Pump Up the Volume (1990)

Two thumbs up from S & E
Released between Heathers and True Romance, this movie is an often forgotten Christian Slater classic. Full of teen angst BS, it's also a heart-felt story with believable characters on all sides. If you didn't see it before the age of 20, you probably will think it's juvinile in it's outlook, but if you did, it's a nice reminder of how it felt to grow up post Reagan and pre internet.

Wave of Mutilation ...

Having watched this again for the second time in my life I have to say that I'm surprised at how well this film holds up. Notice - I called it a film and not a movie. The last time I saw this was in a dark theatre the weekend it was released in 1990. Christian Slater probably delivers his most memorable performance yet in this film despite the popularity of [[ASIN:B000059PPG Heathers ]] which is actually dominated by Winona Ryder.

"Pump up the Volume" was an underground hit and must-see VHS rental for about 10 years for anyone who was listening to grunge, a teenager, trapped inside a suburban nightmare or just feeling isolated. The idea of the system being inaccessible, out-of-touch and overt and too much in-your-business still resonates just as strong today as it did then.

Strangely, "Pump up the Volume" is one of the best and seminal `John Hughes' style Teen Eighties movies from that era and being released in 1990, might just make it the last. The previous year produced the much darker book-end to that style with [[ASIN:B0000C3I99 Dream a Little Dream]], but "Pump up the Volume" trumps it well and seemingly closes the door on High School forever, or at least until the release of [[ASIN:B000FVQM2Y Brick]] in 2005 or [[ASIN:B000IZJZIU Accepted]] in 2006.

Overall, a good movie, worth seeing again even though some of the soundtrack is severely dated. The Pixies "Wave of Mutilation" holds strong though and delivers a nice montage sequence mid-way through the film, making a nice comment of suburban blight.

Like it or not, this movie ROCKS big time...!!!
This movie is not just a "cliche" of teenagers not being understood by their parents. It is more than that, and has different levels. Try to understand the differences between living in the city and a very small old fashioned town in the States; and how much it affects an adolescent the moving out from one to another, and how to canalize the psychological effects.
On the other hand the adolescence is a very interesting period of our lives in which we are looking for our own identity and personality (not an easy thing); and you can easily be influence by anyone who seems to have an answer, which in the movie Happy Harry doesn't really have many answers, but at least encourages people to look for them, and not just do what you're told to do, and live a stereotype kind of life (like the perfect "A" girl), yes...?.
On another point you can see the typical disturbed administration and teachers of many schools, criticized in videos like Pink Floyd's magnificent "Happiest days of our lives", in Pump Up the Volume is criticized and beaten in the same way (beat the system with a good proposal is a nice fantasy to fight for...). You can see the different kind of parents we all have. The different kind of classmates we are. You can also see the way a person can act when is protected by being anonymous. Also there's a very deep meaning in the sentence Harry says: "look what the sixties did to them" or something like that: it means that most of those revels whit out a cause or stoned hippies ended up being, is just a corporate employee or part of the system they were "fighting" in the beginning; so, as I said the movie has different levels and it is a very good one. I'm sorry for those of you who think is not, go to a physiologist first, then watch the movie and see if you get it next time.