Pump up the Volume

by Brian.

They're called childhood favorites: that really trendy pop phenomena that you were taken up with or those blindly innocent pleasures you reveled in before you "grew up" enough to realize that they were crap. For some it's the New Kids on the Block, for others it was Flash Gordon. For me it was Vanilla Ice, Poison, and Pump up the Volume.

Think about it: Christian Slater as the cool kid alone in suburbia, a topless Samantha Mathis, underground radio, and lots of good music with bad words in it. What more could a teenage boy circa 1990 want? Back then I wasn't interested in Citizen Kane and 2001. Back then I didn't want Chinatown plots or Casablanca romances, I wanted Samantha Mathis topless, Christian Slater talking hard and stealing the air, and letters from my very own red-letter-lady. In retrospect, my then-primitive impulses could be re-interpreted as coming-of-age curiosity, embrace of personal expression, and longing for acceptance of my unique interests, but really now… Who are we kidding?

Regardless of why I loved this movie, I most certainly did and jumped at the chance to watch it again. As with all of our beloved memories, this movie held up just a little better than Robocop, almost bringing shame for ever liking it at all. Unlike most products of the eighties (yes, 1990 still counts), this movie's largest dating factor is not the music (for it really is quite nice) but the wardrobe. Hey, let's have her in a pink dress AND a plaid sweater AND a black vest! However, despite the gigantic cellular phones and presence of that kid that looks a lot like Billy Idol but isn't, the core story of this movie still holds up. It's still cool to see the little jumping phallus and the "hard ON" sign, and Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows is still a classic tune. No it's not the best movie of 1990 and although all of those Eighties Teacher-Type-Cast actors pollute the movie with their shallow parents and educator personas, my childhood fondness for this film rises above the inadequacies that would otherwise lessen my enjoyment.

I'd call this movie a Chardonnay, because even though it's oaky and over-aged, it still tastes good if you drink it with a healthy helping of nostalgia.

I still like this movie, even though it's horrible. I like it not for what it is, but what it was.

back.