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.
