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Pump Up The Volume
(directed by Allan Moyle, 1990)
Psst! Wanna know a secret? I just voted for Pump Up The Volume as my #1 movie for the MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's. I did it on an instinct because I had always loved the movie, but it's been ... I'd say six years since I last saw the movie. Well, after voting for it, I decided that I should watch it again, just to see if I had made the right decision, even though it's too late. And you know what? I feel quite good that I picked it as my #1. Actually, it's kind of, in a way, like my #1 choice for the millenium movies -- Ghost World. For starters, both feature an artistic, black haired, foul mouthed teenage girl in a lead role - Pump has Samantha Mathis, who plays Christian Slater's love interest, Ghost has Thora Birch, of course. And they're both about young adults who are sick of how boring the world is.
Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) has just moved to Arizona with his parents. He's a shy, nerdy guy, who doesn't talk to anybody at his high school, eats lunch by himself, makes good grades, etc. His dad is some big administrator for the school board. His parents are ridiculously unaware (but I can let it go) that he's downstairs in the basement broadcasting live on his ham radio set (a present from his parents so he could communicate to his old friends back on the east coast -- remember, this is 1990) under the name "Happy Harry Hardon." He's a dirty mouth, teenaged Howard Stern, who plays music, pretends to jerk off, and reads letter on the air from kids at his high school who write to him - and if they include a phone number, he calls them. Nobody at his high school knows that shy Mark Hunter is the rude underground radio personality that they all love and listen to every night at 10:00. However, arty and funky Nora Diniro (Samantha Mathis) who writes to Happy Harry Hardon all the time (calling herself the "Eat Me, Beat Me Lady") and has a deep crush on the mystery talker, is on Mark's trail. Eventually she closes in on him and from there they both work together in keeping the spirits of all of the disillusioned teenagers up.
Their school -- especially their bitchy old female principal -- is a real nightmare -- and a real treat to movie goers like me. Pump Up The Volume could never be made today -- not in our current Glee society where high school is "JUST THE BEST!", the best time of your life, where everybody gets up and dances with handicapped kids in wheelchairs, geeky gay students and fat ass ugly girls who tromp on some stage and sing their pizza stuffed mouths off. Although, Pump Up The Volume does have its share of sap -- there's a gay teenager who gets bullied and a guy who is so geeky and lonely that he actually commits suicide. But, it's all a part of the nightmare of life -- Pump Up The Volume admits that life is hard, and cruel, and that the only way to survive is to tough it out and survive it. There's no "It Gets Better" message really planted here, although these people are certainly looking for something better. These kids are trapped in a system that expects them to over perform -- or else. The psychotic principal expels students and psychologically manipulates others into dropping out if their SAT scores are low because she wants to have the best school in the country. Mark Hunter, or Happy Harry Hardon, is their voice of thunder, their sound of sanity, their primal public figure. He unleashes beastly energies that are being stunted around him, he is a God for anarchists and rebels. And he is very well played by Christian Slater. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the movie of his career. It's not a perfect movie, but it works. It's inspiring and enjoyable.
Go watch Pump Up The Volume and put it high on your MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's list and TALK HARD!
(directed by Allan Moyle, 1990)
Psst! Wanna know a secret? I just voted for Pump Up The Volume as my #1 movie for the MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's. I did it on an instinct because I had always loved the movie, but it's been ... I'd say six years since I last saw the movie. Well, after voting for it, I decided that I should watch it again, just to see if I had made the right decision, even though it's too late. And you know what? I feel quite good that I picked it as my #1. Actually, it's kind of, in a way, like my #1 choice for the millenium movies -- Ghost World. For starters, both feature an artistic, black haired, foul mouthed teenage girl in a lead role - Pump has Samantha Mathis, who plays Christian Slater's love interest, Ghost has Thora Birch, of course. And they're both about young adults who are sick of how boring the world is.
Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) has just moved to Arizona with his parents. He's a shy, nerdy guy, who doesn't talk to anybody at his high school, eats lunch by himself, makes good grades, etc. His dad is some big administrator for the school board. His parents are ridiculously unaware (but I can let it go) that he's downstairs in the basement broadcasting live on his ham radio set (a present from his parents so he could communicate to his old friends back on the east coast -- remember, this is 1990) under the name "Happy Harry Hardon." He's a dirty mouth, teenaged Howard Stern, who plays music, pretends to jerk off, and reads letter on the air from kids at his high school who write to him - and if they include a phone number, he calls them. Nobody at his high school knows that shy Mark Hunter is the rude underground radio personality that they all love and listen to every night at 10:00. However, arty and funky Nora Diniro (Samantha Mathis) who writes to Happy Harry Hardon all the time (calling herself the "Eat Me, Beat Me Lady") and has a deep crush on the mystery talker, is on Mark's trail. Eventually she closes in on him and from there they both work together in keeping the spirits of all of the disillusioned teenagers up.
Their school -- especially their bitchy old female principal -- is a real nightmare -- and a real treat to movie goers like me. Pump Up The Volume could never be made today -- not in our current Glee society where high school is "JUST THE BEST!", the best time of your life, where everybody gets up and dances with handicapped kids in wheelchairs, geeky gay students and fat ass ugly girls who tromp on some stage and sing their pizza stuffed mouths off. Although, Pump Up The Volume does have its share of sap -- there's a gay teenager who gets bullied and a guy who is so geeky and lonely that he actually commits suicide. But, it's all a part of the nightmare of life -- Pump Up The Volume admits that life is hard, and cruel, and that the only way to survive is to tough it out and survive it. There's no "It Gets Better" message really planted here, although these people are certainly looking for something better. These kids are trapped in a system that expects them to over perform -- or else. The psychotic principal expels students and psychologically manipulates others into dropping out if their SAT scores are low because she wants to have the best school in the country. Mark Hunter, or Happy Harry Hardon, is their voice of thunder, their sound of sanity, their primal public figure. He unleashes beastly energies that are being stunted around him, he is a God for anarchists and rebels. And he is very well played by Christian Slater. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the movie of his career. It's not a perfect movie, but it works. It's inspiring and enjoyable.
Go watch Pump Up The Volume and put it high on your MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's list and TALK HARD!