Movies - Pump Up the Volume

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	Movies - Pump Up the Volume

Pump Up the Volume (1990) is a dramedy written and directed by Allan Moyle and starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.

Filming locations included the Saugus High School and other locations around Saugus, California, USA. The film is currently available on DVD.

Main cast

Christian Slater
— Mark Hunter
Samantha Mathis
— Nora Diniro
Mimi Kennedy
— Marla Hunter
Scott Paulin
— Brian Hunter
Cheryl Pollack — Paige Woodard
Annie Ross
— Loretta Creswood
Ahmet Zappa
— Jaime
Seth Green
— Joey
Robert Schenkkan
— David Deaver
Ellen Greene
— Jan Emerson
Andy Romano — Mr. Murdock

Plot summary

Mark Hunter (Slater), a high school student, starts a pirate radio station which broadcasts from his bedroom in the basement of his parent's house. Mark is a loner, an outsider, whose only outlet for his teenage angst and aggression is his radio station. (His pirate station's theme song is "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen.). By day, Mark is seen as a loner, hardly talking to anyone around him, by night, he expresses his outsider views about what is wrong with American society. When he speaks his mind about what is going on at his school and in the community, more and more of his fellow students tune in to hear his show. Nobody knows the true identity of "Hard Harry" or "Happy Harry Hard On", as Mark refers to himself, until Nora Diniro (Mathis) tracks him down. Eventually, the radio show causes so much trouble in the community that the FCC is called in to investigate.

Critics

Many critics dismissed it as a teenage exploitation film that was trying to pass itself off as a modern version of Radio Days
. Most of the adults were portrayed as authoritarian and corrupt, and the film seemed to have all the standard conventions of a teenage exploitation film.

Other critics, such as Roger Ebert, gave generally positive reviews, citing especially the film's portrayal of progressive political activism geared towards a teenaged audience.

The film was scoffed at by many pirate radio operators and enthusiasts, however, for inaccurate portrayal of FCC enforcement, such as scenes of the FCC chairman holding a press conference to announce his arrival and federal agents patrolling in brightly marked yellow vans.

Awards

The movie won the Golden Space Needle Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, and the Audience Award at the Deauville Film Festival.

Soundtrack

Music being central to the plot of a film about a young pirate radio station DJ, the soundtrack featured a diverse lot of artists. The official soundtrack release had the following tracks:

# "Everybody Knows" - Concrete Blonde # "Why Can't I Fall in Love?" - Ivan Neville # "Stand" - Liquid Jesus # "Wave of Mutilation (U.K. Surf)" - Pixies # "I've Got a Miniature Secret Camera" - Peter Murphy # "Kick Out the Jams" - Bad Brains with Henry Rollins # "Freedom of Speech" - Above the Law # "Heretic' - Soundgarden # "Titanium Expose" - Sonic Youth # "Me and the Devil Blues" - Cowboy Junkies # "Tale O' The Twister' - Chagall Guevara

The soundtrack features several covers. The Cowboy Junkies' contribution to the soundtrack is a remake of a Robert Johnson song, while the Bad Brains and Henry Rollins track is a cover of the MC5 anthem. "Stand" by Liquid Jesus is a new version of the 1969 song by Sly & the Family Stone.

Peter Murphy's track originally appeared on his 1988 album, Love Hysteria, while Sonic Youth's song appeared on their 1990 release, Goo.

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