I have recently finished my studies for the year and have 3 months off. So I am drinking like a bastard. I had finished 2 litres of box wine by about three in the morning and, as is usual for me in that state, I desired some accompanyment to my booze. My first thought went to food, but I had already eaten the last can of spaghetti, so I turned my mind to entertainment. And nothing goes with two litres of Merlot quite like watching The Wizard at 3 in the morning.

Having watched it again I can now say that it is absurd beyond anything I had remembered or seen since. This may not be a surprise to anyone, but nonetheless I feel compeled to get this out of me, and teach you all a new way to hate it.

It is known to all the the whole film is just an ad for Super Mario 3. This gets me to my poilitical economy theories as they relate to mass media. Our society is based on constant growth, like cancer, and as a result we overproduce to an ridiculous degree. This means that consumption cannot be natural, it has to be created. This is obvious in the evolution of advertising from being about the product, to being about a lifestyle the product creates and finally to our current state of our lives being worse because we don't have the product.

So our media, our messages, are strip mined out and advertising is put in it's place. This has gotten to the point where that caterwauling cum-dump Fergie has been paid to mention a shoe store in songs on her new album, no product, just ads. These days it is quite sophisticated and even in the past, shows like Transformers and GI Joe did an admirable job.

This is what makes The Wizard so fucking baffling.

Shows like Transformers worked as vectors for product placement because they were cool. This made the toy cool and we all bought them. The Wizard is not cool. It is the script to a Lifetime mid-day movie that someone wrote NES in a bunch of times, I mean, Christian Slater and Fred Savage are the two most logical identifyer points for the target buyer. If Christian Slater and Fred Savage are the two things your movie does right, you have seriously fucked up and need to sit down and think about what you have done.

Nothing about this sells to the target in any sensible way. I don't want to think about a terribly autistic child that has ceased all emotional function after the death of his mother when I play Super Mario 3. But, good job The Wizard, now I fucking do. Nothing immerses me in the whimsy of Miyamoto more than autism, ha ha whee, autism's here! Now the party can start! I mean what the fuck were they thinking?!?

Then there is the character of the girl who travels with them and this just stuns me. She is a 13 year old girl who wanders the highways alone and knows all about gambling and grifting people. That IS a fucking Lifetime movie, and it is fucking depressing. I mean break the reality of that character down for a second. There is no way that she hasn't been all kinds of abused. She must have more trucker semen in her than a flannel clad ballsack.

And they use this to sell Super Mario 3? Wow, autism AND a homeless girl who will be dead before she is an adult! Fantastic, I'm ready to explore the colourful world of Mario now! And the worst part is that Mario kinda looks trucker-ish so now I can't see him without seeing him getting a blowjob from an infant wanting to get a few miles down the road.

This movie flies in the face of purpose. It does not succeed at anything, not even at it's souless task of Mario whoring (great theres that image again). I wish I could see the thought processes that got this movie made, or the Nintendo execs who thought this was a good movie to attatch their product to. I mean goddamn, I knew this movie was a fucking abortion, but now I realize just how truly bad it is. I'm not saying "fail", or "fuck up" or any similar word now. Just "Wizard".