Christian Slater plays an underground dj that launches a late night talk show where he vents his frustrations about life, love, and the new found city that he has moved to. Pump up the Volume from 1990 is not too easily accessible, but has promise. By day he’s a good student, and a nobody, but by night he’s “Hard Harry” and he is the coolest kid in the world.

Here’s a trailer for Pump up the Volume available now:

This film required a lot of solo shots of Christian Slater talking to a microphone. The camera moves to somewhat artistic shots of cigarettes burning, and other pieces of the puzzle, but overall there is just a lot of talking for about an hour. The main focus in this film is the daily talks that Hard Harry has to what he believes is one or two listeners. As his popularity rises with the disenfranchised youth of the local high school, he meets a girl at the library played by Samantha Mathis.

Samantha Mathis is hot to me. When I was in high school, I wrote long diatribes (not too unlike harry’s in the film) and longed for a girl like Nora (played by Mathis). I even knew a girl that kind of looked like her, and if I wasn’t such a stooge, I may have persuaded her to go out with me, but instead, she’s just a memory of my high school years. Funny thing is, she’s not on myspace, not on facebook or any other normal channels of the internet. She’s alive, but oh well, she’s hot to me.

What made the film standout a little more, than the angst that is projected on to the audience by the longwinded monologues, is the school that was used to film the movie. The movie was made in Santa Clarita, California at the high school that I attended for 9th grade. When I was in 9th grade my parents bought a house in the suburbs out by Magic Mountain (Santa Clarita/Valencia California) and I went from a private Christian school to a public school. That school was Saugus High School and the film’s portrayal of Mark Hunter looked and acted like me! I was a loner and didn’t have any friends or anyone to talk to. I spent all my lunches alone, and was beyond nerdy. It was lame, the worst year of high school for me. Oh, how I longed for a girl to talk to me, and man was I such a stooge. I didn’t even talk to a girl that I could relate Nora to until I was older and met this aspiring actress named Katie Orr. The sequences in this film that feature the school in the background really brought back a lot of memories for me, and I was reliving my high school angst all over again, and it was hard to watch, especially because Mark gets the girl in the end and she pursues him even though he doesn’t want anything to do with her initially. Man, that is not real life! That doesn’t happen! Granted I didn’t have my own underground radio show, but I did have a record label dangit! Dangit!

The movie is not too complicated but it does seem to drag along a little bit. It is a love letter to disenfranchised suburban teenagers, rather than anything complicated. The film really tries to gain a foothold in the counter culture, but Christian Slater seems to be trying way too hard to invoke the spirit of a much better counter culture writer, poet, and overall badass Henry Rollins! This script was most likely meant for Rollins, who would fit in this film way better than Mark Hunter. Although, Henry Rollins is so much more badass and probably would have socked out the FCC guys that try to stop his radio show from airing; so much so that if you recall the recent horror film “Wrong Turn 2” Rollins kicks ass so hard, that when his death scene comes in, it takes the whole mutant army to take him down. BADASSSS!

The main protagonist of this film is not so much the fcc, but a very subtle transition. A listener commits suicide after not getting talked out of it by Harry and Mark begins to question his influence and responsibility as a host. A weird transition if you ask me. There is also a sub plot involving a gay rape and humiliation, which is not something that American audiences were ready for in 1990 when the film came out.

This film made me nostalgic for a time when I felt a lot more angst. Sure, I’m married, sure I’m happy…kind of, sure I don’t long for this connection that is made famous by Nora and Mark but there is still something inside of me that connects with that 9th grader that didn’t have any friends and follows through to my 11th grade year when I met Katie Orr. I know, this is just not making sense, right? Yeah.

The movie is ok at best, and if you’re not into underground music or counter culture revolutions and irony within the walls of suburbia. All in all, check out Pump Up The Volume on dvd, and see my high school days in school and my dreams of being super cool and getting chicks like Nora by night.

Oh, and lastly, Samantha Mathis is now a blond haired actress that doesn’t resemble her character and cool chick in this film. Dang.