February 08 Movie Round-Up Catch-Up

The King of Kong
The Killer Shrews
The Bourne Ultimatum
M'House
DVD
February 2008

So I missed posting about a few movies that I saw last month, so if I'm going to keep this up, I need to at least say something about them.
The King of Kong would play well as a double-feature with There Will be Blood. They're both about ambition and obsession and, well, maybe not greed in the case of Kong. And that's because King of Kong is about two men's obsessive desire to the the world's greatest Donkey Kong player, which in Japan is a feat that brings both honor and shame to your family at the exact same time.

I think I stole that last bit from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Kong is a fascinating look at the subculture of competitive video game players. It's weird and freakish, and while the film sets up reigning champion Billy Mitchell as a bit of a Plainviewesque monster, I get the impression that's mainly through editing, and that although he is an egomaniac, he's probably not as bad as they make him look. It's weird, by the end of the movie you hate the guy, but if you look back, they do show him doing all sorts of nice things, especially towards the beginning. And he did help that nice old lady win a video game championship.

I can confirm that teh previous MST3K reference did not come from The Killer Shrews, which Jamee and I watched about a week ago. It's one of those low budget crap fests where they had so little money, they decided to try to create tension by having all the characters stand around in one room and drink martinis.

Except for the black guy. He has to stay outside and get eaten by dogs wearing carpet, which are supposed to be giant, venomous killer shrews.

Here's how stupid this movie is. Basically, the idea is that they're on an island overrun by the aforementioned giant, venomous killer shrews. There might be a hurricane coming (It's mentioned but sure don't look like it). So everybody tries to escape, but when the survivors reach their boat (which I presume that they intend to sail through the hurricane), one of them mentions that within 24 hours all of the shrews would have cannibalized themselves and the last surviving one would have starved to death. Which means that all they had to do is climb to the roof and wait it out. Which leads me to believe that some of these characters descendants moved to Alaska to be in 30 Days of Night.

And then there's The Bourne Ultimatum. I like these movies, but for me they're ultimately single-serving films. I really enjoy them while I'm watching them, but as soon as they're over, I can't remember a thing about them. Which probably means they'll hold up if I watch them again. But I really feel no desire to own any of them or watch them again, as great as they are.

But the thing that's perverse and baffling here, is that of the three movies in this post, the only one that I actually do own, is The Killer Shrews.