Friday, October 12, 2007

Pump Up the Volume (1990)


We’ve all been there; you know what it’s like. You’re trapped in a high school where the faculty’s unfair, your parent’s don’t understand you and you swear that where you live must be the most boring place in the universe. That’s the situation that Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) finds himself in at the beginning of the film Pump up the Volume.

Just on the cusp between the eighties and nineties, Pump up the Volume takes on many of the same characteristics that the teen flicks we watched in class have with the dark side of eighties classic dark comedies like Heathers.

In this groundbreaking film Mark Hunter is faced with having just moved to a small town in the middle of Arizona from a big city out east. He was uprooted from his school and his friends and plopped down in the middle of nowhere, where the only thing to do is go to the mall. Luckily, he’s at one of the best school’s in the area Hubert Humphrey High School (HHH). But is this school really as dreamy as the high academic scores make it seem? Not quite. It’s warped with the corruption of the principal who in addition to being blind to the difficulties that face all teenagers expels students with no reason except that they might bring down the school’s ranking.

Mark decides to voice his opinion about the school and how life as a teenager just sucks on a pirate radio show under the guise of the hard talking pseudonym Happy Harry Hard-on (HHH). Unfortunately, inciting kids to take action and speak out against the wrongs that they see in the world doesn’t really sit well in this small Arizona town. And using a pirate radio station to start this uprising doesn’t really sit well with the Federal Communication Commission.

But remember, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t
"find your voice and use it! Talk HARD! "

Keep your eyes peeled for a cameo by comedy genius Seth Green.

2 comments:

Vladigogo said...

Got an access denied on your audio hyperlink.

Vladigogo said...

You can actually insert you tube videos into your blog.