Movies I Thought were Good When I was a Kid (Part I)

I turned 30 about two months ago. Yes, I know that lends all of my previous posts an air of sadness and despair that you probably didn’t see before, but it’s the truth. I’m 30, and I spend more time worrying about the fall of the House of Grieco and whether the world is ready for the live-action film version of Zaxxon that I’ve been working on for the last three years than I do about finding a job that requires me to actually leave the house and, you know, put pants on once and awhile. Anyway, since my birthday I have longed to reconnect with the movies that changed my life when I was young. You know the ones where upper middle class white kids have nothing to really worry about, so they revolt against a generation of Baby Boomers who just don’t understand. I had so many to choose from that I couldn’t decide where to start. Then, I saw it just sitting there among my tapes and DVDs. A true portrait of what it takes to throw off the shackles of conformity, so you can live your life. Your life, man. Not theirs. Not theirs, man. They can’t tell me what to do. They can’t buy me off. I didn’t ask for that car on my 16th birthday or that brand new Gibson guitar, and I sure as hell didn’t ask to be born.

Pump up the Volume
Wow. When I saw Pump up the Volume for the first time I was so fired up I started cursing in front of my friend’s parents when they came to pick us up from the theater. Sadly, it doesn’t have quite the same impact when you watch it now.

Sweet lord, how much of an idiot was I? This movie is one of the worst things I have ever seen. Sure, I was only 14 at the time, but come on. Christian Slater (who worked with Grieco in Mobsters) smirks his way through the film as a nerdy teen who finds release at night as Happy Harry Hard-on, host of his own pirate radio show. As an evil principal and oblivious teachers try to force kids with low standardized test scores out of the local high school, Happy Harry instills a sense of purpose in the youth of the community by pretending to masturbate on the radio and by doling out piss-poor advice. As he becomes more popular and more elusive, Harry is tracked down by a girl who is supposed to be 17 but whose crow’s feet betray the fact that she’s clearly in her mid-20s. She’s fond of giving Harry this sultry/confused stare and reciting the worst poetry you’ve ever heard. Seriously, I know all girls try their hand at the Plath stuff, or at least the Dickinson stuff if they’re the sweet, shy type, but this is just horrendous. I’m pretty sure the phrase, “Eat me, beat me, talk hard!” is thrown out there, but that might be something I made up as a result of the painkillers I had to pop to make it through to the end. After Harry’s advice leads a beauty queen to blow up her stuff in the microwave and she becomes hideously scarred, and he fails to talk a teen out of killing himself, the dreaded FCC gets involved. We then see oddly shaped breasts in an awkward make out scene, and Harry and his love take to a Jeep so they can broadcast live while being chased by the Feds. Amidst the chaos, Harry’s vocoder fails and his true identity is finally exposed. You see, he was the one who was being untrue to himself the whole time. It was him, y’all. In the end, Harry gets busted, but the cheers of support from the teens and the voiceovers of new pirate radio shows that run over the credits lead us to believe that he has saved us all.

Now, I have as much angst as the next kid. Trust me, my 10th grade copy of The Communist Manifesto is marked and marked and marked, and I’m still pissed that the damn football team (Go Wildcats!) got new uniforms while we super cool theatre folk had to wear old tuxes in an Oscar Wilde production that had all the funny parts cut out of it. Still, I can’t in good conscience give Pump up the Volume more than 2-Griecos. At least that would be the case if the movie didn’t feature the UK Surf Mix of the Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation.” Since it does, it gets 3-Griecos (see ratings). You should watch it if only to remind yourself that turning 30 isn’t that bad. Sure, back then I was going to change the world and shake things up Slater-style, but let’s be serious. I taped “Lost” and it’s really cold outside.