So here’s the deal: my dear old friend Alecia Thomas asked me to check out this flick for VHS of the Week. Even though Christian Slater is 65 weasels in a human suit* (TM Kinloch/Principe ’95) I felt obliged to honor said request. Obviously I have already written about Christian Slater extensively as he appears in approximately 75% of all films released between 1985 and 1995 (note: this figure is completely made up and most certainly inaccurate). Seriously though...dude was omnipresent for a good long while there. But then he smoked a ton of crack and punched a woman and chowed on some cops and his career went into the shitter. He was so terrible to his first wife that she actually slit his throat! 12-inch wound, y’all! I believe he survived said throat slitting...but then his character on Mr Robot is a ghost...so who can really be certain? That said....who feels like watching a Christian Slater movie!? According to the back of the VHS box Dixie Whatley of At the Movies calls Pump up the Volume “A fantastic Film!” Here I feel I need to mention that on March 17th, 1992 my dad and I stood in the Will Call line at the Boston Garden for so long to retrieve our tickets for U2’s Zoo TV tour that we missed half of The Pixies set. Now...we’d been waiting a long ass time in a long ass line...and JUST before we finally got up to the window Dixie Whatley stormed to the front of the line and cut us...sayin’ she needed to get in immediately cuz she was a hotshot reporter and important and whatever. Real jerk about it, she was...and I’m still mad about it 27 years later! A pox on her household and all that. But anyway...she makes a decent point: Pump up the Volume is actually a pretty solid flick. It’s also, I would imagine, incomprehensible to anyone currently under the age of 30. It’s about a guy on something called the RADIO that people, like, listen to? He’s, like, an influencer with only 60 followers because Al Gore hasn’t created the internet yet. The film opens with a voice asking “Did you ever get the feeling that everything going on in America is completely fucked up?” Umm...this is 1990....JUST YOU WAIT, my friend! That voice belongs to high school student Mark Fisher (Slater) who is friendless and cripplingly shy but who also runs a pirate radio station out of his parent’s basement. His radio alter ego, Happy Harry Hard-On, is a brilliant, rebellious social commentator who is hornier than a 10-peckered owl (how horny is that? VERY). Dude’s show always includes long stretches where he claims to be jerking off onto his own face (note: no one can actually see you on the radio, bro--might as well have at it). The kids at his high school love this bullshit. Now to be fair--his intro music is Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”...which means that this film was my first exposure to the music of Leonard Cohen...which I immediately purchased and loved. He also chews a shit ton of Blackjack chewing gum...which I immediately purchased and fucking hated. Shit is GROSS! So Harry the Hard-On is an instant folk hero and the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads--they all think he’s a righteous dude. The kids trade bootleg copies of his shows on cassette and then bring them to shop class where the teachers can hear Harry talk about his cock ring and spin “Girls: Get Buttnaked and Fuck” by Ice-T. Teachers be freaking out from the jump...except for the super chill gold vest and bolo tie-wearing lady English Lit teacher...who is a character in approximately every* high school film ever made (note: exact figure). It’s cool though because Harry/Mark’s dad is the new school superintendent because of course he is. Meanwhile, fellow student and girl whose Viper Room outing with River Phoenix ended shittily Samantha Mathis (Nora) is determined to figure out Hard-One's true identity. She thinks she has a pretty good clue early in the film when Mark/Harry comes to the library to check out Lenny Bruce’s “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People”...possibly because Harry the Hard-On spends his time exclusively talking dirty and influencing people. Dude is pretty much dead to rites from the get go. It’s the biggest non-mystery mystery in cinematic history. Since Harry’s dad is a public school bigwig he naturally has a drawer full of top secret paperwork in his desk at home.....for Harry to steal and read on the air. Ohhhh!!! One night he starts his show by calling the school’s peckerhead guidance counselor and confronting him about expelling a fellow student for being pregnant. Dude tries to deny it but Harry says he can “smell a lie like a fart in a car.” I realize that I have unconsciously quoted this line incessantly over the last 30 years. Harry does his usual “we gotta stick it to the man” bit and then goes about opening his fan mail on the air all willy nilly. He’s got some sexy letters from Nora (“jack me, push me, pull me, TALK HARD!) which is cool...and also a letter from a kid who wants to kill himself...which is less cool. Harry calls the kid on the phone (he’s got a contraption that disguises his voice on air...but won’t the people he calls just hear his real voice and know who he is? Lazy filmmaking right here). The kid asks Harry if he should kill himself and he’s all “fuck if I know, dude...life’s kinda shitty.” So the kid hangs up and does the deed. The school administration are predictably displeased and blame the Hard-On for this kid’s suicide. Harry is mad freaked out so he announces that he is retiring from his show...only to un-retire less than 30 seconds later. Only Jay-Z retired for less time. He tells his audience that they shouldn’t be killing themselves...but that they should go CRAZY! We are then treated to a montage of the entire teenage cast of the movie doing just that: Nora has a one-person mosh pit alone in her bedroom, the preppy girl whose folks want her to go to Yale puts a bunch of metal shit in the microwave and blows up her kitchen (there are few actual characters in this film...just “types”), the punk rock kid who looks like Billie Joe Armstrong circa the Warning album makes punk rock faces, the fat kid who sells bootlegs of the show wails on his bongos, Harry fucks a blow up fuck doll on his couch, etc. All of this “mayhem” is set to the grillionth unnecessary cover of MC5’s “Kick out the Jams” (sorry Bad Brains feat. Henry Rollins). In case you can’t already tell, this movie has a pretty boss ass soundtrack. I’d argue that “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Version)” far surpasses the version on Doolittle and might just be the best Pixies song there is. Here I’d like to point out that the writer/director of this film Allan Moyle also directed the generally terrible Empire Records...which also has a totally listenable soundtrack. Anyway...the next day HarryMark finds the school in complete chaos. They’ve, like, called in the feds and shit and dude is on the front page of the local newspaper. Someone has spray painted “Creswood is a Maggot Pusswad” in the cafeteria...which raises the ire of the school principal...who just so happens to be named Mrs Creswood. Nora keeps running after MarkHarry but dude is still all “humina humina you got the wrong guy!” The school holds an emergency PTA meeting or whatever and moms and dads be freaking out but the girl who blew up her microwave shows up with a bandaid on her nose and tells them that Harry is the voice of their generation, maaaan. Dudn’t matter to them...they want to lock this motherfucker UNDER the jail! Nora finally just shows up at his house (how she knows where she lives we do not know) and finds him burning his fan mail in a gas grill. Shirtless, of course. I mean...that grill has gotta be hot. Say what you will about Christian Slater; the man could fill out a pair of dungarees. Nora seems to think so too so she decides to join him in toplessness. My friend Alecia says Samantha Mathis’ boobs are the best part of this movie sooooo I’ll just say that it’s rude to disagree. Unfortunately the cops come before they can ball. So that blows. Now things just start to get stupid dumb. The FCC and the FBI show up and the principal starts expelling people for no reason...but then it’s revealed there’s this massive conspiracy where the school has been wantonly expelling kids with bad grades so they can claim the title of the high school with the highest nationwide SAT average. It’s kind of like that current scandal with Aunt Becky from Full House...except not at all. Harry Hard-On Sr. finds out about this and fires Principal Cresswood and all of the bad teachers...so that’s all well and good. But the fuzz is closing in on Harry so he has to take his show on the road. Literally. He loads all of his gear into Nora’s jeep wrangler and broadcasts while rolling around town. He spins some vintage 80’s Soundgarden and that tune “Hi Dad...I’m in Jail” which I’m shocked to learn is Was (Not Was). Like...that band with the stupid ass dinosaur song?? Am I missing something there?? Right...so...eventually the authorities locate the jeep and and there’s a big helicopter chase scene but the dude keeps broadcasting and shouting random shit like “seize the air!” and “this school sucks!” Nora drives him straight toward the football field where the entire town has gathered to listen to his broadcast. He gets a hero’s welcome from his fellow students...even though he’s totally shy friendless Mark with a ring-less cock. The cops bust up his radio gear and slap the Kuffs on that sumbitch and charge him with suicide murder or whatever. Before he’s led away he faces his followers and yells “Talk Hard!” The end.
Pump Up the Volume
Pump Up the Volume
Pump Up the Volume
So here’s the deal: my dear old friend Alecia Thomas asked me to check out this flick for VHS of the Week. Even though Christian Slater is 65 weasels in a human suit* (TM Kinloch/Principe ’95) I felt obliged to honor said request. Obviously I have already written about Christian Slater extensively as he appears in approximately 75% of all films released between 1985 and 1995 (note: this figure is completely made up and most certainly inaccurate). Seriously though...dude was omnipresent for a good long while there. But then he smoked a ton of crack and punched a woman and chowed on some cops and his career went into the shitter. He was so terrible to his first wife that she actually slit his throat! 12-inch wound, y’all! I believe he survived said throat slitting...but then his character on Mr Robot is a ghost...so who can really be certain? That said....who feels like watching a Christian Slater movie!? According to the back of the VHS box Dixie Whatley of At the Movies calls Pump up the Volume “A fantastic Film!” Here I feel I need to mention that on March 17th, 1992 my dad and I stood in the Will Call line at the Boston Garden for so long to retrieve our tickets for U2’s Zoo TV tour that we missed half of The Pixies set. Now...we’d been waiting a long ass time in a long ass line...and JUST before we finally got up to the window Dixie Whatley stormed to the front of the line and cut us...sayin’ she needed to get in immediately cuz she was a hotshot reporter and important and whatever. Real jerk about it, she was...and I’m still mad about it 27 years later! A pox on her household and all that. But anyway...she makes a decent point: Pump up the Volume is actually a pretty solid flick. It’s also, I would imagine, incomprehensible to anyone currently under the age of 30. It’s about a guy on something called the RADIO that people, like, listen to? He’s, like, an influencer with only 60 followers because Al Gore hasn’t created the internet yet. The film opens with a voice asking “Did you ever get the feeling that everything going on in America is completely fucked up?” Umm...this is 1990....JUST YOU WAIT, my friend! That voice belongs to high school student Mark Fisher (Slater) who is friendless and cripplingly shy but who also runs a pirate radio station out of his parent’s basement. His radio alter ego, Happy Harry Hard-On, is a brilliant, rebellious social commentator who is hornier than a 10-peckered owl (how horny is that? VERY). Dude’s show always includes long stretches where he claims to be jerking off onto his own face (note: no one can actually see you on the radio, bro--might as well have at it). The kids at his high school love this bullshit. Now to be fair--his intro music is Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”...which means that this film was my first exposure to the music of Leonard Cohen...which I immediately purchased and loved. He also chews a shit ton of Blackjack chewing gum...which I immediately purchased and fucking hated. Shit is GROSS! So Harry the Hard-On is an instant folk hero and the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads--they all think he’s a righteous dude. The kids trade bootleg copies of his shows on cassette and then bring them to shop class where the teachers can hear Harry talk about his cock ring and spin “Girls: Get Buttnaked and Fuck” by Ice-T. Teachers be freaking out from the jump...except for the super chill gold vest and bolo tie-wearing lady English Lit teacher...who is a character in approximately every* high school film ever made (note: exact figure). It’s cool though because Harry/Mark’s dad is the new school superintendent because of course he is. Meanwhile, fellow student and girl whose Viper Room outing with River Phoenix ended shittily Samantha Mathis (Nora) is determined to figure out Hard-One's true identity. She thinks she has a pretty good clue early in the film when Mark/Harry comes to the library to check out Lenny Bruce’s “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People”...possibly because Harry the Hard-On spends his time exclusively talking dirty and influencing people. Dude is pretty much dead to rites from the get go. It’s the biggest non-mystery mystery in cinematic history. Since Harry’s dad is a public school bigwig he naturally has a drawer full of top secret paperwork in his desk at home.....for Harry to steal and read on the air. Ohhhh!!! One night he starts his show by calling the school’s peckerhead guidance counselor and confronting him about expelling a fellow student for being pregnant. Dude tries to deny it but Harry says he can “smell a lie like a fart in a car.” I realize that I have unconsciously quoted this line incessantly over the last 30 years. Harry does his usual “we gotta stick it to the man” bit and then goes about opening his fan mail on the air all willy nilly. He’s got some sexy letters from Nora (“jack me, push me, pull me, TALK HARD!) which is cool...and also a letter from a kid who wants to kill himself...which is less cool. Harry calls the kid on the phone (he’s got a contraption that disguises his voice on air...but won’t the people he calls just hear his real voice and know who he is? Lazy filmmaking right here). The kid asks Harry if he should kill himself and he’s all “fuck if I know, dude...life’s kinda shitty.” So the kid hangs up and does the deed. The school administration are predictably displeased and blame the Hard-On for this kid’s suicide. Harry is mad freaked out so he announces that he is retiring from his show...only to un-retire less than 30 seconds later. Only Jay-Z retired for less time. He tells his audience that they shouldn’t be killing themselves...but that they should go CRAZY! We are then treated to a montage of the entire teenage cast of the movie doing just that: Nora has a one-person mosh pit alone in her bedroom, the preppy girl whose folks want her to go to Yale puts a bunch of metal shit in the microwave and blows up her kitchen (there are few actual characters in this film...just “types”), the punk rock kid who looks like Billie Joe Armstrong circa the Warning album makes punk rock faces, the fat kid who sells bootlegs of the show wails on his bongos, Harry fucks a blow up fuck doll on his couch, etc. All of this “mayhem” is set to the grillionth unnecessary cover of MC5’s “Kick out the Jams” (sorry Bad Brains feat. Henry Rollins). In case you can’t already tell, this movie has a pretty boss ass soundtrack. I’d argue that “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Version)” far surpasses the version on Doolittle and might just be the best Pixies song there is. Here I’d like to point out that the writer/director of this film Allan Moyle also directed the generally terrible Empire Records...which also has a totally listenable soundtrack. Anyway...the next day HarryMark finds the school in complete chaos. They’ve, like, called in the feds and shit and dude is on the front page of the local newspaper. Someone has spray painted “Creswood is a Maggot Pusswad” in the cafeteria...which raises the ire of the school principal...who just so happens to be named Mrs Creswood. Nora keeps running after MarkHarry but dude is still all “humina humina you got the wrong guy!” The school holds an emergency PTA meeting or whatever and moms and dads be freaking out but the girl who blew up her microwave shows up with a bandaid on her nose and tells them that Harry is the voice of their generation, maaaan. Dudn’t matter to them...they want to lock this motherfucker UNDER the jail! Nora finally just shows up at his house (how she knows where she lives we do not know) and finds him burning his fan mail in a gas grill. Shirtless, of course. I mean...that grill has gotta be hot. Say what you will about Christian Slater; the man could fill out a pair of dungarees. Nora seems to think so too so she decides to join him in toplessness. My friend Alecia says Samantha Mathis’ boobs are the best part of this movie sooooo I’ll just say that it’s rude to disagree. Unfortunately the cops come before they can ball. So that blows. Now things just start to get stupid dumb. The FCC and the FBI show up and the principal starts expelling people for no reason...but then it’s revealed there’s this massive conspiracy where the school has been wantonly expelling kids with bad grades so they can claim the title of the high school with the highest nationwide SAT average. It’s kind of like that current scandal with Aunt Becky from Full House...except not at all. Harry Hard-On Sr. finds out about this and fires Principal Cresswood and all of the bad teachers...so that’s all well and good. But the fuzz is closing in on Harry so he has to take his show on the road. Literally. He loads all of his gear into Nora’s jeep wrangler and broadcasts while rolling around town. He spins some vintage 80’s Soundgarden and that tune “Hi Dad...I’m in Jail” which I’m shocked to learn is Was (Not Was). Like...that band with the stupid ass dinosaur song?? Am I missing something there?? Right...so...eventually the authorities locate the jeep and and there’s a big helicopter chase scene but the dude keeps broadcasting and shouting random shit like “seize the air!” and “this school sucks!” Nora drives him straight toward the football field where the entire town has gathered to listen to his broadcast. He gets a hero’s welcome from his fellow students...even though he’s totally shy friendless Mark with a ring-less cock. The cops bust up his radio gear and slap the Kuffs on that sumbitch and charge him with suicide murder or whatever. Before he’s led away he faces his followers and yells “Talk Hard!” The end.