Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest (Kim Kanonarm og Rejsen mod Verdensrekorden)

The master at work.

(2021) Documentary (Good Company) Kim “Cannon Arm” Købko, Michael Dyst, Mads Hedegaard, Carsten Tommy Lauridsen, Svavar Gunnar Gunnarsson, Michael Trier, Emil Godfredsen, Billy Mitchell, Christoffer Daniel, Morten Riis Svendsen, Rasmus Roten Nadsen, Peter Udby, Mette Zacchariasson, Jesper Øland, Johnny Bonde, Helge Frisenette. Directed by Mads Hedegaard

 

Those of a certain age will remember what it was like to stand in an arcade for hours on end playing videogames with your friends. Our parents despaired of our timewasting activities; it is therefore somewhat ironic that we of that age now despair of the timewasting activities of our children, justifying it with “at least we were out of the house with our friends instead of staring at a screen alone in our room,” conveniently ignoring the fact that we were largely staring at a screen ourselves.

Kim Købko is a 55-year-old Danish grandfather (!) who loves arcade gaming, and he’s pretty good at it; he holds the world record as the movie begins for playing 49 hours straight on a single quarter on the somewhat obscure game Gyruss. His friends are mostly gaming champions as well; Michael Dyst, a published poet and poetry slam veteran, holds record scores on Puzzle Bobble 1 and 2, while physicist Svavar owns some Tetris records to his credit.

Kim realizes that at his age, his physical reflexes will soon begin to deteriorate, as will his mental acuity. He wants to make one more run at a grand challenge; to more than double his own world record by playing Gyruss continuously on a single quarter for 100 hours.

This is much more daunting than it sounds. That’s more than four days mostly standing up, running outside for bathroom breaks, eating while you play (which limits the menu somewhat), taking sleep breaks of 15 minutes only when you’ve built up enough lives so that the game doesn’t end while you are napping. Careful count has to be kept of how many lives are in the bank; the game itself only displays three, while it adds twelve for every million points scored. Too many lives in the bank will also cause the game to end; therefore Kim will need his friends to help him keep track of his lives and keep his spirits up, while monitoring his physical health.

It’s incredibly taxing on a physical level, not to mention mentally; as the hours go on without proper sleep, the mind is affected since the toxins of the day haven’t been dispelled by sleep. People can hallucinate when sleep-deprived, a very bad situation if you’re trying to keep from seeing the dreaded “game over” screen.

Not only does the player need to be in tip-top condition, so does the game. It has to be remembered that these games are over 35 years old; in the electronics world, that’s the equivalent of being old enough to remember the First World War. Finding the electronics needed to keep the game working properly is nearly impossible, and keeping original circuitry operating is a tedious task (we see the grim reality of that as one of the games Kim plays abruptly cuts out during game play which would be a disaster during a marathon game).

Hedegaard is part of Kim’s inner circle and a fellow gamer at the Bip Bip Bar in Copenhagen, where the group hangs out. As such, he has a deep understanding of the group dynamics and above all the comradery that has developed between them. There is a scene where they visit the grave of Thomas, a member of the group who battled depression and eventually took his own life; he acted as a mentor to Kim and pushed him to go after his dreams, no matter what they might be. While Kim is far too internally-oriented to voice it, you get the feeling that his single-minded pursuit of the record is largely due to Thomas.

While Kim is the central figure in the film, he is not a particularly interesting man. Unlike most of his friends, we don’t get a sense of what he does outside the arcade. If he has a job, we aren’t told what it is. He rarely speaks and when he does, its mostly in a barely audible mumble. Although we are told in the beginning that he is a grandfather, we never see a grandchild or child in the film, nor a wife or even an ex. Apparently if the film is any indication, they aren’t a part of his life. In fact, none of his circle appears to have any sort of girlfriend or partner of any sort.

Hedegaard does give us some background into competitive arcade gaming (legendary arcade gamer Billy Mitchell makes a brief appearance) but also delves into how gaming, music theory and physics share some common ground. These are interesting sequences that are often enhanced by clever animations. Those who aren’t necessarily familiar with arcade games will not feel left out of the loop.

But having an affinity for gaming definitely helps. People get into gaming for different reasons. Most of the guys in this circle of friends can be considered outsiders; guys who don’t necessarily fit in with the popular sorts; they are largely introverts who come into their own only when among themselves. I’m sure you know somebody like that or maybe YOU are just like that. Even if you don’t game, you can relate to folks like this, although something has to be done about their hair. At least one of them went full-on Viking and that just doesn’t work in 2021, dudes.

The movie is currently playing at two prestigious festivals; Hot Docs in Canada, and CPH DOX in its native Denmark. The movie can be streamed from those sites for those who live in those countries; otherwise, keep an eye out for it on the Festival circuit or at your local art house.

REASONS TO SEE: Plenty of gaming history and a surprising amout of quantum physics.
REASONS TO AVOID: Anti-climactic and a bit too long.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The average person utters about 16,000 words during a single day. Kim rarely exceeds 250.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/25/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Trigger Point

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Lady Buds

A bitter harvest.

(2021) Documentary (Pacoline) Felicia Carbajal, Joyce Centofanti, Cheryl Mumzer Goldman, Pearl Moon, Chiah Rodrigues, Sue Taylor, Karyn Wagner, Dani Burkhart, Eileen Russell, Monique Ramirez, Liz Poindexter, Lori Ajax. Directed by Chris J. Russo

 

We have a tendency to use marijuana as something of a punchline, socially speaking. It brings visions of stoners getting an urgent case of the munchies at 2am after a day smoking weed and navel-gazing, laughing at jokes that nobody but other stoners understand, and high-tailing it (pun intended) to Taco Bell for all the gorditas they can afford.

With California legalizing cannabis for recreational use, there is a seismic shift taking place among the growers of the plant. Heretofore small growers essentially ruled the roost (many in Humboldt County, a beautiful redwood-dotted mountainous region), Proposition 84 – which was promised to keep big agribusiness out for at least a year after the prop went into effect – presented the largely outlaw culture of Humboldt and Mendocino counties a confusing maze of bureaucracy and paperwork that soon, it becomes clear, is meant to pave the way for Big Agra to take over.

While the perception that cannabis culture is largely male-dominated, there are a surprisingly large percentage of women who have been involved in the industry and this documentary from first-time feature filmmaker Russo (not related to the Russo Brothers of the MCU so far as I know). Some have been involved with the business for decades, like farmer Chiah Rodrigues, a second generation farmer whose parents were both part of the counterculture; she runs a farm with her husband who prefers to spend time cross-pollinating and cross-breeding different strains of marijuana to produce a superior bud. Then there are the Bud Sisters, long-time friends Pearl Moon and Joyce Centofanti, who joyfully partake of their own product and have become civic leaders in Humboldt for their passion for the business. There are also relative newcomers to the table, like Karyn Wagner, a former New York restauranteur who switched coasts to be with her pot-grower husband and after his untimely death, sought to create branding for her product, calling on her experience in the dining industry. A newcomer to the industry is Sue Taylor, a retired Catholic school principal who hopes to open a dispensary in Berkeley that caters to seniors and would also serve as an education center into the benefits of cannabis, but has to overcome the hurtles of dealing with a bureaucracy that is anything but helpful. Finally there is the energetic Felicia Carbajal, a Latin and queer activist looking to raise the profile of people of color within the industry where they are grossly underrepresented (as they are in most businesses that provide opportunities for success).

As with most documentaries that follow multiple subjects, your enjoyment of the film will largely depend on how you relate to the individuals depicted in it. For me, I found the Bud Sisters to be absolutely delightful. They would definitely be a hoot to hang out with, although it would be dangerous to me as I am, regrettably, allergic to cannabis. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be entertained, and so will you be, listening to their irreverent attitudes. You also feel for the small farmer like Rodrigues, who is seeing a lifetime of work going up in proverbial smoke as she sees the writing on the wall; the legalization brought a dramatic drop in price, as well as the dangers posed by the recent wildfires in California. Some of the old-timers speak of their way of life disappearing, but that was inevitable, just as the invasion of large-money interests into the industry is inevitable. It is extremely likely that the small grower won’t survive when you have a deep-pocketed business able to operate at a loss for years while driving the competition out of business. That has how capitalism has worked for centuries.

This is largely an anecdotal documentary; it doesn’t delve deeply into facts and figures, mostly following along its subjects and taking what they have to say as gospel. Also, while the movie is marketed largely as a celebration of women in the emerging industry, more attention seems to being paid to the fact that they are LGBTQ in some cases or people of color in others. We don’t really get a sense of what being a woman brings to the table of the cannabis industry that is different than what a man brings. You get a sense that all of the people here portrayed are champions of the medicinal values of marijuana and are genuinely interested in helping people even more than they are making a profit, but I’m sure there are some women in the industry who are entirely profit-oriented and it would have been nice to hear from one of those, particularly a young person as most of the subjects in the documentary are middle aged or older.

At the end of the day, you do get some insight into the disquieting prospects the small farmers face in the teeth of big business and big government bureaucracy (California is notorious for making its citizens jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops in order to get anything done) and in that sense, is a fairly universal message for anyone who is thinking of operating a small artisanal farm. The insights on that end are worth looking into, but otherwise I would have been a little happier had the documentary dropped perhaps one or two of the subjects and focused more on the Bud Sisters, Rodrigues and Taylor who I thought were the most interesting subjects.

The movie recently made its world premiere at the Hot Docs festival in Canada, and Canadian readers can stream the film from their website which can be found here. Keep an eye out for it as it should be making the rounds of film festivals throughout the summer and fall.

REASONS TO SEE: The Bud Sisters are absolutely and irrepressibly charming.
REASONS TO AVOID: Might be a little bit on the long side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of drug use (as you might imagine) as well as some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Proposition 64, a ballot initiative legalizing recreational use for marijuana, passed on November 8, 2016.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/3/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Evergreen: The Road to Legalization
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest