ASCII by Jason Scott

Jason Scott's Weblog

Unusual Documentary Wrap-Up —

I thought I’d mention a few documentaries I’m aware of that are either out or coming out, since I know that I would appreciate the same in their shoes. Time will tell if my release date (which is the end of this year) will coincide with theirs. It nearly goes without saying that I intend to purchase all of these as they become available.

Chuck Olsen has been spending a significant amount of time on what he calls the Blogumentary, an overview of The Weblog and its characters and present-day existence. He has spent no small amount of time on this, and his approach and writing mirrors a lot of my thoughts with the BBS Documentary. He and I disagree on a number of (minor) points, but that’s why he’s doing what he’s doing and I’m not. Unlike a lot of documentaries in progress, his example footage page is extensive and informative, and lets people make decisions about the project right off.

Greg Meletic’s documentary, The Future of Pinball, has been in production for well over a couple years, and yet there is almost nothing out there linking to it. It almost feels conspiratorial. This is a documentary covering the last great attempt by one of the last big American pinball companies, Williams, to revitalize Pinball by creating a next-generation system. Called Pinball 2000, it turned pinball machines into heavily modular systems, with the arcades and venues buying the husk and then being able to get new playing fields and art for the machines as new games came out. Unfortunately, the boat was missed and Williams got out of Pinball, but Meletic’s documentary gives us some of the story. His People Page reveals that he interviewed a number of real heavyweights for this project, people whose knowledge of pinball adds up to many decades.

Without going too much into controversial waters, I’ll buy a copy of Michael Moore Hates America and put it next to my DVDs of Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine. I have a big shelf and there’s plenty of room. And yeah, I bought a copy of Outfoxed, too.

The Joystick Generation has been in production for quite some time, and I’ve been watching the progress, such as it is, by sneaking around and finding both the production company and ultimately the filmmaker’s personal website. His actual weblog reads like a man lost, missing direction, hanging out in Thailand working on his joystick generation movie AND a new one on 8-bit music….. but I hold out faith for the boy. I have to; he’s one of us.

I’ve been watching and waiting for the release of Bang the Machine for so long, I’m starting to think the whole thing is a myth. The website went away for a while but seems to be back. This overview of Street Fighter championships was made a couple years ago and it’s just a matter of waiting, I guess. And to pair it up really strangely, at the HOPE conference I spoke at in NYC, the 2600 team finally released the DVD version of Freedom Downtime. This movie about the Free Kevin movement (of which 2600 was the main supporter) is really enjoyable to watch, and has a mass of extra footage on the DVD.

I am no longer convinced that Gamers, Frag, and Oh Kay Computer will ever be released. A shame.

More of these documentaries as I find them. And let me know if there’s ones I should know about.


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