Monthly Movie Marathon – Part Two (From Your Local Guardian)

Monthly Movie Marathon – Part Two

10:59am Monday 18th August 2008

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Friday night it was Mat's turn to host the Monthly Movie Marathon.

First on the agenda was a documentary called “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”. An insightful presentation on the geeky underworld of video gaming and the lengths that some individuals go to, to gain high scores and to retain their world records. King of Kong tells the story of 2 individuals trying to achieve the highest score on Donkey Kong. Something that is quite mundane and unimportant to most people, but to Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, achieving that high score is like finding the holy grail.

What follows is a David and Goliath battle between Steve Wiebe (the unknown challenger) and Billy Mitchell (the established and confident champion), a battle that features many twist and turns.

What amazed me was how passionate some individuals can get when it comes to video games. I enjoy the odd video game myself, but I would never even attempt to compare them to something like “the abortion issue”.

Often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking but altogether very entertaining.

Second on the agenda was “Zombies Zombies Zombies”, which unfortunately was quite tedious. It took a good 35 minutes for any zombies to appear! Very bad for a film called “Zombies Zombies Zombies”. The pacing was slow, the acting was BAD and the special effects were not very special either.

About 45 minutes into it, we had to stop it and change to a different film.

Third and final on the agenda, was a film called “Rec”.

Rec is a Spanish horror film, that see's a film crew follow some local firemen into a building, which is then quarantined. Shot in the same style as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield”, I often felt that this approach to film making was an exhausted one, but I have to say “Rec” has changed my opinion of that.

The story itself is executed very well and features a refreshing new angle on the zombie genre. In true typical Hollywood fashion, it is no surprise to hear that an American version of this film is currently in production – judging by the trailer, it appears to be exactly the same but minus the subtitles – how original...

Anyway, if you are into films like 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead, see this flick.