PUMP UP THE VOLUME
YOUR JUNE 2006 RANDOM MOVIE CLUB RESULTS ARE IN!
Tagline: Talk Hard. Steal The Air.
The Preshow Entertainment was BILLY WILDER: THE HUMAN COMEDY. This was an installment from PBS's AMERICAN MASTERS series. I've no idea when I taped this- it could have been as early as 1983, but most likely later. I love Billy Wilder. That's no secret. He may be the best filmmaker, or maybe it's Hitchcock. Or perhaps even John Cougar (who directed Larry McMurtry's 1992 FALLING FROM GRACE). But Billy (real name Samuel) is, if not the best, within the top 5.
This was a good companion piece to 1986's AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE'S SALUTE TO BILLY WILDER, which we watched here several years ago.
Walter Matthau narrates this bio. It's got some great archival footage of Billy way back when (even as a child) and towards the latter days.
I can't even begin to pick my favorite film of his. It's like when you have a favorite band you want to turn someone on to, and can't decide which song to play first. Wilder's playlist is astonishing. Some of my favorites (watch these now!): DOUBLE INDEMNITY, ACE IN THE HOLE (not on video), THE APARTMENT, STALAG 17, FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (not on video), THE LOST WEEKEND (fuck LEAVING LAS VEGAS, watch this instead), SUNSET BOULEVARD (playing at the Arclight in L.A. June 21st) and WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION. Start with those, then get SOME LIKE IT HOT and the rest.
We didn't get to watch too much of the show, as the pizza arrived pretty fast.
Our 8th year began with the culmination of 1980s teen angst films PUMP UP THE VOLUME (released in 1990).
Sometime between GLEAMING THE CUBE and KUFFS, casting agent Mary Jo Slater put her multi-arrested son Christian (car chase, cocaine, assault - 4x...two cops/two girlfriends, tried to bring gun on plane, DUI, suspended license, and groping) in this movie (or maybe it was the other way around?). The story of disenfranchised suburban kids who don't realize (or care) they are disenfranchised until a pirate radio DJ tells them. Slater plays Mark, a high school introvert who can barely speak...until 10pm when he takes to the air as Happy Harry Hard on (the school is also HHH, Hubert Humphrey High). Within minutes (days, I suppose) his words galvanize the students and his listenership explodes. His impact on the students snowballs, and soon the curtain is pulled back on what lies beneath the surface of the school, and more importantly, the student as individual.
Slater is Superman (he does wear glasses when shy and takes them off when powerful). He's the misunderstood and conflicted superhero (aren't they all?) and the understood anti-hero. He's also Spider-Man- a geek who has more power than even he realizes. Slater's Nicholson-schtick has always been spooky to me, but it works in this film.
Helping to bring him out of his shell is Samantha Mathis, an actress that has the gift of being cute, beautiful and/or sexy, depending on the moment. Mathis (who was dating Slater at the time) is his Lois Lane/Mary Jane, who discovers his secret identity, promises to keep it secret, and prods him to actually speak. With a killer soundtrack, including two renditions of Leonard Cohen's haunting EVERYBODY KNOWS (by Cohen and Concrete Blonde, who for some reason changed a lyric from "father" to "mother"), PUTV hangs tight to its premise. Directed by Allan Moyle (who did the very overrated TIMES SQUARE and the very underrated NEW WATERFORD GIRL), PUTV meanders yet still holds you. The plot of school corruption is just a McGuffin, and was cheesy. Yet despite this and the requisite "parents who are oblivious/all adults are evil" thing, PUMP UP THE VOLUME is one of the better films about teens and their frustrations. It talks hard and treats teens like something more than prom dates. And if it takes Christian Slater to do that, then so be it.
