 "Photo: Courtesy of Reinhart Publicity")
 "Photo: Paul Wentzell")
Not since "American Movie" or "Trekkies" has a film so perfectly captured a subculture and its peculiar idiosyncrasies like "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters." The critically-acclaimed, side-splitting documentary about the battle for a Donkey Kong record has become the sleeper hit of the summer.
In the film, Steve Wiebe first catches the attention of the Twin Galaxies crew when he submits an extraordinarily high DK score on videotape to Walter Day. Shortly thereafter, two of Billy Mitchell's cronies visit his house in suburban Washington to investigate his Donkey Kong machine.
"I was approached by the film's producer shortly after the two guys came to my house," Wiebe said. "I was happy because I realized that my case with Twin Galaxies could be documented on cameras."
The authorities came to the conclusion that the board powering Wiebe's Donkey Kong machine was possibly tampered with, and Twin Galaxies rejected his new high score. And so begins the quest for one man to gain to respect of his peers, most of whom want to see him destroyed.
Sounds like a lot of melodrama and machismo over a video game score, but these are highly competitive men who have been honing their craft in seedy arcades across the nation for decades. When an outsider like Wiebe comes in and threatens their statuses, it's no longer about Mario and the Princess. It's about pride, tradition and preserving the natural order of a highly complex hierarchy.
The Kill Screen
One aspect of Wiebe's story that the film glances over is his history with the game. He looked up the score to beat on the Twin Galaxies Web site in 2001, but Wiebe had been playing Donkey Kong since the 1980s.
"In the '80s I would play Donkey Kong in the arcade," he said. "I started playing again in college in the early '90s, because we had a machine in my fraternity house."
Wiebe, an Alpha Sigma Phi at the University of Washington, conquered the game shortly thereafter, reaching the game's kill screen.
Arcade games did not have enough memory to support superhuman players like Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. When you reach the 22nd level, an error in the game's programming starts the clock with less time than is necessary to complete the stage. So Mario dies quickly and without warning, and the screen freezes.
"I got to the kill screen a couple of times in college, then I decided I didn't want to play the game anymore if I couldn't get any farther in the game," he said.
In the film, Wiebe reaches the kill screen once again in front of a number of obsessives at a gaming exhibition.
Who is the King of Kong?
When I met Wiebe at the Alamo Drafthouse, he was approached by several longtime gamers, warning him about future stunts that he should expect from Mitchell. Even though Wiebe remained unaffected by the confrontations, it is still easy to forget that he has a family at home and a real job.
"It's a good thing the movie had a summer release, so I can do press and work around my school schedule," Wiebe said. "I start back teaching in a couple of weeks. All of my students are seventh graders, so they don't know me yet."
It's his family that brings the most humanity to the film. Contrasting the ego-obsessed, largely male subculture of gamers are Wiebe's wife and two kids, always supportive even if they don't know what the fuss is all about.
Meanwhile, many of the subjects of the film are angry about how Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell are portrayed by the filmmakers. It's the same sort of compulsive paranoia that fuels the film's drama and comes as no surprise to Wiebe. The filmmakers offered Mitchell a chance to film an unedited, 10-minute rebuttal to the film for the DVD release, but he hasn't been returning their calls. In fact, he claims that he hasn't even seen the film.
Documentary films can do a lot of things. They can propose an argument ("An Inconvenient Truth") or demand systemic change ("Fahrenheit 9/11"). They can study the human condition ("Hoop Dreams") and track the lives of its subjects ("21 Up"). "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" does it all, with humor and compassion that owes a debt to its star, Steve Wiebe.
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