Games and play, on film

Writing about my experiences with casual gameplay has been a fruitful experience. It’s made me consider the amount of time I spend on games, the way I interact with them, and the reasons I am drawn to certain genres. Simultaneously, it’s also made me a lot more aware of other peoples’ habits, approaches and attitudes toward games. And as I’m both an avid Netflix user and am never one to pass up a potentially meaty blog post topic, I decided that I will make a note every time a game appears in a film or television series I’m watching, in what context it’s used, and its purpose. Behold! A new category is born: gamespotting

Off the top of my head, I can think of plenty of examples where games are used by characters to pass the time, but are quickly discarded when the “serious” work arises – no matter how game-like those pursuits might be:

• Card games are rampant in films today, especially high-stakes gambling, and show roguish qualities in a character, but are used in a cautionary manner (Bond films, 21, Penelope).
• Chess (and Go) games usually take place in smoky professors’ studies or in public parks, and are a great way to show a character’s cleverness and aptitude for math and pattern recognition (as in one brilliant episode from the first season of The Wire).
• Scrabble is a useful tool to explain an anagrammed sentence without too much hassle to the audience (Sneakers, Rosemary’s Baby).
• Crossword puzzles can be a mark of either intelligence or idiocy, depending on how well the character fills in the answers, and if they use a pen or a pencil.
• Games themselves are also used as cautionary tales, when the game blurs the line between itself and reality (WarGames, The Game, Jumanji)

Of course, I’ll also include full reviews of game-specific films, be they documentaries (Wordplay, Assembly Not Required, Second Skin) or films based on games (Super Mario Bros., Silent Hill, Resident Evil).

I’m really looking forward to this exercise. Know of any good films that deal with games or gaming, or have you spotted a game being used casually in media somewhere? Let me know!