the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I wanted to like Nintendo Quest - the Kickstarter documentary about a man traveling through North America in order to collect every NES game - I really did. Unfortunately, it is crippled by an inherently unlikable subject/lead (Jay) and seemingly arbitrary rules and decisions that make the majority of the film an utterly confusing and aggravating experience.Jay is a man of indiscernible character who, with the help of his friend Rob (the writer/editor/director of the documentary), decides to pay tribute to his lifelong passion of 8-bit gaming by setting out on a road trip and collecting the entire NES library from scratch. The two friends decide that Jay will have 30 days and a set budget to meet this goal, and he will be unable to use Internet sites such as eBay to purchase any game. Overall, the idea is promising, although if this is truly a passion project, then it seems silly to discount the games that Jay already owns in his personal collection, which is only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the film.Early on, Nintendo Quest's sizable cracks begin to form. Jay coerces kind and enthusiastic independent game store owners into selling rare games for far lower prices than they were originally asking for, with an obnoxious "it's for the cause" plea. I think it's important to get across the idea of haggling with store owners to get a bargain, but it's obvious that many of the sellers shown in Nintendo Quest don't want to look bad within the documentary, and are therefore willing to part with more expensive games at a far lower than average price. Such "haggling" situations are often capped with Jay mumbling about feeling bad for taking advantage of the owners' kindness - which he should. On the flip side, Jay rants and raves about the rigidity of store employees and owners who refuge to budge on the price of a game, "punishing" them by not buying other, more reasonably-priced games within the same store. Jay shows zero empathy for people trying to make a living by selling the games he claims to be so passionate about, as well as for private collectors who are willing to go out on a limb to help him out. So much for being relatable! Jay's character, or lack thereof, really is the biggest problem with Nintendo Quest. At one point, we are forced to watch as Jay, adorned in one of his many Halloween costume-like "nostalgia" outfits, negotiates over the phone with a private seller over the price of an incredibly rare NES game while standing between two human-sized Star Wars figures in his home. It's infuriating to watch this spoiled man-child deal with people who are bending over backward to help him, whining about how he needs each purchase to be a memorable story. There is some validity to Jay's point, but the film does a poor job of showing any joy associated with 99% of the purchases shown, which calls into question the entire purpose of the documentary.Ultimately, Jay does not even meet his goal, and ends up buying the remaining games on eBay months later. Not that this matters much since the rules of "Nintendo Quest" were so arbitrary to begin with, and there is absolutely nothing at stake. How are viewers supposed to relate to this guy? It would have been nice to know what his NES collection was like prior to the road trip, or the actual amount of his budget. Being given more than a glimpse into his actual life and how he earns a living would have made this better as well. At one point, Jay talks about the spirit of the true collector, and how sacrifice plays a part in completing a collection. He is absolutely correct, but no sacrifice or compromise is shown in this movie whatsoever. The possibility of Jay having to sell, for example, some of his coveted Star Wars merchandise in order to get enough money to buy Stadium Events would have been compelling, but nothing like this ever happens. As it is, we are left to view Jay as a spoiled and immature man with too much time and money on his hands. I feel bad for people who donated money to this documentary on Kickstarter, but I feel even worse for the private collectors who seem to be unaware of the nature of Jay's "quest."While I disliked Nintendo Quest as a whole, there are some worthwhile moments sprinkled in. These scenes highlight other collectors, competitive gamers, and fans with actual passion, whose stories are quite touching. Perhaps the filmmaker should have focused entirely on these stories instead of helping his friend get a bunch of games. Judging by the content of this documentary, the only way to truly help Jay is to take him to a professional therapist.

"Nintendo Quest" had promise, but the execution is way off. The idea itself is cool: you've got 30 days to hunt down every last official NES title in existence (no online purchases). That means road trip, and already we're talking great movie, right? Game over, man.It's not that this is a bad movie, but it suffers from reality TV production methods and it doesn't give us all of the relevant information. We never know the budget for this quest or how the majority of these games cost. And the negotiating scenes are painfully drawn out. Why spend screen time listening to an awful speakerphone or listening to someone read aloud text messages when this could be better conveyed through a graphic? When all else fails, let the director insert himself into the thing and scream plot information.The odd thing of it is that it actually becomes a downer after awhile. Jay spends his time in one store after another, getting depressed over the price-gouging and cynicism that collecting can engender.There's good to be had, but it's primarily in the opening; an examination of the console's enduring longevity and appeal. That sequence gets into the gamer in all of us. If only the rest of it weren't so morose.4/10

Nintendo Quest (2015) *** (out of 4) This documentary is a thirty day challenge where a man tries to collect all 678 official Nintendo releases.That's pretty much all their is to this film. If you're looking for a hard-hitting documentary then you certainly won't find it here. I'd argue that there are some questionable filmmaking moments as well but I honestly didn't judge this thing too hard. I think the film was mildly entertaining just because it can strike up memories that you had in regards to these games and especially if you're old enough to where you could have collected them as a kid.I had a good time with the journey of the main character as he traveled around trying to locate copies of each game. What I enjoyed most was just watching them travel around and in my own mind I was amazed at how many of these games I remembered. I had honestly forgotten about most of them but then there they were on the screen.This was originally a Kickstarter project I believe and some are really crushing the film. I'm really not sure why. For what the movie was I thought it was entertaining.

Nintendo quest is not an all encompassing documentary about Nintendo, the NES, or gaming in general. The description is misleading. There have been many gaming docs, but none specifically about the history of the company Nintendo, so needless to say I was really excited.Even after I realized that it was rather about a guy building an NES collection from scratch with a few fun facts thrown in here and there, I still kept on watching it, because I do have some old games and still buy them often at flea markets and such, so it was still right up my alley.This movie is based on an interesting idea that somehow along the way became devoid of fun. So much that in the end I kinda felt sorry for the guy.I have tremendous respect for his dedication and drive to succeed, however collecting should be fun, and as it is mentioned in the movie, collecting takes a long time if you're doing it right and don't have access to tens of thousands of dollars. You WILL get it done, it'll just take a few years.The ridiculous project of building a complete NES collection from scratch in 30 days without using the internet is the driving force of Nintendo Quest. That's 678 games in total.What started out as a dare ended up being a 90 minutes romp across north America, hunting down NES games, following a taciturn collector blowing money in retail stores and on games sold by a few private collectors. It's more or less an hour and a half episode of game chasers with more pressure, less smiles, and more actual drama.While video games revolve around having a good time, I felt strangely sad watching Jay progressively sink into the depths of everything I hate about video game collecting as a cultural phenomenon : Display queens, overblown prices, and the underlying obsession about the rarity and value of extremely bad games.The most disturbing thing about Nintendo Quest is that Jay doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying himself throughout his seemingly excruciating adventure. He stumbles from store to store trying to deal with the pressure of failure and trying to work a way around the cost of absolute stinkers like Stadium events and others.It's not all bad, as the high point of the movie for me was still how Jay repeatedly says that the games he get should have a story attached to them, which is my opinion as well, it's just that those stories shouldn't come from a place of extreme pressure.There are quite a few superb private collections displayed throughout the quest. Another high point for the movie.If I was looking to start collecting retro games after all the hype, Nintendo Quest would've been sure to sober me up real fast about the real essence of the chase : Fun.Still, R.I.P. Spencer, and Jay man, I hope this ridiculous ordeal didn't completely burn you out on gaming, because it sure looked like you had enough of it at the end and was ready to snap.Wish you well.