Putting Quarters Where My Mouth Is: Chasing Ghosts (Updated) —
Ah yes, are you in luck, or will be shortly. The shadow film to King of Kong I have referenced, Chasing Ghosts, is breaking into the public eye, soon. I am not 100% impressed with how this world premiere is being handled, but the point is that you will have a chance to objectively see it, and that’s the important thing.
This entry contains my review of this film. The version you will see is the one I saw.
Here’s Peter Hirschberg’s announcement of the times it will be appearing on the movie channel Showtime. The schedule on showtime is here and will of course disappear after the middle of December.
As you can see, Showtime has done them a fantastic service by playing an awesome documentary about video games at times ranging from 8:45 to 11:45 in the morning with one extra-special showing at 3am. Thanks, cable company!
My bitcheroonies aside, this will be your chance to see if I’m lying or wrong when I say that this movie is superior in so many ways to King of Kong, especially the part where it’s not made up. Allow me to “be a Doctorow” and say that it is inevitable that people will capture this movie and torrent it, and at that point I would hope someone on the production side of Chasing Ghosts would then take the amazing buzz this movie would generate from people downloading and seeing it to making a wonderful DVD package full of all the extras and footage they got their hands on, because there is a metric ton of it, and it’d be the best $20-$30 a videogame fan could spend.
But seriously…. 3am? 8:45am? What the fuck, Showtime.
As to the whole King of Kong vs. Chasing Ghosts thing, I have said so much on this subject I am sick of it, so I’ll just let this weblog entry say all the same things.
Update:
I discovered that there was a PDF file with a more complete schedule across showtime’s channels. So, here’s the FULL times it’s showing:
December 3: 8:30am, Showtime Next December 4: 7:30am, Showtime Showcase December 6: 3:00am, Showtime Too December 7: 12pm, Showtime Next December 9: 12pm, Showtime Showcase December 11: 2:30am, Showtime December 11: 1:30pm, Showtime Next December 13: 9:30am, Showtime Too December 14: 12am, Showtime Too December 15: 8:30pm, Showtime Too December 16: 7:15am, Showtime Next December 16: 3:30pm, Showtime Next December 20: 3:40pm, Showtime Next December 22: 12:00pm, Showtime Next December 26: 11am, Showtime Too December 28. 10:15am, Showtime Next December 29: 12:30pm, Showtime Showcase
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Thanks for the info. Hopefully there will be a way for those of us without Showtime to see it someday.
This is one of those moments where I feel pushed into pirating something. I don’t have Showtime and it’s not available to analog cable subscribers. I used to have it; then one day it was replaced with a screen that said, “time to upgrade to digital cable!” At first it was just the movie channels; now, I can’t get MTV2 (boo hoo), either. I suspect this will continue until all I have are religious and home shopping channels.
My previous plan of “buy it when it comes out on DVD” has just changed to “download it when it’s available and later buy it when it comes out on DVD.”
I’ll be watching it on BT Time, I’m sure, but I’m looking forward to it. And yeah, selling DVDs as ‘easy and portable storage for stuff that’s taking up hard drive space’ is the way to go.
Billy Mitchell seems like just as much of an asshole in this movie as in King of Kong.
I disagree, because I think King of Kong wrongly accuses him of being a cheat and a liar, and this movie does no such thing. I agree his character is abrasive in the same way in both films, but Chasing Ghosts provides a more rounded portrayal of him.
That is a fair point. I didn’t get the sense that KoK made him out to be a cheat although I understand how others did. I thought the thing with the tape was just to show the supposed different treatment of him vs Steve (tape with some playback problems accepted quickly vs tapes not accepted until the machine could be opened up and checked out). But I have talked to a lot of people who thought the implication was that Billy somehow faked the tape and I can see where that is coming from (and I agree it may be what the filmmakers wanted viewers to think) but it wasn’t my impression.
Anyways I liked this film better although it is arguably less “entertaining.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when Mr Awesome says he is fighting to keep the Missile Command score, “Because it makes me special” and I thought he was going to tear up. They got some really neat moments on tape.
You know what’s annoying me right now? Running through this blog like a crazy woman with her hair on fire I’ve discovered so many things I want to get my grubby little paws on.
Can I find Chasing Ghosts on DVD? Nope, Amazon.co.uk (gotta love Region codes) offers me… King of Kong instead. Erm.. no. Can I find a torrent of it ? Nope. Damn thing’s up and vanished. Can’t seem to spot it on Amazon.co.uk.com link up *sigh*