Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.
The Gayme Stop: The Wizard
Who would have predicted that a generation of gay kids raised on Atari, Nintendo and all their future iterations would have grown up to form a full-on movement: gaymers?
Anyone familiar with The Wizard, openly gay director Todd Holland’s 1989 adventure movie shouldn’t be all that surprised. When it hit theatres more than 30 years ago, critics savaged the film as nothing more than a feature-length commercial for Nintendo products and Universal Studios. They weren’t wrong: the movie dwells on Nintendo, ignoring all other consoles. The final act of the movie also takes place in Universal Studios Hollywood, making use of the theme park’s attractions and corporate logo for almost a third of the film’s runtime.
Despite the mud-slinging, The Wizard still found a devoted cult following through home video and television showings, and today is considered something of an adolescent classic, not to mention the last of the “80s movie” genre. Fred Savage, then the hottest child star of his day thanks to The Wonder Years, stars as Corey, the misfit son of a twice-divorced dad (Beau Bridges) and the protective older sibling of Jimmy (Luke Edwards), his autistic younger brother. When Corey learns that his parents have decided to institutionalize Jimmy, the pair sets off on a trip to Los Angeles for a new life. Along the way, they cross paths with the beautiful Haley (Jenny Lewis), a tough-talking latchkey kid on her way home to Reno. Corey and Haley immediately clash…until they realize Jimmy’s savant-like ability to win video games. Corey and Haley hatch a plot to win $50,000 at a Nintendo tournament at Universal Studios in hopes of starting a new life. The three use their wits to find their way to LA, trailed by Corey & Jimmy’s parents, older brother (Christian Slater) and a slimy bounty hunter, all of whom want to send Jimmy back to the institution.
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The Wizard is a most curious movie: obviously designed as a marketing campaign for Universal & Nintendo, it somehow shines as a wild kiddie adventure of wish fulfillment (what kid doesn’t want to venture off with friends, sans parents, to a theme park to win a lot of money and play video games?). Also, miraculously, the movie works as a family drama: Corey, Jimmy and company may survive outlandish situations, but the emotions they feel about those situations–and indeed, their dysfunctional family–are very sincere.
We chalk that up to the natural charisma of Savage, Lewis and Edwards, as well as sensitive and clever direction by Holland. He knows exactly the movie Universal and Nintendo hired him to make, but damn it, that doesn’t stop him from telling a story about lovable kids with very real problems, and very real pain. We also suspect that Holland knows something about being a misfit himself, having grown up as a gay kid in the 70s and 80s.
Nostalgia addicts and gaymers will relish The Wizard for its vintage gaming, child stars of yesterday and stylistic throwbacks. Other viewers–particularly those that grew up as or still feel like a misfit kid–will relate to the plight of The Wizard’s characters, and their plucky resilience on an epic adventure. This movie could have been a bit of corporate garbage (see also: Mac & Me, The Flintstones…or better yet, don’t). Todd Holland and his cast make it a delightful romp far better than it deserves to be.
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CommentByMale
“The Wizard” is epic.
Zambos271
“The Wizard” is a classic, epic movie. The final act is magical.
BillyD
Never seen it. Sounds like Rain Main with kids. And lots of product placement.
David Reddish
It’s sophisticated in a different way, and much funnier.
Creamsicle
I’m an adult who still plays video games. The real reason for the popularity of gaming if you ask me is that it is (or at least was) a hobby with a relatively low cost for entry and low time commitment to participate in. Other hobbies tend to revolve around meeting with people and are limited by the availability of other adults. For example, being and outdoorsy family has a significant time commitment to get out to a trailhead, or drive out to enjoy a National Park, and that isn’t equally accessible to everyone.
If you’re a working couple and have kids who need to be entertained, it’s a super low time and cost commitment to drop $500 on a console compared to buy sporting equipment, scheduling time off, and then spending your limited time off planning an entire day’s outing around a hike or kayaking, or something. All the while herding children and keeping them safe.
And it’s actually great because the graphics cards needed to run AAA games on a PC have useful data architectures for Machine Learning and weak-AI training. It’s already revolutionizing entire industries through faster and comprehensive data analysis.
GPT-3 is already capable of replacing many writing jobs
JessPH
So what’s the gay connection in this film besides the openly gay director?
quantum
Sassy female sidekick, nostalgia tripping, Fred Savage was likely an early crush for many of this blog’s consumers, the general theme of escaping your small town for California… It’s really not that big a stretch.
Troyfight
@quantum Disagree. I agree with JessPH – pathetic gay connection; “gaymers” is from this…? …uggh. Rather read an interview with a porn star.