ITS IN THE GAME (Dylan Griffin) Rating: NNN
Indian children in Nike sweatshops and computer nerds in Silicon Valley have more in common than you’d think, according to It’s In The Game, the informative but rough-around-the-edges debut feature by local filmmaker and self-described gamer Dylan Griffin.
Griffin’s grassroots documentary strings together candid interviews with video game developers who break down the industry pixel by pixel. More than half the film is a nostalgic history lesson on how games went from a personal art form – think Space Invaders – to the generic output of nameless, faceless drones employed by multi-billion-dollar corporations.
For huge companies that expect unpaid overtime, computer nerds make easy prey because, well, they have no lives. As one developer puts it, they “are in this business to avoid the rest of their life.”
Griffin cleverly intercuts video game graphics to counter the monotony of talking heads, but he doesn’t know when to stop. He often holds shots for too long or wastes time on unnecessary graphics. Just because somebody says the word “gorilla” doesn’t mean we need a nifty follow-up clip of King Kong to get the picture.
That’s like playing the same level of Tetris over and over again.
Screens tonight (Thursday, August 21) at the Revue Cinema.
