Watched: 09/01/2025
Format: Criterion Channel
Viewing: Unknown
Director: Allan Moyle
Well. It turns out I'm old.
Pump Up the Volume (1990) was released August 22nd, 1990. I'd intended to watch it for the anniversary a week and a half ago, and forgot. So here we are.
It's funny - I watched 1955's Rebel Without a Cause in 1989, which was *less time* between release and viewing than when I saw Pump Up the Volume opening day in the theater in August of 1990 and today.
Time is a slippery mistress.
I will never get over the fact this movie is named "Pump Up the Volume" which was the name of the wildly popular dance tune from 1987. And, of course, 1989 brought us Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam". In this era, anything could be pumped up.
A quick recap so you don't need to re-read my post from 2008 or listen to podcasts on the topic:
In 1990, my folks moved from North Austin to North Houston/ Spring/ Klein. Within days of moving, I watched a movie about a similarly grumpy teen moved from, in his case, "the East Coast" to a Phoenix suburban analog. The teen starts a pirate radio station where he performs crude and shocking bits - largely around masturbation - while also waxing philosophic about the state of the world, how the parents of Gen-X'ers (this is a movie about the last wave of Gen-X'ers) failed their own youth movement by "selling out", the world ain't what it should be/ used to be, and that conformity is bad.
If Gen-X sought anything, it was "authenticity", and when you live in the suburbs and can't drive, this means "I reject the notion that Bobby Brown is the best musician or our era, and girls should be allowed to have brown hair". And this movie is about that.
But, also... if there is a movie that has caused a generation collective Space Jam Fallacy, it's Pump Up The Volume.
To prove the quality of the movie, some folks point to the soundtrack - which is unique for its era, and the music selected for the movie is why Criterion Channel featured the movie in August. The film's release was just on the verge of studios figuring out real money could be made with OST synergy, the soundtrack was a mish-mash of non-Top 40 favorites of the era - in a pre-Nirvana/ Pearl Jam world. Leonard Cohen. The Pixies. Bad Brains (w/ Henry Rollins). Cowboy Junkies. Soundgarden. Sonic Youth. Peter Murphy. And I agree! That soundtrack was amazing not just for the selection, but for playing the actual music actual young people listened to who purchased music from non-mall-based record stores.
For a quick snapshot of what was huge in late August of 1990, here's Billboard. And I assure you - Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Poison, Bon Jovi and Wilson Phillips were what you heard. But you can almost see the tide about to change to Alt Rock with Faith No More creeping in there at the No. 10 spot (for the record, I was not a Faith No More guy, but recognize their role).
I guess folks are still listening to their high school favorites if the fact I'm seeing The Pixies next week is any indication.
It's also worth noting that in 1990, shock jocks were becoming a real thing. Radio DJ Howard Stern and his army of colleagues famously performed antics on the radio (nationally syndicated) for hours every day had become part of the national conversation. Stern was regularly in trouble with the FCC, was deeply crude, sexual and considered obnoxious. Perhaps most relevant to this movie - Stern was fodder for mainstream media as they'd play clips, write articles, etc... and clutch pearls. When he interviewed a porn star on air... whatever will we tell the children? Who will protect us from this? It's the same stuff that cable news would weaponize swiftly by the end of that decade.
Stuff like Jerky Boys was out there, as well as tapes of underground content in a pre-internet world. But, wow, even by 1994, caller ID existed, as well as *69 which allowed you to ring back the person who just called you. (It's worth noting that making the number *69 as a reciprocal call may be the funniest dirty joke ever perpetrated on America.) Both of these things would have put HHH out of business just four years later. Or at least ended the phone portion of his program.
If I've given the movie grief before, it's because the movie's leads are wildly non-specific about their grievances, and don't really get involved in the actual *problem* of the film until really the last 1/3rd. And the problem they stumble onto is almost abstracted from their primary concern of "why isn't everything perfect for me, specifically?" which seems to be the real problem.
When I was 15, the lack of a focused problems for the upper-middle-class teen characters seemed perfectly reasonable. But I also kind of get what the movie was dancing around. We were the kids of the Summer of '69/ Woodstock generation, and we saw how ineffective the ideals of peace/love/dope had been. And how reactionary culture could be (thanks, Tipper Gore). But it was also a very free-range generation who had never heard of a playdate, was expected to transport themselves from place-to-place, and had been told from toddler-hood that our parents were very busy, and we would need to deal with things ourselves. And, of course, if an authority figure stated we were a problem, it was taken at home and at school as prima facie - one was "a bad kid".*
This stuff would have been in the air for most kids in high school as we moved from the 1980's and into the 90's, and I mention it as 35 years on, I assume this movie is as alien to kids now as when I watched Natalie Wood and James Dean get up to shenanigans.
In a pre-internet/ pre-social media world, the idea that one would take the reigns of one-to-many communication and blast out "the truth" may have felt correct. We know now, of course, if one insists on blasting out their opinions at no charge, you're more likely to get Art Bell or Alex Jones. Or, in 2025, you wind up with "influencers" dropping the worst ideas which would never tolerate investigation. The likelihood anyone would say anything of value and not wallow in narcissism by week six of something like what HHH is up to seems... low.
What's funniest now is that Mark Hunter/ HHH all but points neon-arrows at who he is. He's the worst Clark Kent ever (and, yes, he puts on glasses as Mark at school, and is glasses-free as HHH). He mentions "my friends from back out East". He says "I just moved here" and between those two factor alone, folks would sort it out. He has knowledge of how the school works. He says where he sits and what he eats at lunch. Drops details about his life and parents. He has a PO Box you could stake out. And, yet, his identity is a mystery to all but the sleuth, Nora. But it seems like it would take all of five minutes to deduce who the kid is.
Every time I've rewatched the movie, I still don't really get what has everyone at the high school so fired up. Or what the plan is.
Yes, lower performing students are disappearing, and that's bad. I won't debate the performance plotline - but it really makes Ellen Greene and Mark's dad the actual heroes of the movie. It's almost tangential to the sense of brewing rebellion within the student body. Mark sheds light on it, but his dad handles it within one scene.
So, it's basically teen-angst manifest. The issue at hand - that the world isn't right - only makes sense from the solipsistic POV of a suburban teen, and maybe that's enough? An unnamable rage that one is on the verge of adulthood but subject to the whims of teachers and administrators. That, as The Fresh Prince observed, parents just don't understand.
And, yes, at 15 and having had moved into a new school and feeling moody that I had been taken from a place where I was feeling comfortable, and with my own hideaway in my parents' house, I had similar arguments with my parents who *also* wanted me to be something I did not feel like being. I think I was just less inclined to feel like everyone was identifying with these same grievances of the seeming artificial box we were handed for our futures until maybe my senior year of school.
The plan of the film seems to be... What Nora wants Mark to do... I have no idea. Make the valedictorian blow herself up? Get kids to... be more authentic? What is that? To what end? To have a massive kumbaya session? To feel their own pain? Is that really a thing teens have a hard time doing?
I don't even really understand what the fallout would be for Mark Hunter/ HHH and his family. I'm not sure what the fine is for illegally broadcasting - especially if you're 16 or 17, which we can assume he is. Violating FCC rules about content, probably, would land a fine, depending on the range of the broadcast. Maybe a civil lawsuit from Malcolm's family, but that seems a tough one as he doesn't encourage him. Mark's dad is more-than-likely to lose his job after having a son who accessed his files and broadcast FERPA-protected info on the airwaves.
What does work in the movie is how... shitty everyone is. If the movie manages to capture something true, it's the adults in the movie causing mass confusion for the kids. The press deliberately fans the flames of what's happening with Harry/ Mark without ever bothering to understand the actual story. The administration goes for the easy path of just hauling in kids and treating the school like a police-state, worrying about appearances and not recognizing any actual issues. A PTA meeting on HHH is basically a witch hunt with parents offering dumb opinions. Mark's parents want to outsource dealing with his issues to a shrink - rather than considering that what sucks is getting moved across the country against your will and being told to be happy. The school is cutting out kids who will impact test score averages rather than assisting them - test scores having an adverse effect of people just starting out and incentivizing all the wrong things despite good intentions. All of that lands.
 |
| boy, did this seem like a great idea in 1990 |
Thanks to Samantha Mathis as the ideal stripey-sock girl in 1990, I just kinda glossed over all this. The notion that a manic-pixie Samantha Mathis was out there maybe at my school seemed great (spoiler: she was not). But, hoo boy, did she make an impact on 15-year-old me.
The rest of the cast is notable. Christian Slater seems to be playing the opposite of his star-turn in Heathers here, while still a rebellious teen. Mathis' blonde pal is played by Lala Sloatman, who is related to Ahmet Zappa - also a teen in the movie. Superman III mean sister/ cyborg Annie Ross pays the principal. Seth Green is inevitably in this as a background kid. Mimi Kennedy - who was on Mom for several seasons - plays Mark's mom. That-Guy actor Scott Paulin plays Mark's dad. Juliet Landau was supposed to be in the movie, but I guess they cut her scenes. And, of course, DITMTLOD Ellen Greene is in here as the hip English teacher.
Anyway. I know people love this movie. I just find it kinda typically sloppy of this sort of thing aimed at young audiences from the 1980's and 90's when I go back and look at it. It's got some good stuff, but it's hard for me to fully embrace, wondering what the movie is actually saying without having to twist myself in knots to rationalize it. The movie sits at 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is interesting.
*I'll let folks debate whether maybe all of this tilted too far the other direction some other time
Samantha Mathis and her management of her sweater is a core memory
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