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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 1h

In that case, the Bad Gamer Movie I would recommend for you is Nintendo Quest, followed by the sequel Nintendo 64 Quest, which is 6 HOURS LONG and is probably 80% padding

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 2h

I think a lot things that could've been Youtube videos turn into Tubi documentaries for the prestige of making a capital-f Film, for the same reason that things that could've been blog posts turn into books

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 4h

It's too late!!!

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 6h

I fully expected him to talk about this *great* little store he knows called Super Potato

Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 6h

Would you believe that the person who said it is a white guy who moved to Japan and brags about how living in Japan means he can buy armloads of games for cheap

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 6h

I just searched for "tendi" until I found a gif that matched the experience of watching this movie

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

A Letterboxd review said this movie was "like you've been cornered at your highschool reunion by a recently divorced dad who is very insistent on telling you about his new hobby," which is pretty accurate

Anyway, don't watch Rarity: Retro Video Game Collecting in the Modern Era!

Rarity: Retro Video Game Collecting in the Modern Era (2021)

As retro-game collecting becomes more and more popular, these interviews explore its evolution, game oddities, rarities, and various collections.

tubitv.com

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

And the movie just... stops. There is no ending. In the middle of an interview with a collector about how much their collection is worth, SMASH CUT to the credits. It's like they ran out of footage

Krusty the Clown, looking surprised with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

Ooooo good call. My previous winner was The Die is Cast into Explorers

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

Everyone knows you married me for my CIB copy of Rat Attack. This marriage is a sham!!!!

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

I am fascinated by an interview with this woman who collects N64 games and married an N64 collector and had an N64-themed wedding. She says that if he stopped collecting N64 games, it would put a strain on their marriage

Even the worst of these documentaries are anthropologically fascinating

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

We're near the end, and we've reached the "close to having an epiphany" segment that always shows up in these documentaries. Collectors talking about how game collecting has ruined their relationships with their family and forcefully declaring that they are NOT hoarders

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

Molly did you see that fucking pizza

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

three cartoon characters are standing next to each other and one of them has a green haircut

ALT: three cartoon characters are standing next to each other and one of them has a green haircut

media.tenor.com

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

Royalty-free cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah playing over screenshots of eBay listings. I don't know who this is for

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

Now there's a game collector telling a story about tracking down the child of a dead local video store owner to see if he has any games he wants to sell

I have completely checked out. Another half hour and I'm free

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 7h

It seems like they ran out of ideas after the first hour, because the rest of the documentary is random game collector YouTubers remembering things, interspersed with stock footage

This collector is telling a story about a time he got pizza, so they put in stock footage of a pizza

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

I THINK they're trying to make a documentary about how game collecting has evolved over the years, but the filmmaking is so inept that they're just hitting Record while somebody talks for 10 minutes and then putting that directly on their Premiere timeline

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

Aaaaand here we go: This documentary is actually about how video game grading is really cool

The last 20 minutes has been lecturing to the camera about how grading a game increases its value, which is Good, and if you don't like that then you're jealous

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

I watched a documentary once where they claimed Space Invaders was a huge success because it tapped into the instinctive Japanese fear of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. People will do a racism at the drop of a hat to sound smart

Arrietty Lunaris @arrietty.itch.io · 8h

how do people even come up with this insane shit

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

I did not expect the orientalist "Japanese people invented game collecting because it is an expression of Shintoism, we have much to learn from their culture" sidebar but here we are

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

Half an hour in. It's mostly unedited footage of the most boring people you've met in your life pointing at things on the shelf and telling you how expensive they are and how cool their YouTube channel is. I just have to push through

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

Bad documentaries made by and for gamers

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 8h

We've reached the portion of the documentary where various men in baseball caps brag about ripping people off at flea markets. One of them justified it by saying something like "You want highlights in your life"

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 9h

There is currently a montage of people buying video games while a voiceover talks about how game collecting is celebration of capitalism, which is where our culture comes from. The Star-Spangeled Banner is playing in the background

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