Earlier this week, I watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters¹

What I expected to be a light-hearted documentary about competitive video gamers took an unexpected turn into the dark, bizarre, lengths small people go to keep their name in the #1 spot, their clique tight, and outsiders out.

Since you’ve lived through your teen years, you know this phenomenon isn’t unique to video games. Kurt Schmidt talked about in the professional BMX Freestyle world in my podcast with him. There’s a decent chance it exists right now in one of your social circles.

The King of Kong’s editing showed Billy Mitchell avoiding his own restaurant, avoiding his challenger, avoiding directly reclaiming the title he holds so dearly. This sucks the life out of everyone is potentially a death sentence for Twin Galaxies. By contrast it showed Steve Weibe with a loving, supportive family – comfortable in the knowledge that this challenge is just one of the many he’ll be overcoming.

Happy ending.

Bonus: How Small You Are by Wonderlick

1. Netflix Instant Play via Boxee.

Much like the story Zodiac was retelling, it was long, drawn-out, and came to a less than satisfying end.

Though the 2 decade long serial killer story was condensed down to 157 minutes, much of it could have been cut (the pre-re-married Jake Gyllenhaal character with his son, all of the murder scenes, the scene at the theater owner’s house, Robert Downey Jr. on the house boat, etc) to put the focus on catching the murderer. There was plenty of interesting things going on at the papers, police stations, FBI, etc – all of it diffused by the character development stories.

There are 3 reasons to watch cyberpunk animated film: the story, the animation, the gear. Christian Volckman’s Rennaissance is all about the gear.

Rennaissance starts very slowly. The first 45 minutes are all backstory, with just enough cool tech gear to keep you wondering when the story will actually get interesting. It does, at the hour marker. And the Frank Miller-esque stark black and white animation – often too dark to make out what’s going on – makes it a struggle to reach that point.

In fact, just watch the last 45 minutes, you’ll end the movie with some ethical issues to discuss. Not just happy that it’s over and wondering why it took so long.

This week our Netflix queue hasn’t been very good to us. While Prison Break started off engaging and interesting, it falls apart quickly halfway through Season 1 Disc 2. Where the less MacGyver-inspired supporting stories unfold.

Netflix’s Suggested Rating: 3-stars

Last night, Idiocracy. After watching more than 15 minutes of the film, I’m not surprised at the lack of marketing and both postponed and limited theatrical release. It’s simply not a very good use of 84 minutes. In-appropriate or offensive corporate jokes are beside that point. When it finally ended, I rushed to Netflix.com all primed to rate the movie poorly.

Netflix: “We think you’ll rate it 3-stars”.

Garrick: “Oh. Yeah. That’s actually pretty accurate. Thanks”.

Tonight, I finally caught Startup.com II, er, 10mph. This film is gorgeous. Fantastic photography, great shots of our country, fairly interesting story, full-on branded trailers and t-shirts, horrible narration with equal parts arrogance and naivete. Thankfully, 20 minutes in, the narrator moved to the backseat of the Jeep and let us see Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas.

When it clicks.

Our country isn’t about the mind-numbing cubicle job. It’s about the sneaking through a barbed-wire fence while squatting on your battery-powered scooter.

Around Ohio, the whole endeavor starts to go south, I start wondering if Alon has given the Segway’s replacement batteries names and if so, does he have favorites (no spoilers).

Netflix’s Suggested Rating: 3.5-stars

5-star rating systems have bugged me for a while now. So many independent attributes to rank, all rolled into a single number. I knew what 1-star meant (don’t rent it), I knew what 5-stars meant (you were in it). This week, Netflix taught me what 3-stars means (it not good, but you’ll sit through it).

We watched The Aristocrats last night. While I was more entertained than I expected…I was just as uncomfortable as I expected.

Four Highlights:

• Andy Richter telling the joke to his santa-hat wearing infant. If there’s anyone that completely doesn’t get it…it’s someone that totally lacks language comprehension.
• Cartman telling the joke on South Park. Making that not funny would be like The Onion telling it and not being funny…wait, The Onion bit wasn’t. Cartman not getting it himself – beautiful.
• The joke being flipped around, with the tame bit in the middle and the offensive bit at the end. I think the shock/surprise value works better in that order, while still containing the joke’s history and intent.
• Sarah Silverman taking the joke too personally. “I don’t list The Aristocrats on my resumé anymore….” Ha.

Made me think the joke would make a great podcast…and I smell a satire of Web 2.0 startups in there as well.

We watched Born Rich tonight. Props to Jamie Johnson for putting it together…but that, as someone not born rich is all I can give him. Or, maybe it’s that I’m not 21 any more…or maybe it’s because I’ve always known (or had some inclination) of what I’ve wanted to do with my life…I have a difficult time relating to people that don’t know why they wake up in the morning. Rich or not.

All but one of the heirs seemed to use their wealth as an excuse for not making more of themselves. Hell, then what excuse do the millions of not-rich people have? Perhaps Johnson assumed this ambivalence about life’s work was unique to his small, tight, circle of super-rich friends. If so, he should get out more.

As a film, it was an obvious debut effort. Like Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash – some good ideas were left unexplored, others overplayed, the overall feel is immature and simplistic, simply because the author is still figuring out the medium. (I stand corrected, Snow Crash was Stephenson’s third novel, ouch).

In any case….Dan Klass basically covered the same topic in Bitterest Pill #77 – concluding with something to the effect of; the only difference between rich and non-rich people is money. I enjoyed my time with Dan much more.