8 Responses to “Patreon sneak peek: PUMP UP THE VOLUME”

1. 

   Handsome Dan

   April 7th, 2021 at 9:47 pm

   I am genuinely moved by the fact that Vern – who has posted 3-4 1,500+ word reviews per week steadily since like 2002 – not only has found time to amass a significant backlog of unpublished pieces that are more or less ready to go, but reveals their existence to us in a post about his despair at his own laziness.

2. 

   pegsman

   April 7th, 2021 at 10:27 pm

   A fun fact about PUMP UP THE VOLUME is that it has almost the excact same story as the Norwegian movie PIRATENE (THE PIRATES in English), which was made i 1983. PIRATENE has two guys starting up an illegal radio station, and they are more into talking about unemployment and taking down local politicians, but other than that the two have a pretty identical story and build up. It can be found on youtube.

3. 

   VERN

   April 8th, 2021 at 11:08 am

   Good tip, Pegsman. I hadn’t heard of that one.

4. 

   Jek Porkins

   April 9th, 2021 at 8:53 am

   Most personally exciting Patreon exclusive yet!!!

   Always have fond memories of how this movie introduced me to Leonard Cohen’s music.

5. 

   BuzzFeedAldrin

   April 13th, 2021 at 10:21 am

   Thanks for this review. I love this oddball movie. As a 40-year old, this seemed like a taboo, very-adult movie back in 1990. One “bad” kid in my class had the ad for this movie cut out and pasted to the cover of his Trapper Keeper. The soundtrack is great and it’s still nuts to think the fucking Descendents were featured in a decent budget Hollywood movie that got a theatrical release?! Just as much as the movie taking place in like three locations before the final chase scene. It’s mainly people talking into microphones or phones for 90 minutes.

6. 

   A.L.F.

   April 13th, 2021 at 7:09 pm

   This movie has perhaps the most excellent of all Pablo Ferro titles, sorry Dr. Strangelove you scrub.

7. 

   A.L.F.

   April 13th, 2021 at 7:12 pm

   

   Pump Up the Volume

   Disillusionment and crude angst flood through the American suburbs in Pablo Ferro's Day-Glo opening titles to Pump Up The Volume.

   Hopefully this link will work, I am really lousy with HTML, if it posts as gibberish please delete.

   Also, “HI DAD, I’M IN JAIL! I LIKE IT HERE!” – shit me and my awesome old roommate used to say all the time and terrible fake-ass Jack Nicholson voices, for that reason alone Pump Up The Volume rules always.

8. 

   neal2zod

   May 11th, 2022 at 9:07 am

   Great review, one of your best and makes me glad I still Patreon. I finally saw this movie all the way through yesterday and felt a little weird at first because as a 40-something now I wouldn’t exactly say I was on the side of the adults, but I couldn’t really relate at all to the kids rebelling – the endless scenes of them one-upping the teachers and fist-pumping to the radio just seemed kinda bratty and irritating and I was seriously questioning WTF was wrong with me that I felt the kids needed a better onscreen “motivation” to rebel. Is this how old I’ve gotten? Is this how much I’ve become part of the system? That I can’t relate at all to these kids when I’m sure I acted even more obnoxious when I was their age?

   But then (with literally 15 minutes to go!), they reveal the *SPOILER* Principal’s Trump-ian conspiracy to remove the undesirable kids to keep the school’s SAT average score high, and everything kinda clicked and fell into place for me. That nagging feeling something was “missing” from the movie went away and I ended up really liking it as a whole. I do kind of wonder if there’s a contingent of fans who feel the movie would have been better without that plot twist though – that the movie itself “sold out” by throwing in an “everyone can agree this is bad, right?” act of villainy onto the school when maybe it would have been better if the rage against the system could have just remained unspecified teenage angst? (I absolutely needed that twist though)

   I kinda hated Slater as a kid because every girl I knew had a crush on him (proto-Jared Leto syndrome?) but he’s great here- I still think he’s too good-looking and well-dressed to play this character, but whatever, he cuts promos better than 90% of wrestlers and still manages to convey the vulnerability and empathy needed to make the character work. Mathis is awesome in this too, and I’m kinda sad that within 14 years of her debut here she’s getting offed in the opening act of the Thomas Jane Punisher movie instead of having the career she deserved.