortal Kombat ones (I was never into beat 'em ups anyway), Super Mario Brothers and Doom (both of which were supposed to be pretty bad), and possibly The Wiz. So sound off on any that you've seen.
Anyway...well, might as well get that piece of junk out of the way. A friend of mine sent it to me for free (luckily...I guess?), which I always wanted to see it, due to being about video games (of course), along with it having nudity in it (also of course
). And those are about the only good things about it: it's pretty bad, stupid, not much of it was funny for this so-called comedy about a local arcade that a businessman wants to get it shut down, and sadly it took three people to write that tripe. However, as I'm going through it a second time, it doesn't seem as awful as I thought, or maybe that's due to my doing it for historical purposes, rather than as a viewer. I might change my vote from a 3 to a whopping 4 out of 10 on the IMDB once I'm done with it, but that's still pretty low! (And I recall someone on here stating a while back they couldn't even watch the whole thing due to how awful it indeedy is.)The documentary of The King of Kong is way better though, in regards to two Donkey Kong world champs. There probably isn't much reason to get into it here, although as the Hollywood saying goes, there is no such thing as an unbiased documentary, and that's reportedly true with this one as well. I don't think lead villain Billy Mitchell is as bad as they made him out to be, as right when he shattered Steve's Kong record, as Walter Day confirmed via phone call, there was some distortion to the side of the videotape record Billy made, as Twin Galaxies wouldn't permit copies of game records. Right after Billy confirmed that that was going to be his official entry for the D. Kong record, supposedly in real life Walter shot it down right then and there since it was a copy (but that wasn't shown in the movie). And earlier when Billy told an older lady (the Q*Bert champion) as he gave her a tape it was a matter of life and death to get it to Walter, that wasn't his D. Kong high score tape, I think it was her Q*Bert record or something. Stuff like that was just edited to heighten the mood and all.
Another good documentary is Chasing Ghosts, in regards to a certain magazine spread of several gaming high score champs from the 1980s (which Mitchell was one of them). These people were re-contacted and their current lives (at time of release) were updated. However, as Kong was fun and all, this one seemed depressing to me, with those arcade days being gone, two people involved with a top Berzerk score had a spat for many years, multi world record holder Todd Rogers was living poor in a trailer, Roy Shildt was near-insane with his one Missile Command record supposedly topping others that had multiple records (oh please, grow up), etc., etc. Still good but a little dark to me.
Another one is The Ultimate History of Video Games or something, but I don't really recall it (although if I went through it again I'm sure I'd remember a bit of it as I got through it). It started from the very beginning and going over history through the first PlayStation, if I remember correctly.
There's others out there too that I've never seen, such as the Mortal Kombat ones (I was never into beat 'em ups anyway), Super Mario Brothers and Doom (both of which were supposed to be pretty bad), and possibly The Wiz. So sound off on any that you've seen.
I figured I could also do a spin-off/companion article on the fictional game room itself in the movie, which one section of the page gets into the characters, which I didn't really do much of that with the main article. Just waiting on an admin for Moviepedia to get back to me to see if they'll let me post it on BOTSS first and then I can post it on there, as one page on their site says not to copy from Wikipedia and the like, while another one says you can. Whatever?