Don't get chumpatized.

"The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters," a new documentary by Seth Gordon about (you guessed it) getting the high score in the Filet Mignon of retro video games--Donkey Kong--is the most heartwarming, hilarious, and action-packed documentary I've seen all year. What is it about watching other people play video games that's so damned entertaining? Maybe it's the fact that Donkey Kong is not just Donkey Kong. It's really an allegory for life. In life, obstacles are always being thrown at you. Maybe it's unemployment or an unplanned pregnancy instead of a fireball or a barrel, but you get my drift. And we--patient, hardworking little Mario's that we are--must keep jumping, side-stepping, and climbing our way to our ultimate goals: the princesses of our souls, you might say. Steve Wiebe, lovable science teacher and family man from Washington, is good at Donkey Kong and he's good at life. He maneuvers through both with ease. To some, he is just the underdog of a small-scale documentary. To some, he's just the guy who challenged Billy Mitchell, the "greatest arcade-video-game player of all time." But to me, Steve Wiebe is Mario. And Billy Mitchell is like so many of the villains you meet both in life and in video games--imposing and scary at first, but in the end, completely transparent...and completely beatable.