I’d Really Like to See…A ‘King of Kong’ Feature Film

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on March 26, 2009.


Documentaries often have a stigma for being dry and boring. Although reality programs pass themselves off as a form of the documentary medium, they’re overly stylized, mostly scripted and forged to bring more entertainment value to the piece. Unfortunately, this often prevents people from giving docs a chance to open them up to worlds, often quirky, unbeknownst to them.

My personal favorite documentary is one that completely shatters these stereotypes of documentaries. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters peers into the world of competitive Donkey Kong. While the concept seems silly and does not seem like a compelling subject for a documentary - there is, after all, a whole world ripe with socially, politically, emotionally relevant topics waiting to be discovered - the characters and their interactions turn out to be absolutely riveting.

I’d Really Like to See…’Criminal’ the Movie

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on February 26, 2009.

Most folks find comic books synonymous with superheroes. Considering how popular cinematic adaptations of Batman and Iron Man were this past year, it’s hard to separate the two. Many seem to forget that there was a time where the superhero genre was dormant in comics while other genres, such as horror comics from EC and adventuring comics (like those paid homage to in Watchmen’s comic-in-a-comic “Tales from the Black Freighter”), were more common to find in a long box than they are today. 

One of the best comics being released today is far from a superhero book. Writer Ed Brubaker and illustrator Sean Phillips bring pulp crime to four-color glory in their book “Criminal.” The “Criminal” books have a structure similar to beloved crime comic series “Sin City.” One thing that sets “Criminal” apart from “Sin City” (aside from the fact that Sean Phillips can draw really well, unlike Frank Miller) is that they waste no time setting up the mythology of their universe. 

Random bits

Last time I posted something, I was having big dreams of writing all kinds of entries on here about various items. Obviously, that never happened, so find a combination of all these things after the jump.

I have been delinquent

It's true, I've been neglecting the blog here. It may have something to do with buying Mario Kart Wii. For the sake of having everything in one place, I've written two blogs for Zoom In since my last post, and I'll probably write something else on here soon about how much I love The Wrestler and something making fun of the Friday the 13th remake.

But in the meantime, here is a bit about how the moviegoing experience and how we watch films in general has changed over the decades, and here I write about how Kristen Wiig should be in a romantic comedy (and how that genre's crappy in general). Seriously - imagine Virginia Horsen treking the globe in a hot air balloon trying to find her dream lover. It's romantic, right?

I’d Really Like to See…’The Dark Knight’ Take the Gold

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

In recent years, it seems that there’s a certain ‘type’ of movie that racks up the nominations in the Oscar race and some others that get shunned altogether. You could pick out most of these overlooked categories individually: aside from whatever is “this year’s Juno/Little Miss Sunshine,” comedies are ignored; fantasy films are ignored (with the recent exception of Return of the King getting an Oscar to award Peter Jackson for the cumulative achievement of his massive undertaking); and crime films will most likely be ignored despite The Departed trying to make up for all the times Scorsese has deserved his Oscar in the past. A lot of people are clamoring for WALL-E to get a nod, but it’s going to be secluded to the ‘animation ghetto’ of the Best Animated Picture category for a consolation prize. 

I’d like to categorize all of these diverse films under the umbrella of “the popcorn film.” Not to discredit all ‘popcorn’ films, but they are, on the surface, the type of film that’s accessible to the common moviegoer and do not require a lot of thought to ingest them. However, many may have their own layers of motifs, recurring themes, and character ticks that provide extra substance for the more analytical viewer. 

I’d Really Like to See…Dirty Harry 6

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

Considering this is my first contribution to Zoom In, I realize this is a bold statement to make. After all, not a lot of people have been very keen on old timers revisiting signature roles from their prime, including Schwarzenegger reprising the T-800 and Stallone coming back to Rocky and Rambo. Even though he has a couple decades on both of them, Clint Eastwood is an entirely different story. In fact, when Gran Torino was announced and rumored to be a new Dirty Harry film, I thought it would be great. Of course, Eastwood immediately shot those rumors down, saying, “Dirty Harry would not be in the police department at my age.”