Twisted Psycho: Archives

June 23, 2008

Pump Up the Volume (1990)

Sebastian and I decided to walk down and get us all some subs for lunch, and the going out of business Boogie Woogie cd, dvd, and video game store, is still open, and now everything is up to 75% off.
So we swung in to check and see if they had any more good deals.
All their used dvds are now another $3.50 off, so movies are super duper cheap.
I found buried amongst some truly horrible titles, the 1990 film Pump up the Volume starring Christian Slater.
Anyone remember this one?

When a book on Lenny Bruce falls into the right young, disaffected, youthful hands, the FCC has its work cut out for it. Christian Slater plays a quiet high school student whose alter ego "Hard Harry" cries injustice and spins punk and rap records from his basement at night for a growing fan base who finds his radio frequency. When the ultra-conservative school administration starts swinging, Hard Harry's fans rally, and Slater gets the girl.

The story line is a little more complicated than that little blurb though.
Slater is a young high school teen, who has moved to a new suburb in Arizona because his dad is the new school commissioner or some big named position, and he hasn't made any friends, and the school really sucks.
The principal has been slowly and systematically expelling students she feels are losers, yet keeping them on the student roster to be able to keep the government funds for "the good of the school."
The student body is disenchanted, and going through the motions just trying to please their parents and the teachers, and be whatever the adults in their lives tell them to be.
When Slater starts up his pirate radio show talking about how it all sucks and to just be who they are, be crazy, do what you want, speak out, and whatever they label you as, so be it, the students start feeling alive again.
After the call in of a young student who wants to commit suicide and then does, the school and police start trying to find out who Hard Harry is, and shut down his radio station.
What happens after that is that the students don't want to calm down, they don't want the radio show to end, and Hard Harry and the students keep fighting back in whatever ways they can.

And unlike most teen movies of the 80's and 90's, there is no prom, there is no wrong side of the tracks love story with a super happy ending and pretty pink dress, this is teen rebellion with all it's angst and problems, from suicide, to coming out of the closet in a defining moment kind of way.
Instead of the usual stereotyping of being a fag, Hard Harry instead tells the young male caller how he finds the bravery of people to be amazing, and with that he signs off for the night leaving his listening fans to ponder the coming out confession and who they are as well.

The movie has it's absolutely silly moments as well, it's truly stupid in some parts, but hey, no movie is without it's flaws.
But Pump Up the Volume is a really decent flick and has an amazing soundtrack.
Liquid Jesus' anthem- Stand, to Chagall Guevera's Tale O' The Twister, and Concrete Blonde, Peter Murphy, The Pixies, Soundgarden and Sonic Youth.
The opening song that is played several times throughout the film, Everybody Knows, is done by both Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde in the film, yet Cohen's version is noticeably missing from the soundtrack.
I prefer his version over the latter myself.
His voice is raw and real, and his version is slowed down a bit, allowing you to hear every word, and really get a feel for the meaning behind the lyrics.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Anyway, it's a good a movie, on a scale of 1-5 stars, I give it a 3.5, and only that low because of some of the silliness.
I really think they could have left that out and had a truly remarkable teen rebellion film on their hands that was unlike every other teen movie past or present.

Posted by Kat at 12:51 AM on June 23, 2008 | Comments [0] | Movies