Insert Coin, the Jeff Gerstmann-vehicle Epic Blockbuster on '90s Midway out now (and it rules!)

I grew up on Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam, so a documentary on Midway Games always interested me. After many delays and setbacks due to Covid, the film is out now streaming: https://ondemand.drafthouse.com/film/insert-coin/?msID=5d1f55c6-fd06-4c31-a021-cb230a475b71

Within the first minute, you see Jeff Gerstmann summersault out of an exploding helicopter, guns akimbo, with Dave Lang strapped tandem to him. Ok, not really but you do see Jeff (looks like this was shot years ago) which is cool.

The documentary is extremely good. The best of its kind really. The Console Wars doc this year was solid but like every other game doc it's well-worn material. This is the first game doc I've seen that felt like a good music band doc, actually going into history you didn't know and getting super nerdy instead of surface level.

I highly recommend watching it!

I saw the trailer for it a week or two ago and was immediately interested between it being about Midway as well as our boy Jeffrey being in it. I ended up buying and watching it last night from Alamo Drafthouse's streaming service. It's $16 to buy and $10 to rent, which feels kinda steep IMO. But, I understand they're not YouTube, Netflix, or some other huge streaming service.

I agree it was really good and worth watching if you want some behind the scenes stories from the people who worked on Midway's games ranging from NARC up to stuff like War Gods and a little bit of the PS2 era Mortal Kombat games, as well as the overall company culture that most people outside of their office(s) never saw. It was also nice that they didn't go too much into the controversy about the home ports of Mortal Kombat since I feel like that's been covered to death in any and every video/documentary/written story that talks about the origin of the ESRB, Mortal Kombat, and/or Night Trap.

I also recommend it, but if you're someone who's trying to save money (which a lot of us are doing), I'd wait to see if it shows up on Netflix or some other service that might have it cheaper to rent or buy.

I haven't seen it yet, but immediately I recognized Galloping Ghost Arcade in the trailer, and Doc.

If you haven't been, I highly recommend it. It's about a 40 minute drive outside of Chicago (there's Metra trains that head that way, too). Last time I was in there, it was $20 entry, all games on free-play. Your receipt gets you in and out all day. Largest arcade in the US. Worth the trip if you're in the Midwest.

How can I tell if any of these streaming rentals are 4K? They just say "HD" which I assume means just 1080?

Yeah, the choice of distribution is definitely strange. I'm assuming it will rollout to other services eventually. Makes it harder to recommend. You can at least cast your rental to a Chromecast. $10 rental is fair and I'm happy to support such a cool project. A lot of new rentals are coming out at like $30 now which is nonsense. Or, rather, they are buy only for $30 and only become available as rentals months later. Movies are in such a weird place right now. Getting some awesome movies for free on streaming platforms (Hulu: Run, HBOMax: Wonder Woman 1984), some films refusing to go to VOD (Tenent), and then others wanting you to pay a large fee to see within first couple months. So the value is relative but $10 for an enjoyable film made by a passionate small team (this was a Kickstarter project, if I recall correctly) is a good deal for me.

It's quite good, got a Kickstarter preview awhile ago. It's been in the works for ages.