Lost Classics, Volume 2

Every now and again, the various movie channels near the top of my television's guide will stop showing the same five films on their regular three-hour rotations and throws in a random movie from back in the day. And I do mean random - we're not talking blockbuster or award-winners. I can only assume they were lumped in as a package deal for a cable channel getting the rights to a more famous movie. But, even though they might not have been box office gold, these movies still hold a special place in my memory banks. Occasionally, I feel like we should celebrate these obscure movies from my childhood, in what will be a who-knows-how-frequent feature: Rakauskas's Ramblings Lost Classics. Today's movie is 1989's "The Wizard." Believe me when I tell you they don't get any more random than this.

The film stars Fred Savage, smack in the middle of his time on "The Wonder Years" and well before his career was eclipsed by his younger brother and "Boy Meets World". He plays Corey, whose younger brother Jimmy is a catatonic video game wizard who only ever says the word "California". The two come from a broken home and the boys' mother and stepfather have just put Jimmy in an institution because, in the 80s, movie parents with difficult children were always looking for the easy way out. Corey breaks him out (after all what 14 year-old can't break someone out from a high-security hospital) and plans for the two boys to run away to California. After their escape they are chased by an evil child-hunter who is determined to return Jimmy to the institution as well their biological father and brother, played by Beau Bridges and Christian Slater, who probably would rather we forget they were in this movie. Along the way they meet a girl named Haley, who apparently has no parents of her own and is on her way to Reno. When she learns about Jimmy's video game prowess and tells the boys about a video game competition in California with a $50,000 prize.

As the trio hitches their way across the country (fantastic lesson for the children), they begin to scam people by wagering on video games with Jimmy as a ringer. (Another great lesson for the kids - use the mentally handicapped to your own advantage!) Seeing as how Jimmy is most likely autistic, this part feels as though the writers pretty much copy and pasted the script from "Rain Man", which came out just a year earlier. At some point during their shenanigans they come in contact with the typical 80s villain: blond-haired, rich and a douchebag, who absolutely would have been played by Billy Zabka if this movie had been made just 3 years earlier. The kid wows them with all his new toys, specifically the Nintendo "Power Glove" which was supposed to revolutionize how people played video games but is now much better known for popping into random movie whenever one of the characters needs to make a cheap robot costume. Anyway, he beats Jimmy at the game and takes their money, but eventually the kids make it to the tournament (again, no parents needed to sign up), Jimmy beats the preppy, evil kid while playing a brand new video game (Super Mario Bros #3 making its world-wide debut in graphics which were amazing at the time but now look incredibly simple) and everyone lives happily ever after.

"The Wizard" came out about the time Nintendo was starting to really move into America's consciousness. Now, movies based on video games had come out before, but what Nintendo decided to do with this film was scrap the idea of making what amounted to 90-minute commercials for one or two of their games and just made a 100-minute movie for their entire gaming system. I remember seeing the movie at the time and not thinking anything of it, but 32 year-old me couldn't help but notice the blatant product placement. From the kid making a big deal of revealing the Power Glove and the 10-15 video games which are given extended screen time to the huge show of debuting Super Mario Bros #3, the producers were not shy about the purpose of this movie. Honestly, with some age and wisdom I realize that this wasn't even a commercial in the form of a movie, it was straight-up propaganda. Think about it: if this movie to be believed, not only can playing video games well make you some money, it can spring you from a mental institution and reunite a broken family. According to this film there is no limit to the power of Nintendo.

Obviously, I didn't understand the concept of product placement at the time, because I was 9 when this movie came out. I just thought this was a movie about video games, which I enjoyed playing (and still do). What amuses me now is that in reading some old reviews from when the movie first came out, many professional critics blasted the movie as being too much of a commercial. What exactly were they expecting? I mean, it is one thing to go see what you think is going to be a normal a movie only to discover that there is a visible product in every single shot. However, this movie never promised to be anything like that - it was about video games, they are almost as much a star of the film as Fred Savage and we all knew that going in. This would be like screening a movie made by the creators of "Glee" and then being outraged when the characters on screen break in to song; at some point you just have to accept your fate. What is even more amazing to me is to see how far video games have come in such a short time. That is the real reason why "The Wizard", in all its awful-graphic glory, has become a lost classic.