Chasing Ghosts (the documentary) is now on Netflix Instant Play

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

(I had hoped to bump an old thread on this film to post this news but there were like 10.)

I see that Chasing Ghosts has been added to the new release section of Netflix Instant Play.

For those of you who haven't seen the 2007 documentary from director Lincoln Ruchti that centers around the rise of classic arcade culture and personalities, here's an opportunity to check it out outside of Showtime (where it airs fairly regularly) or torrenting a copy of it.

I hear that there are one or two cuts of this film, so anybody who has seen both and has Netflix Instant Play I'd be interested to know which one this is and if it's the superior version.

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Chas...rcade/70066334

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479879/

http://chasingghoststhemovie.com/

[treismac]

Good stuff, Frankie! Thanks!

[kedawa]

I don't imagine they ever got the rights to the music used in the original cut, but I don't know what else is different about the later version(s).

[treismac]

Have any of you seen The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters? I'd be interested in seeing that after watching this. From what I've read it seems like the documentary casts Billy Mitchell as a bad guy, which would be entertaining to watch, regardless of if he fits the role or not.

[goatdan]

Have any of you seen The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters? I'd be interested in seeing that after watching this. From what I've read it seems like the documentary casts Billy Mitchell as a bad guy, which would be entertaining to watch, regardless of if he fits the role or not.

King of Kong is a very nicely done documentary, as long as you go into it not really expecting it to be true.

I just recently saw Chasing Ghosts after being interested in it for a long time, and I feel like the directors didn't really know what to make of it. I'm not sure if the story was that Walter, Billy, the ref guy and the guy in Florida (I'm not remembering anyone's names now) were all stuck in the past, and everyone else moved on, or that anyone who plays old games is stuck in the past and should move on, or ??? At times, it painted everyone really sympathetic, and then it would flip and paint them as pathetic instead. Without a core storyline to keep it all together, it was more or less an interesting peek at a small part of a hobby that I enjoy.

King of Kong has a very strong narrative wove throughout it to make it more than just another documentary, and it definitely goes places because of that narrative that make it a really interesting watch. Knowing just a bit of the background of that movie though makes it so you watch it without believing what it is selling -- the main point in that movie is that Billy Mitchell was the Donkey Kong record holder during the majority of it's filming and that he refused to play publicly, but in the middle of that filming in 2004, Billy Mitchell came to the Midwest Gaming Classic and played Donkey Kong there. I remember that he set what was called the "public record" since the other guy in the movie owned the real world record the entire time.

If I hadn't been running the MGC in 2004, I would have known none of that, but when I started watching the movie, I was like, "Oh, I wonder what they're going to say about the MGC!" and then when those dates went by and they were claiming that Billy was the record holder the whole time, I was like wait a minute, I remember posting something on the MGC site afterwards that he wasn't...

Oh, the other guy was. For like, the entire movie.

So, it's a GREAT story, but it's not exactly a truthful one.

[JSoup]

I saw Chasing Ghosts a few months ago and found it to be a downer. The point of the film seemed to be to show that Billy Mitchel is king of the douche bags and the rest of these 'gaming legends' are now old, fat and pathetic.

Woo, go gaming.

Edit: Looking back on the 'last movie watched' topic, my exact words were: "You know, I'm thinking these guys, along with the King of Kong people, don't really know how to make documentaries. King of Kong may as well have been called "Billy Mitchell is an Asshole: The Movie". Chasing Ghosts rehashed information presented in King of Kong, but went on to show how all but two of these people are sad fucks now."

[InsaneDavid]

(I had hoped to bump an old thread on this film to post this news but there were like 10.)

I see that Chasing Ghosts has been added to the new release section of Netflix Instant Play.

For those of you who haven't seen the 2007 documentary from director Lincoln Ruchti that centers around the rise of classic arcade culture and personalities, here's an opportunity to check it out outside of Showtime (where it airs fairly regularly) or torrenting a copy of it.

I hear that there are one or two cuts of this film, so anybody who has seen both and has Netflix Instant Play I'd be interested to know which one this is and if it's the superior version.

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Chas...rcade/70066334

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479879/

http://chasingghoststhemovie.com/

Version on Netflix is the Showtime "final" version. The music from the pre-release screener has all been replaced with more generic stuff. Robert Mruczek's art collection scene has been removed additionally. On the other hand the "final" cut flows better and has a few little nips and tucks here and there.

Let's also get one thing straight, while entertaining, The King of Kong is in no way shape or form a documentary. "Docudrama" is a better classification for that film. People that diss those in these films (except for Brian Kuh - he deserves it) are usually the ones living in their parent's basements who do nothing but sit on their computers all day.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Version on Netflix is the Showtime "final" version. The music from the pre-release screener has all been replaced with more generic stuff. Robert Mruczek's art collection scene has been removed additionally. On the other hand the "final" cut flows better and has a few little nips and tucks here and there.

Let's also get one thing straight, while entertaining, The King of Kong is in no way shape or form a documentary. "Docudrama" is a better classification for that film. People that diss those in these films (except for Brian Kuh - he deserves it) are usually the ones living in their parent's basements who do nothing but sit on their computers all day.

Cool. Thanks for the clarification. I had heard about the explicit art collection but had forgotten about it when I watched the Netflix version.

I enjoyed Chasing Ghosts, I didn't find it to frame anybody in any terrible light, and lets face it, it's tough for most of those guys not to come off like "characters" when you get a camera rolling in front of them.

Even in the case of Todd Rogers, who probably came off the most troubled (relatively speaking) it did give him an opportunity to go through the laundry list of situations which contributed to his lifestyle ... and he seemed to be pretty functional despite that.

King of Kong on the other hand goes out of its way to tell a story. I also enjoyed that but Chasing Ghosts was more of a retrospective "where are they now" type thing.

[InsaneDavid]

I enjoyed Chasing Ghosts, I didn't find it to frame anybody in any terrible light, and lets face it, it's tough for most of those guys not to come off like "characters" when you get a camera rolling in front of them.

Even in the case of Todd Rogers, who probably came off the most troubled (relatively speaking) it did give him an opportunity to go through the laundry list of situations which contributed to his lifestyle ... and he seemed to be pretty functional despite that.

Agreed. I've always thought Todd Rogers would have a great career in stand-up comedy. I met him very briefly at California Extreme a few years ago and he was pretty interesting.

[Shulamana]

Well, at least most of these guys seem to actually have lives, unlike a lot of the pinball addicts on "Special When Lit".

[treismac]

Hitler is no fan of Billy Mitchell either.

[digitpress Jim]

Thanks for the heads up, I look forward to watching Chasing Ghosts!

[kedawa]

The first time I saw this, I didn't know about that old guy(he played Robotron or Berzerk or something)being a pedophile.

[Collector_Gaming]

Really interesting historical documentary on what was going on in the golden years of Arcade gaming.
I found it historically pleasing

but i do agree billy Mitchell is such a tool sometimes.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The first time I saw this, I didn't know about that old guy(he played Robotron or Berzerk or something)being a pedophile.

Yikes! Now THAT would have been a downer if they brought that up during the film.

[Greg2600]

The Showtime version wasn't as good due to the musical track changes. The original cut also had the goofball in Brooklyn who spent hundreds of thousands on nude art. And yes, the pedophile is in both cuts.

[treismac]

Are there any other worthwhile video game documentaries out there?

Eh, nevermind...

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...-Documentaries

[hellraiser]

Hey thanks fir pointing this out Frankie. I watched and enjoyed it last night. I really liked king of kong and this was pretty good too.

[JSoup]

but i do agree billy Mitchell is such a tool sometimes.

That hot sauce he peddles isn't bad, though.

[goatdan]

Well, at least most of these guys seem to actually have lives, unlike a lot of the pinball addicts on "Special When Lit".

I just saw that recently too, and that was the weirdest documentary. It was like, "Hey, pinball collectors are normal people! NO! Wait! Pinball collectors are weird hoarders! Hey, no one gives a crap about pinball tournaments and no one has any idea they are going on. Hey, wow, this is actually cool to see what a pinball tournament looks like!" sprinkled in with other stupid crap throughout. That movie had even less direction than Chasing Ghosts, and it couldn't decide what to do with it's subjects -- ridicule them or celebrate them.

For the other comments, from knowing Billy a little from the '04 MGC and limited interactions with him other than that, he is smart enough to know that if he presents himself as a character, it is more interesting for other people to find out more about him. And if you're interested, you can go to his restaurant and meet him. It's all rather deliberate by him to try to make the competitive video game playing world a little bit more interesting, and potentially spread to more people. Having said that, he is actually a really great guy, who has always been willing to do stuff for the MGC even though he hasn't made it back since '04. But being a calm, unidentifiable nice guy is way less of a gimmick than being a cocky guy who makes you *want* to beat him...

...so maybe you try your hand at playing those old games to find out if you can.

It's actually a great way to go about promoting what he does, even if the majority of people who hear about him go, "What's with that ass?"