King of Kong will crack you up

In theaters Friday: The Happening, The Incredible Hulk
New on DVD: The Bucket List, Jumper, The Other Boleyn Girl

On a tip from a co-worker, I Netflixed The King of Kong recently. You guessed it, it’s a documentary about video game nerds. But these aren’t your modern-day, Halo-lovin’ PSIII junkies. These are hardcore, classic gamers, guys who are now in their 40s and still play Pacman and Galaga arcade-style, like it was yesterday. Some of the best documentaries dive headfirst into a subculture and expose all of the nuances, allegiances and struggles that exist in a small pocket of our world. The King of Kong does this in spades and ramps up the intensity with real suspense. It has all of the ingredients for a great story. There’s the Maharishi-like former gamer who now runs the arcade league (yes, there is one!) and serves as “referee” to judge the legitimacy of top scores. There’s the reigning champ, who with his early ’80s haircut and teenage bravado frozen in time has an entourage of sycophants who use mind games and shady tactics to keep his records safe, and the average Joe challenger who comes out of nowhere to battle for the top Donkey Kong score. By the end of it, you’ll be rooting for the challenger to go all the way. I know I was, and that’s the mark of a great film.

Jumper will probably make my list of movies to rent this week. It looks like mindless fun, a really well-made TV movie that has a couple cool action sequences. This being summer, I’m kind of in the mood to kick back and sink into something like that. I also want to check out The Other Boleyn Girl on DVD because I’m a fan of just about everyone in that cast, and I want to compare it to The Tudors, Showtime’s expertly-made, vamped-up series on the same subject: Henry VIII’s rise to power and subsequent baby mama drama.

Finally, one of my favorite directors, Cameron Crowe, is returning to the director’s seat after a four-year lag caused no doubt by the poor reception his Elizabethtown received. Still, I have a lot of faith in the guy who made Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky and Say Anything. Here’s the latest tidbit on his new project, which sounds like it’ll be safe zone, Jerry Maguire vein. Whatever, it’s still good to have Crowe back.