Welcome to the eleventh installment of Flashback to the Present. I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf.
It’s a shame that kids these days won’t experience going to the video rental place on a Friday night. Picking out a feature that they can enjoy with their friends over some crappy pizza and two liter bottles of Coke was a ritual when I was younger.
The system every customer went through at the video store was surprisingly complex.
You know what you wanted, but you had a 50/50 chance of getting it if it were a new release. If choice one was unavailable, you would then move down to your second choice but, surprisingly, you had worse odds of success if it were a big chain rental spot; I doubt very much that Blockbuster had a copy of Buckaroo Banzai.
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| “Where can I find Ice Pirates and Turk 182? I’m having a Urich-thon!” |
Finally, the best odds were on option three – which is basically wandering around the store until you see something, shrug and check it out.
Something like 1989’s The Wizard.
The Wizard was a pretty hyped-up flick when it came out in 1989 because it was fundamentally a 90 minute commercial for the Nintendo Entertainment System. However, the truly mind-blowing thing about this flick isn’t the product placement jamming itself down your eye-holes every 2 minutes, it’s the fact that the movie’s story is, well, really depressing.
I’ll explain cutting away from any of the chipper advertising references to Mario or Ninja Gaiden:
Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) was left in a fragile mental state after witnessing his twin sister’s drowning. They never really put a name to his issue, but think of it as an advanced psychological autism. Hence, why Jimmy says few words (one being “California” – the place his sister died) and spends his days playing with blocks.
After the death, Jimmy’s family is shattered; Jimmy lives under his mother’s care in an institution while his two brothers Corey (Fred Savage) and Nick (Christian Slater) live with their father Sam (Beau Bridges). Sick of the situation, Corey breaks Jimmy out of the institution and, because Jimmy insists, they head out for California. Sam and Nick take after them and Jimmy’s mother hires a P.I., Putnam (Will Seltzer), to track the boys down.
On their journey, a girl joins up with the two named Haley (Jenny Lewis) and also learn that Jimmy is a video game prodigy. Using Jimmy’s skills, they hustle various people at the arcades to make enough money for their trip. The three must keep one step ahead of Putnam, Nick and Sam by running through some of the biggest plot-holes I’ve ever seen.
Eventually, Corey and Haley learn of a huge video game tournament with the grand prize being $50,000. The three enter Jimmy with the plan to split the money.
The climax takes place at the tournament and Jimmy “surprisingly” wins the prize. Nick and Sam catch up to the kids and head home, closer than ever. On their way home, the family passes the Cabazon Dinosaurs (a pretty rad spot best remembered in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure) where Jimmy fusses his way out of the car. It ends up Jimmy just wanted to go to the last spot his family was happy so he can leave a few of his sister’s mementos as a memorial.
Kind of depressing, no?
Now it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty; there is more product placement in this movie than a NASCAR race. Your retinas will be smothered to death in Nintendo, Universal Studios and everything between.
Hell, when this movie hit the theaters you were given a free copy of Nintendo Power just to look at the games you’d inevitably beg your parents to buy until they cave in so you’d shut up. I’m not even making a mountain out of a mole hill here. Even Roger Ebert said it was “a cynical exploitation film with a lot of commercial plugs” and this was the dude who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
Yet, it has received minor cult-status for one reason and one reason alone: Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson).
Seriously, if there was a huge picture book of the 90s, on the cover it would be a picture of Lucas Barton wearing his duster and sliding on his Nintendo Power Glove. Underneath he would be quoted as saying, “I love the Power Glove. It’s so bad.” Lucas wasn’t a just a 90s kid – he was the harbinger of the 1990s. In fact, if you were to rearrange the letters in Barton and fit them numerically over the song “Groove is in the Heart” you have—
— crap; I’m getting word from the FOG! editors that I need to slow my roll on the whole “Lucas Barton/Zack Morris/ Kevin McCallister conspiracy” and wrap this up. Fine, but I’ll have my manifesto written up on abovetopsecret.com very soon.
The Wizard is really only for those that want to revel in the weird nostalgia of late-eighties/early-nineties; you know – obtuse product placement, unusually depressing yet shallow storylines, heavy camera filters and lots of wide angle shots.
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| And, yes, that’s Tobey Maguire with a mullet on the left. |
It truly is a terrible film.
Until next time!
