“Snuff” films,” largely considered to be urban legends, are supposedly films in which people are murdered on camera for the sole purpose of murdering somebody on camera. These films (again, in theory) are traded and/or sold on a deeply underground black market. Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera brings together several “experts” on the subject and gets their opinions of snuff films.

I used a lot of quotation marks in the above paragraph because nobody has ever uncovered a true, bona fide snuff film. Some of the experts in the film cite this as proof that snuff films do not exist. Others claim that just because you haven’t seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist. At least a couple of the experts were just people who are into horror films. There are also a couple of FBI investigators who have seen some pretty awful things. But not snuff films.

Seeing as though it’s difficult to talk for long about real snuff films (since as far as we know, there aren’t any), the “experts” (again, in quotes) instead talk about things “like” snuff films. For example, the movie Cannibal Holocaust is discussed. Cannibal Holocaust is a disgusting movie that contains real animal killings, but fake human ones. Thus, it’s not a real snuff film. Serial killers Charles Ng and Leonard Lake, who videotaped themselves torturing and killing their victims, are also discussed. (Non-gruesome portions of the tapes are shown.) But again, these videos weren’t made for resale but rather for the killers’ “enjoyment”, which means they’re not snuff films either. The closest the documentary gets to discussing actual snuff films is the case of Dmitri Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, a fellow who was supposedly involved in “necro pedo” films in which children were abused to death. Again I say “supposedly” because there seems to be a ton of accusations that the case is or isn’t or was or wasn’t what it claimed to be. I searched Google a bit and found people who swear the story is true and people who swear it was fake. I don’t know what to think about that.

Eventually the documentary began discussing footage of US soldiers being killed. Around the time the film began to show footage of American soldiers being beheaded, I turned it off. Not for any moral or patriotic reason, but perhaps because for the first time in all the awful, horrible films I’ve watched (and I’ve watched a lot), this was too much. I’ll watch a documentary about just about anything, but showing footage of captured soldiers being beheaded is not for me. Sorry. Showing footage of captured prisoners being beheaded in a documentary about snuff films is just a cheap way to get some controversy surrounding your project. I’ll pass, thanks.

I really can’t recommend this documentary, not because it was offensive, but because it really doesn’t tell you much about snuff films and it doesn’t really make a statement about them. I went into this film thinking, “I hope to God there’s no such thing as a real snuff film, but there probably is,” and that’s what I walked away from the film thinking as well. I’m no expert on snuff films (everything I know about them I learned from the Nicolas Cage film 8mm), and I didn’t learn anything new about them either. Essentially the film tells us that snuff films may or may not exist, serial killers are pretty demented people, Cannibal Holocaust and Faces of Death were a mixture of real animal and fake human deaths, and combat soldiers sometimes get killed. Again, those are all things I unfortunately already knew.

Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera is available via Netflix streaming, and I hope my kids never stumble across it there.

Tired of mounting health concerns and carrying around 100 extra pounds of body fat, Joe Cross decided to go on both a physical journey as well as one of self-discovery. After consulting with a dietary physician, Cross decided to go on a self-induced 60 day juice diet. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead is that story.

Cross, a likable Australian fellow, decides to coordinate his 60-day juice fast with a 60-day visit to America. Cross spends the first 30 days of his fast in New York City, and the second half driving across America. Along the way, Cross stops and talks with hundreds of Americans about their weight, diet, and health. Throughout his trip you can literally see the weight dropping off Cross like slices of hot butter. Mmm, butter.

Along the way, Cross meets up with truck driver Phil Riverstone. Riverstone, who tops the scales at 430 pounds, takes an interest in Cross’ experiment. Just when Cross’ journey ends, he receives a phone call from Riverstone, asking him for help. With juicer in hand, Cross returns to America to help his friend out.

For anyone who has no idea what a calorie is or how the human body processes food this may feel like a spoiler, but it turns out that changing your diet to 400 calories of vegetables 3 times a day, juiced or not, will cause a person to lose weight. The only thing shocking is how quickly and dramatically this change takes place. By the end of his 60-day stint, Cross has lost 75 pounds. 10 months later, Riverstone has dropped from 429 pounds to 270 pounds!

While the documentary focuses on the achievements of these two individuals, there are also dozens of interviews with people across America, discussing their own personal struggles with food and obesity. Some of Cross’ interviews are borderline awkward as he sits down with Americans and asks them questions about their health and weight as they dig into a chicken fried steak or a slab or ribs. Mmm, ribs.

BY the end of the film we find both of the subjects jogging, exercising, and living more healthy lifestyles. Cross says he not only feels physically better, but mentally sharper as well. Riverstone, a guy that could only walk 5 minutes at a time, goes from a 5xl shirt to a 2xl and expresses the amount of weight he’s lost in terms of bowling balls.

While replacing your meals with juiced vegetables may not be a long term solution, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead is an excellent look at how poorly we, as a nation, are treating our bodies. Expect this film to change the way you think about food for weeks to come.

PS: Less than 24 hours after watching this film, my wife bought a juicer.

In The Great Happiness Space I was introduced to the world of Japanese “host clubs”, something I (as a Westerner) had never heard of before. The focus of the film is Cafe Rakkyo, the most popular host club in Osaka, Japan. Here, in Cafe Rakkyo, women compete for the attention of men by spending money on champagne, VIP seats, and even the hosts themselves. The hottest host in the hottest club in all of Osaka is Issei, an attractive and stylish young Japanese man around whom most of the documentary focuses on.

Initially host clubs may sound a bit like strip clubs with the male/female roles reversed, but that’s not quite right. While strip clubs revolve around sex, host clubs are more about attention. In fact, as one of the hosts explains to viewers, sex is just about the worst thing that can happen between a host and a client, as the goal of every host is to string his clients along as long as possible and drain them financially.

Women arriving at Cafe Rakkyo (which looks like a modern restaurant, dance club, and lounge all rolled into one location) pick their hosts out of a book full of photographs. There are many more clients than hosts, so each host must entertain multiple women at the same time — sometimes in the same part of the club, sometimes in different areas. The women compete by spending money, and the hosts respond by showering the high rollers with attention. With club bottles of champagne costing between $250 and $600, an evening at the host club can get very expensive, very quickly. In one scene we watch the hosts badger a customer into buying five bottles of champagne, one for each year she’s been coming to the host club. Despite her protests, the hosts surround her and convince her into buying “one more bottle”. As the final bottle is guzzled, all the hosts gather round, the DJ chants her name, and for 30 seconds or so, the client has bought happiness.

Each day before the club opens, the lesser-known hosts hit the streets in an attempt to drum up business. Rain or shine, they stand around talking to women, attempting to lure them to the club. During one rainy afternoon, one of the hosts yells at a woman, “it’s acid rain! You’re going to go bald! Come inside!” For the most part the women of Osaka seem to know the score and none of them appear particularly interested in the men’s offers — still, like e-mail spam, it must have some success rate or people wouldn’t do it.

As the film progresses viewers begin to realize that all of the on-screen relationships we see are sham. Behind closed doors, when one of the hosts struggles with guilt from stringing women along in exchange for cash, Issei tells him to man up. “We sell dreams here,” he says. Issei admits to bringing in anywhere from $30k-$50k a month, and several of the female clients interviewed admit to spending thousands of dollars each visit. Most of the women can afford this because, we learn, they are prostitutes. These same women who men pay money to have physical relationships with pay the hosts for emotional relationships. Some of the hosts are emotionally drained from all the attention, and admit they have no way of (or interest in) finding women outside the club. Inside the club the hosts have prostitutes vying for the attention; outside, they can’t even get a date. My perception of which are the hunters and which are the hunted changed several times while watching the documentary.

One prostitute in particular shares that she has spent around $30,000 on Issei alone (she considers it “an investment in their future together”). We see the two of them cuddling on a couch and hugging in an elevator before she has to leave. Issei walks her to a waiting cab and, while waving at her as the taxi pulls away, tells viewers how much he can’t stand her. “It’s that kind of client that makes me sick,” he says. Moments later his cell phone rings, and it’s her. “Like I’m going to answer that,” he says. “Shit.”

But all of that sadness goes away when the doors open. Then, the hosts are “on” and the women line up for their adoration. The hosts know they are selling a fake emotional relationship, and the clients know that the men only give them attention while they spend money. (“I think they are all liars,” one client says. “I don’t trust any of them.”) None of this matters when the music gets cranked up and the alcohol begins to flow.

As the movie comes to a close we see the hosts closing up shop and going home. One is so drunk and passed out he has to be lifted up and walked to the elevator. One host, in his stylish clothes, hat and sunglasses, climbs onto a girl’s bicycle and pedals off. A few of the others pour themselves into a taxi cab. Issei, on the outside, doesn’t look too much worse for the wear. “Sometimes I drink 10 bottles of champagne a night,” he admits, “but I try to vomit some of it back up.” On the inside though, one can only wonder what kind of toll the host clubs will eventually take on its and their clients.

The Great Happiness Space is both addictive and repulsive, enthralling and disgusting. If it’s true only the lonely can play, the host clubs of Osaka are the playground.

For a few years as a kid, I was really into puppets and The Muppets and ventriloquism. In second grade for Christmas I got my very own ventriloquist doll, Charlie McCarthy. I spent a few months practicing the art of talking while keeping my mouth closed, and even remember working up a little routine for my friends. After almost getting my ass kicked by some older kids for bringing “a big doll” to school, I decided to retire the act. Sorry, Charlie.

I’m No Dummy is a solid documentary about the history and current state of ventriloquism. This documentary traces ventriloquism back to its vaudeville roots. It’s full of clips of performing artists. In the film, you’ll see clips of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Senor Wences (“S’alright? S’alright.”), Jay Johnson (from Soap), Sherri “Lambchop” Lewis, Paul Winchell, and of course lots and lots of Jeff Dunham, the modern savior of the art. A few lesser-known ventriloquists are interviewed as well, along with a few ventriloquist-related collectors. Unless you’re a die hard fan of ventriloquism, I suspect every ventriloquist you’ve ever heard of probably appears at some point in this film.

I wish I had more to say about this documentary. It’s as good and thorough as a documentary about the art of ventriloquism is probably going to get. The history the form, the mechanics of the art, and the force driving some of these artists are all covered. For most people, this is all the information about ventriloquism you will ever need. The only downside is several appearances of the “f-word,” which makes this a tough sell for children — again, what a shame.

Reporters are always looking for a snappy headline, so you should do your best in life not to give them one. If your last name is “Wiener”, you should probably go out of your way to avoid being caught up in a scandal that involves your wiener. It makes things too easy for TMZ — just sayin’. Chris Hansen, host of the controversial show “To Catch a Predator” in which people are busted using undercover camera footage, was recently caught cheating on his wife in an undercover camera sting. Sometimes the headlines write themselves, folks. And so, if you’re the lead guitarist and lead singer of a psychedelic rock band who loves taking acid, down the road people are liable to cringe at the irony of your hit single, “You’re Gonna Miss Me”.

You’re Gonna Miss Me documents the life and trials of Roky Erickson, member of the band 13th Floor Elevators. Despite being one of the founders of psychedelic rock (one of his bandmates claims to have coined the term during a jam session), I had never heard of either Roky Erickson nor the 13th Floor Elevators. The documentary contains early American Bandstand footage of Roky jamming on the guitar and screaming wildly as his band mates tried to follow. The only thing Roky loves more than making music is doing drugs. Throughout the 1960s, Roky had a seat at the drug buffet of life helped himself to a big ol’ helping of LSD, multiple side orders of cocaine and heroin, and a heaping pile of marijuana for dessert. By the time Roky got arrested for doing all the drugs he could find in Texas his mental capacity was already questionable, and years of time served in a maximum-security mental facility combined with experimental drugs and shock therapy didn’t help the situation.

That brings us to today, and the meat of the film. Roky’s brain is so rotten he makes modern day Ozzy look like 1970’s Ozzy. He bumbles around town and his apartment with the help of his mother Evelyn who, despite not having done all the drugs in Texas, doesn’t seem to much more mentally competent than her son. Evelyn spends her days making giant cardboard collages and doing whatever it is other crazy people do in their free time.

Despite the fact that at different times Roky has believed himself to be possessed by the devil and being harassed by aliens, Evelyn — Roky’s legal guardian — refuses him medicine. Did I mention that Roky has been diagnosed as a psychotic schizophrenic? Oh yeah, there’s that. Brewing in the Erickson family is a bitter custody battle. The youngest of the five Erickson brothers, Sumner, thinks that with the proper care, medication and therapy, that eldest Erickson brother Roky can rebuild his health, his mind, and his life. To show how good his therapist is, we are treated to footage in which Sumner rolls on the floor with her embracing him from behind as he cries uncontrollably. Did I mention Sumner is a professional tuba player? Rarely is the case where the most bizarre member of a family comes down to a coin flip, but that might be the case here. Early on my money was on the family’s patriarch, until we learn that he was once caught in the bedroom fooling around with one of the five sons. Jesus Christ, Ericksons!

As with any documentary involving dysfunctional family members, it’s difficult to unequivocally say who the good and bad guys are in You’re Gonna Miss Me. Near the end of the documentary, thank God, Roky begins to get the help he so badly needed. Through medication and therapy we see Roky “functioning” once again. He’s in therapy, he appears lucid, he even spends a little time playing an old song on the guitar for his therapist and brother, something that the Roky at the beginning of the film never could have done. There’s no doubt that the years of mental and physical abuse Roky experienced took a toll against his cranium, but seeing the guy appear to realize where (or who) he is makes him seem happier than he was not so long ago.

Since the release of this documentary, Roky Erickson has made a seemingly full recovery. In 2010 he released the album “True Love,” and has been touring and performing live gigs off and on since then. Thumbs up, Roky — after seeing this film, nobody’s gonna forget you.

The 2010 documentary Catfish begins seemingly normal enough. In the beginning of the film we witness the blossoming of an online friendship between Yaniv Schulman, a New York City photographer, and Abby, an 8-year-old prodigal painter. After Abby sends Yaniv a painting she did of one of his photographs, the two of them strike up an online friendship through Facebook.

Through Abby, Yaniv meets her family and friends — her parents, her family friends, and particularly her older half-sister Megan. Yaniv and Megan soon form a long distance relationship that consists of text messages, e-mails, Facebooking, and even late night phone calls.

As time goes on, holes begin to appear in Megan and Abby’s stories. A song that the two of them claim to have written appears to have been recorded by a different artist. A vacant building that Abby’s mom Angela claims has renovated as an art studio for Abby still appears to be on the market. After one too many details fail to add up, Yaniv, his brother Ariel, and director Henry Joost decide to drop in on Abby’s family to find out where the truth ends and the lies begin.

As you can probably guess, not all is what it appears to be, and not everyone is who they appear to be. After the trio visually verify that the art studio is still a vacant building and a horse barn that Megan claims to own is also unoccupied, they decide to drop in on Megan, Abby, and Angela. What happens next is … wow.

The movie’s selling point is its twist ending so I won’t give it away here, but suffice it to say that indeed, not everyone Yaniv was chatting with was who they said they were (in fact, some of them don’t even exist). An awkward dancing around the truth takes place until, eventually, the beans are spilled. And boy, are spilled beans messy. Put it this way; if you’ve ever dated a girl who turned out to be crazy … be thankful she wasn’t this crazy.

The veracity of the film has been strongly argued since its release. The filmmakers have conceded that “some” of the film’s early scenes were “recreated,” but that’s as much as they’ll admit to. Some reviewers have claimed that the story had a “nugget of truth,” which has been inflated — others claim that the whole story from beginning to end is a setup, or at least that our protagonist was “playing along,” to a certain extent. None of those things made the movie any less riveting for me. It’s a good story, regardless.

I, like many people my age, have people I call “friends” that I have never met in real life — people I communicate with on a regular basis that I have never met in person. Many of my online friends I have met only after knowing them online for years. Catfish is a valid reminder that, all that appears online may not be as it seems. This movie is a must-see for anyone who’s ever added a Facebook friend and later thought … I wonder who that is?

In The Killing of a Chinese Cookie, director Derek Shimoda delivers viewers everything they could ever possibly want to know about fortune cookies, those delicious little fortune-delivering snacks we (Americans) love to crunch on after gorging ourselves on Chinese food.

Right up front, the documentary tackles the question of, “Who invented the fortune cookie?” The answer to this question is surprisingly clouded in mystery. No less than four different (unrelated) interviewees claim to be direct descendants of the inventor of the fortune cookie. While some have more factual evidence than others, none have any verifiable proof. The two things everybody seems to agree on are (a) fortune cookies were invented in California (probably in the 1920s), and (b) they were invented by Japanese-Americans.

Japanese? Yes! In the 1920s and 30s, fortune cookies were largely associated with Japanese-Americans. After the attack on Pearl Harbor many Japanese-Americans were placed into “War Relocation Camps,” at which point Chinese-Americans adopted the manufacturing and distribution of fortune cookies … and the rest is history. As one interviewee states, “Fortune Cookies were invented by the Japanese, distributed by the Chinese, and served to the Americans.” To drive the point home, one elderly Chinese man is handed a fortune cookie. His on-camera response: “What is this?”

The history of the cookie is by and large the most interesting part of the documentary, but that story alone couldn’t fill a 90 minute documentary so the rest of the film consists of a dozen or so mini-stories about fortune cookies. We get to see how fortune cookies were once hand made. We also get to see a modern cookie production factory that churns out 5 million cookies a day. We meet a father/daughter team that make cookies and pen the fortunes found inside. We learn about an art project in which eccentric artists created works of art based on fortune cookies they received. We meet a man (his identity is blocked) who collects “rejected and innappropriate” fortunes that didn’t make the cut, and published them (under the pseudonym Joe Wang — cute). We hear about a guy that played a prank by sneaking fake fortune cookies into restaurants (I would have liked to hear more about the logistics of how this was done). We see clips of fortune cookies appearing in popular culture, one of which disappointingly uses harsh R-Rated language, tainting an otherwise family-friendly film. What a poor choice on the director’s part.

According to IMDB, The Killing of a Chinese Cookie has a 75-minute run time, but I could have sworn it ran for two hours. The last half of the movie drags, seeming less like a documentary and more like a series of 5-10 minute unrelated bits that should have been condensed to 2 minutes. A 10-15 minute section in the middle of the film is subtitled, which slows the film’s pace. (I get it, they’re from China, but still.) By the time you get to the section where every interviewee gets to make up their own perfect fortune for themselves, you’ll be ready for the film to end. At least, I was.

If you’re into random trivia and quirky documentaries, give The Killing of a Chinese Cookie a shot. I picked up a few factoids and found at least some of it interesting. It’s not a bad film, but it does run out of steam (and material) before you reach the end.

Sometimes, that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Available via Netflix/Netflix Streaming.

The Secret, available as a book, audio book, and DVD, claims that you (yes, you!) can have anything you have ever dreamed of having if you learn … the secret. Health, wealth, and happiness could all be yours if only you knew … the secret. And, for the price of a hardcover book and/or DVD (about $20), you too can learn … the secret.

Fortunately, The Secret is available on Netflix (both as a physical disc and via streaming), so I was able to learn the secret for free.

“The secret” boils down to the “Law of Attraction,” which, I learned, permeates the entire universe. The Law of Attraction states that we attract things into our lives — good and bad — through our thoughts. Bob Proctor, listed as a “Philosopher” in the credits, sidesteps explaining how the Law of Attraction actually works by stating, “Look, I don’t know how electricity works either, but I use it every day.” Magnets, man — miracles are all around us.

To use the Law of Attraction to our advantage, we need to focus on what we want in life. If you think about money you will get money, if you think about health you will be healthy, and so on. There are a few stipulations, however. First, the Law of Attraction is not instantaneous. That would just be silly, and dangerous. Second, you should focus on positive things because the Law of Attraction isn’t very bright. For example, focusing on “get me out of debt” will just attract more debt. Instead, you should focus on attracting money. And third, you should be reasonable in what you wish for … because apparently, the Law of Attraction can sometimes be stingy bitch.

Throughout the documentary’s 90 minute run time, a string of authors, therapists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, metaphysicians, visionaries, and even a Feng Shui consultant are paraded in front of the camera, explaining how The Secret worked for them. One fellow tells about how, five years ago, he cut out a picture of a mansion and stuck it on his wish board. Five years later, wildly successful in business and life, he pulled his old wish board out of storage only to find that he was living in the mansion he had dreamed of owning five years earlier. (Cue “Twilight Zone” theme.)

The problem I had with The Secret was that this is all presented as some sort of mystical, arcane knowledge. “The Secret has been passed down from generation to generation,” it says. “The Secret was known by Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Einstein,” we are told.

For what it’s worth, I do believe in the “power” of positive thinking. I don’t think it’s as much magic as it is a frame of mind. I think people who see the glass of water as “half full” surely go through life happier than those who see it as “half empty.” What The Secret neglects to mention is that success is a combination of ambition and hard work. When positive thinking leads to positive action, you can expect positive results! Sitting around and dreaming about losing weight won’t help you lose a single pound until you actually get up and start exercising. It’s the action that leads to success.

Or perhaps that’ll the subject of The Secret: Part II …

Back in the late 1980s, pop singers/teen sensations Tiffany and Debbie Gibson battled it out on the pop charts. (Younger readers can consider them the 80s version of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.) Just as grunge rock killed hair metal, an onslaught of rap and hip-hop drove Tiffany and Debbie off the charts. That’s not to say either of them quit performing: both have launched comeback attempts, performed on reality television programs (Gibson on Skating with Celebrities, Tiffany on Celebrity Fit Club), and both singers have appeared in Playboy. See you in ten years, Spears and Aguilera!

Most of us quit following celebrities once they leave the spotlight, but others have a harder time doing so. The documentary I Think We’re Alone Now follows two of these individuals, both of which are obsessed with the singer Tiffany. (Sorry Debbie, maybe next time.)

First up is Jeff Turner, a 50-year-old man who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and claims to be a close personal friend of Tiffany’s — a fact he shares with anyone within earshot who is too polite to walk away. Although he initially appears somewhat normal, the more we see of Turner the more we sense something is not quite right. Eventually we learn that Tiffany once filed a restraining order against Turner for trying to give her a Samurai sword in an airport (“It’s considered an honor in Japan,” he notes), and that he has spent more than $20,000 on “radionics equipment.” The radionics equipment, which consists of a bicycle helmet with crystals duct taped to it that is connected to a pyramid made out of wood, allows Turner to tune in to Tiffany’s brain waves and connect with her telepathically — because she is a “inter-dimensional time traveler.”

Next up is Kelly McCormick, a 31-year-old transgendered hermaphrodite who is neither 31-years-old (s/he lied) nor a hermaphrodite (although she lives life as a female, McCormick admits in the commentary track that the pluming’s apparently male). The first thing McCormick heard when coming out of a coma in 1980s was a Tiffany song, and ever since then she’s known in her heart that the two of them were destined to have a relationship together.

Most of the documentary consists of footage of these two bumbling souls meandering through life. Turner, dissuaded by the restraining order, shows up at Tiffany beach concern apparently a day early and stands around talking to security guards until they finally walk away. McCormick almost gets to see Tiffany live in a club, but is turned away when the folded up photocopy over her driver’s license isn’t considered to be a legal photo ID. In probably the least surprising revelation of the film, both McCormick and Turner are unemployed and receive disability pay from the government for their mental disabilities.

Eventually, these two super fans are apparently connected by the director (it’s a little muddy) and they each hit the road to convene at a Tiffany show at the Krave Gay Night Club in Las Vegas. As muscular men in their tighty-whities dance around behind her, Tiffany sings as the two fans clap and dance the night away. Later that night, both of them stand in line to meet Tiffany and steal cheek kisses from her. She looks thrilled. Later that evening, the two of them compare Tiffany notes and stories until Turner’s one-upmanship gets the better of McCormick. So lonely are these two that they are content to sit in a hotel room and talk about how which one of them will end up with Tiffany first. (I had the same conversation with friends about Debby Harry back in the day; then again, I was 8-years-old.)

I Think We’re Alone Now is uncomfortable at times to watch and somewhat difficult to enjoy, especially when you realize that essentially what you are watching are two obsessed and mentally ill stalkers. It’s hard not to feel sad for these two delusional fans; likewise, it’s tough not to feel a little concerned for Tiffany’s well-being.

Shot on a hand-held camcorder, video quality isn’t great and the audio is just passable (save for a 5-10 second clip in which the audio was simply missing). You won’t have to worry about how those classic Tiffany hits sound in 5.1 surround sound because none of her music appears in the film. Tiffany also refused to be interviewed for the film. Talk about a no-win situation. Once you’ve alienated the mentally ill, what fan base does she have left? (I kid, I kid …)

if you’re a fan of documentaries, by all means check out I Think We’re Alone Now. I suspect “a rental will do ya,” as I can’t see myself watching this strange but curious look into the world of stalking more than once. I left this movie feeling sad, and in hopes that both Turner and McCormick are ultimately able to find peace and happiness without Tiffany in their lives.

My parents brought home our first home Pong console in the fall of 1977, shortly after I turned four-years-old. The following year we upgraded to a Magnavox Odyssey 2, and in 1979 we purchased an Atari 2600. I have literally been playing video games my entire life; I’m a grown up gamer that grew up gaming. I’ve watched the video game technology grow and expand infinitely, back from its humble monochrome roots in the late 1970s to the hi-definition graphics, digital surround sound audio, and online multi-player gaming experiences we take for granted today.

When you’ve been around as long as I have, it’s impossible not to compare and contrast the new with the old. As a technical kind of guy this often plays itself out in numbers. Comparing the processing power and storage capacity of today’s modern marvels to the systems of yesteryear results in some mind-blowing revelations. I once downloaded a zip file that contained the ROMs of every Atari 2600 game known at that time. The file was 3 megabytes in size. A complete archive of every official US Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is slightly larger at just over 100 megabytes. Realizing that I have enough memory to store complete copies of the Atari 2600, NES, SNES and Sega Genesis game libraries on my phone reminds us of how far we’ve come in the couple of decades. In the year 2000, I had a Nokia cell phone that was capable of playing a port of Snake (an arcade game from 1976). Ten years later, I bought an iPhone that plays Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (THPS2).

Cramming a skateboarding game originally designed to play on the Sony PlayStation into an iPhone requires a level of technical wizardry that is impressive, but not surprising. If you really want to understand what technical wizardry is — if you really want to learn about a world where every byte (nay, bit!) counted, you’ll need to go back almost 30 years to the Atari 2600 platform. While it is indeed impressive that in 2010 Activision was able to render a three-dimensional world in which you can maneuver a virtual Tony Hawk around in, it is more impressive to me that in 1982 Activision released Pitfall!, a game that contained 32 treasures spread across 255 unique rooms containing varying combinations tar pits, water holes, quicksand, rolling logs, campfires, snapping crocodiles, scorpions and swinging vines … all in 4k worth of code.

If that last fact made your jaw drop, or caused you to smile, or sent chills down your spine, or got any sort of physical reaction out of you at all … then Racing the Beam is for you.

Written by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, Racing the Beam chronicles (in technical depth) the development of six seminal Atari 2600 games: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars’ Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. With the development of each game, readers are exposed to the capabilities (read: limitations) of the Atari 2600 platform. From a hardware perspective the 2600 was developed to play variations of Combat and Pong, and only contained the ability to render five moving objects (two players, two bullets, one ball) at a time, and had 128 bytes of RAM in which to do it. The random, colorful explosions in Yars’ Revenge and the smooth, parallax scrolling in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back become all the more impressive in that context.

Each game discussed within the book marks a milestone in the life of the Atari 2600, whether it’s the evolution of text adventures into a graphical environment (Adventure), the birth of movie licensed-games (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), or the genre of arcade-to-console conversions (Pac-Man). None of these games were developed within a vacuum, and the book does a good job of encapsulating not only the technical achievements of each game, but also the historical context in which they were developed. The chapter about Yars’ Revenge, for example, talks about the game’s roots as a port of Star Castle, and compares and contrasts the game with Atari’s Asteroids. The game’s Easter Egg, the code used for the seemingly random level-ending explosions, and its unique sonic landscape are all discussed in detail.

At multiple times throughout the book, Racing the Beam reminds us that these classic games weren’t compiled by teams of skilled programmers, but rather were labors of love, quite often imagined, developed, and programmed by a single individual. While general concepts and technical knowledge was passed along between programmers, because of the way these games were designed it was difficult to recycle and/or share specific code among projects. The concept of having different people work on graphics, sound, and game play mechanics would not come to pass for a few more years. The book does a good job of introducing us to these men behind the keyboards.

Racing the Beam is not always an easy read. While the anecdotes and memories documented within are both interesting and informative, the book occasionally delves deep into the technical hows-and-whys involved in producing these games. I encountered some conversational hurdles as I waded through information regarding Atari’s TIA chip (the 2600’s sound and graphics chip), clock cycles and horizontal and vertical blanks — interesting Jeopardy material to be sure, but definitely deeper reading than your average light-hearted romp down retrospective lane.

Upon finishing this book you will never again look at the background trees in Pitfall or Pac-Man’s flashing ghosts in the same way. While not an encapsulating history of the Atari 2600 itself, Racing the Beam does an excellent job of explaining the demonstrating the hurdles and limitations early programmers had to overcome in order to create great video games.

(One final thought: this review contains 5,899 characters, more than any of the Atari 2600 games mentioned in Racing the Beam. Food for thought.)