Best Player
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| Best Player | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Richard Amberg |
| Directed by | Damon Santostefano |
| Starring | Jerry Trainor Jennette McCurdy Amir Talai Janet Varney Nick Benson Jean-Luc Bilodeau |
| Theme music composer | Adam Cohen Loren Gold Big Time Rush (Big Night) Miranda Cosgrove |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Scott McAboy |
| Cinematography | Jon Joffin |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Production companies | Pacific Bay Entertainment Nickelodeon Original Movies |
| Original release | |
| Release |
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Best Player is a 2011 television film that was released on March 12, 2011 starring Jerry Trainor as Quincy "Q" Johnson and Jennette McCurdy as Christina "Prodigy" Saunders, two stars from the hit Nickelodeon show iCarly.[1] Filming started on October 24, 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada[2] and wrapped up production on November 18, 2009.[3]
Plot
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Quincy Johnson (Jerry Trainor) is a barely unemployed adult gamer who lives at home with his parents. Quincy plays video games under the username "Q", and is renowned in the gaming community for his many awards and world records. Much to Quincy's dismay, his parents decide to sell their house, meaning Quincy will need to find a new place of residence. Quincy decides to try to buy the house from them for $175,000. He plans on getting the money from a tournament for a new video game called Black Hole, where the grand prize is $175,500. He discusses the dilemma with his number one fan, Wendell (Amir Talai). While practicing for the tournament, Quincy finds a player named "Prodigy" whom he cannot defeat. Quincy and Wendell decide to find out who Prodigy really is to secure Quincy's chance of winning the tournament, also because Quincy needs a place to stay. Wendell picks Quincy up in an ice cream truck, and finds out that Prodigy lives nearby. They seek a plan to beat Prodigy while together.
When they find Prodigy's house, Quincy discovers that Prodigy is actually a sullen high school girl named Christina Saunders (Jennette McCurdy), ("Chris" for short), who thinks that he is her mom Tracy's (Janet Varney) internet date. But the plan almost fails when Mr. Johnson, Tracy's real Internet date arrives, however Wendell manages to stall him. Quincy decides he will have to go on a date with her, so on his and Tracy's first date, Quincy lies to her, saying that he is a home economics teacher at Chris' school. Tracy tells Chris, in front of Quincy, that if Chris gets any more Fs she will not be allowed to play any video games. The next day, Wendell has set up Quincy to be the home economics teacher at Chris's school. Later, Chris goes to science class and is the first to present her project which Quincy and Wendell had sabotaged the previous night, so that she would fail and not be able to play in the tournament. It goes awry and ends up with Chris getting an A+, and she gloats to Quincy about the $175,500 she will win at the "Black Hole" tournament.
The next day, Quincy asks several boys if any one of them will take Chris to the prom, which is on the same day of the tournament. No one shows any interest and they all leave except Sheldon (Nick Benson) who reveals that he has had an unnoticed crush on Chris. Quincy takes Sheldon to the library and they research pick-up lines on the computer so they can research on how to woo Chris. Quincy then tells Sheldon to sign up for the football tryouts. There, Sheldon is tackled, and Quincy realizes that Chris likes Ash (Jean-Luc Bilodeau). Later on a field trip to a video arcade planned by Quincy, Ash asks Chris to prom much to her delight. Chris, later on, tells Quincy and Tracy that Ash asked her to the prom, and she will be missing the tournament. Quincy assures her there will be more tournaments, and they look on the Internet for some other tournaments, when Chris sees Quincy on a magazine cover about video games. Chris spitefully decides to "destroy" him at the tournament, even rejecting Ash's prom invitation to do so, just then Tracy appears and asks Quincy to leave. After leaving, Wendell tells Quincy that he is also competing in the tournament and kicks Quincy out of his house for choosing Tracy over gaming.
The next day they go to the tournament, Quincy, Wendell and Chris each win in their respective first rounds. Sheldon (going by the name "Shell-Shock") appears, after having been released from the hospital. Quincy admits to Tracy that he loves her and has feelings for her, but Wendell convinces everyone to think it's "smack talk", which inadvertently humiliates and embarrasses Tracy in front of everyone and further worsens the rift between Quincy and Tracy. Tracy, however, who knows that is not true, is not sure about what he said. For the final event, Wendell asks Quincy if he'll work with him to destroy Chris and when they win they will share the award fifty-fifty. Quincy doesn't reply, and jumps on Prodigy/Chris leading everyone on that he will destroy her, but then he works with her to destroy Wendell. But in Quincy's final strike, Wendell and Quincy destroy each other. Chris appears to be the winner, but the game is not over. Sheldon/Shell-Shock, thought to have been defeated, gets up and defeats Chris/Prodigy to win the game.
Ash appears from the crowd to Chris's surprise. He congratulates her despite not winning and says he intended to spend the evening with her anyway, and that there is still time to go to the prom. Quincy apologizes to and reconciles with Tracy and asks her to the prom, to which she accepts and they dance to Big Night performed by Big Time Rush. In the ending credits, you see prom photos of Ash, Tracy, Chris, and Quincy.
Note: Big Time Rush is also featured in the arcade with "City Is Ours".
Cast
- Jerry Trainor as Quincy "Q" Johnson
- Jennette McCurdy as Christina "Prodigy" Saunders ("Chris" for short)
- Amir Talai as Wendell "Big Dub"
- Janet Varney as Tracy Saunders
- Nick Benson as Sheldon "Shell-Shock"
- Jean-Luc Bilodeau as Ash McPhee
- Calum Worthy as Zastrow
- Robert Capron as Laser Boy
References
- ^ Shen, Maxine. New York Post, 19 October 2009, "'iCarly' pals get own movie". Accessed 10 August 2010.
- ^ [1] Archived October 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ [2][dead link]