Retrospective - 1990's "Pump Up the Volume"

And let's hear it for director Alan Moyles other '80s classic, TIMES SQUARE! Another great soundtrack!

I liked Slater in Heathers, but this was TV-movie-of-the-week style shit. And he was never sexy to me - too angular-looking.

He was hot in this movie.....it was OK, though definitely paled in comparison to Heathers.

But the part where he feigned jacking off and moaned....made me rock fucking hard in the theater.

This film had a powerful message. Especially on corruption among school administrators, parental neglect of teenagers and of course, freedom of speech. All of which are still issues today. Slater tried to do unconventional roles to combat being a typical teen idol. I liked him in True Romance.

He was never beautiful but had sex appeal in a slutty street twink way. He looked his hottest in Gleaming The Cube with the blonde hair and skater punk fashion. He definitely didn't age well and started looking scary at 25.

[quote]But the part where he feigned jacking off and moaned....made me rock fucking hard in the theater.

Was just coming in here to mention that scene -- that was a VHS favorite for me as a teenager, rewound and rewatched dozens of times

Just saw him on a talk show recently and thought he'd aged incredibly well. Still sexy.

He's bisexual apparently. Not shocking as he has gay face and always seemed flaming.

When did he reveal his bisexuality?

I think appearing as Kevin Costner’s son in the gawd-awful Robin Hood movie was his low point.

He was really good in Mr. Robot, even when the show sucked. I think he still looks good and healthy.

R9 He was his half-brother, not his son.

That movie was tits-up, though. Mel Brooks did a solid when he spoofed it a few years later. Tracey Ullman as the disgusting castle witch, and so forth.

R7/R8 wasn’t there a poster here many years ago who reported being chatted up and fondled by a drunk Slates in a beach bar? The poster indicated clearly that they were male, and that Christian kept his advances relatively subtle (as much as a sloppy drunk desperate closetcase actor can) and stopped interacting when other people came over to their table.

Slater strikes me as someone who'd be a really fun fuck. That mischievous sparkle in his eyes or something.

R11 Yes, because no one on DL ever lied about getting up close and personal with a famous male star.

Didn’t say I believed it, R13, just that I remembered it. Sit down and pop a vike before your heart explodes.

When you’re hot you're hot. When you’re not you’re not.

H's still nice looking and I'd let him fuck me.

R16 wait are we saying he tops? he looks and sounds and acts like...he doesn’t

I was like 14 or 15 when it hit HBO. I recorded it just for the scenes of him shirtless in the chair. Fuck they got me going.

Sexy looks but his character in this movie was sort of creepy. I get that they were going for ‘edgy radical nonconformist cool rebel with a heart of gold’, but the end result was more just school-sh00ter vibe.

she's a big ole MARY!

Good movie, great soundtrack.

[quote] Christian Slater was THE sex symbol of Generation X,

This Never Happened.

R12 ‘fun’? He once assaulted his former girlfriend while high and raging on horse and tequila...

What’s a cock ring?

No. He always made my skin crawl.

[quote]Who remembers this movie, or at least its soundtrack?

I remember Sonic Youth.

I just remember that idiot girl who microwaved cans of hairspray only to have them blow up in her face. She is asked for a comment and goes berzerk, screaming at people.

Great soundtrack. Obsessed with it. Cruising around in my 90 Cavalier. Sweet. Good movie too.

Yo, all you homeboys out in Bronx, this one's for you!

Friends and I did several real life pirate radio stations in our teens, and generally think the movie, although we'll done, missed the mark. Slater's ego-tripping character is cringey, although the parts about promotion of groovy music and social change ring true.

There's a mini-genre of pirate radio movies, including 'The Boat That Rocked', 'Born in Flames' and 'On the Air Live With Captain Midnight'. There's also a Dennis Hopper movie about an airplane based pirate TV station, 'Riders of the Storm'. I like any of those better.

[quote] wasn’t there a poster here many years ago who reported being chatted up and fondled by a drunk Slates in a beach bar?

You’re a bit off on the details, but I think you’re referring to R84 in this thread.

River Phoenix was the sex symbol for gen-x. But then he died.

Gen X had a lot of sex symbols. River was just one of them. I mean you had Kevin Costner, Sting, Keanu Reeves, LL Cool J, George Michael, Tupac, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Tom Cruise, Prince, Rob Lowe, Johnny Depp, Denzel Washington, etc. Great era for male beauty and way better than the millennial era of the 2000s and 2010s.

River for the ones who liked the sensitive artsy twinks.

[quote]I mean you had Kevin Costner, Sting, Keanu Reeves, LL Cool J, George Michael, Tupac, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Tom Cruise, Prince, Rob Lowe, Johnny Depp, Denzel Washington, etc.

Interesting, R33. Gen-X does span 15 years but I associate teen movies with their teen audiences which would make people like Costner, Cruise, Keanu, Denzel, Rob Lowe & Johnny Depp too old for 90s teens (music is a separate category). OP says [italic]"Christian Slater was THE sex symbol of Generation X"[/italic] so I'm assuming he was a teenager when the movie came out. I was born in 1977, for my age group (and I'm guessing the OP's as well) of the people you named, Ethan Hawke was the only one marketed as a Gen-Xer - Reality Bites is a good example.

I didn't see "Pump up the Volume" until it was on cable a few years after it was released but I do remember renting "Gleaming the Cube" as soon as it was on video.

[quote] Great era for male beauty and way better than the millennial era of the 2000s and 2010s.

We did just fine with Ryan Phillippe, Paul Walker, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Gosling, Robert Pattinson, Michael B Jordan, Zac Efron, Chris Evans, etc.

But the age of the movie star ended during that period. Ben Affleck (who was blazing hot in the early 00s) & Andrew Garfield got to be one, Jake Gyllenhall struggled outside of Brokeback and Joseph Gordon Levitt never really gave it his best at going that route.

I remember seeing Pump Up the Volume in syndicated reruns as a kid along with Airheads.

R34 True point. And mid-to-late 90s teen and 2000s movies would be more Millennial in their audience as the oldest Millennials were teens in the 90s. Thus you could argue Heath Ledger, Ryan Phillippe, Josh Hartnett, Freddie Prinze Jr, Ashton Kutcher, Mekhi Phifer, Jesse Bradford, Paul Walker, James Franco etc are Millennial sex symbols despite being technically born during the Gen X years.

[quote]Christian Slater was THE sex symbol of Generation X

Please. Slater always was a borderline joke, especially with how he very early started looking like a Nicholson baby, with all that embarrassing facial work he had to imitate his idol. He was faceable but he was not "a" sex symbol, much less "THE" (Mary!) sex symbol for Generation Lard II.

Samantha was cute . What happened to her?

TIMES SQUARE released to Blu-ray! I saw it all over a torrent site today. I imagine they must have the OG soundtrack b/c there wouldn't be much point to the film without it. But I haven't watched it yet.

You get to see his thingy in Name of the Rose. I used to abuse my VCR (and my own thingy) with that scene.

I used to jack off all the time to Slater's shirtless scenes in this film. So fucking sexy.

Christian Slater's nude scenes in Name of The Rose would never fly today as he was underage. He was never beautiful but he was sexy with a cute face and nice cheekbones. Very seductive in Heathers, Pump Up The Volume, Gleaming the Cube and True Romance.

R38 For unknown reasons, she became a vice president of the SAG/AFTRA despite being a mediocre actress with a mediocre/forgettable career with mostly small roles and forever known as "River Phoenix's girlfriend".

Doesn't Samantha come from money and has Hollywood connections? I think that explains her career in the first place. I'd like to imagine had River stayed with Martha, he'd probably would have gotten sober as she didn't play bullshit with him.

The Times Square 4K transfer looks great. For anyone who wants to know what NYC used to look like. The music cues are great too. This is the kind of movie where you can tell the filmmakers probably only achieved about 60%, at most, of what they hoped to achieve. They should’ve gone all in on the teen lesbian romance, it would've been much better because you can tell the energy is there. Trini Alvarado was a gorgeous teen (with incredible hair). Also features handsome gay NY actor, Peter Coffield, as her councilman father; sadly Coffield was an early causality of the AIDS epidemic and would be dead within a few years of the film’s release.

I remember seeing this film in the fall of 1980 at a special sneak preview in Detroit on a Saturday night. I asked my mother’s friend, a cool neighbour lady, if she wanted to go. (We had seen Fame together that summer as well. She was super cool and used to cut my hair.) The preview was packed, completely sold out, because the film featured Tim Curry of Rocky Horror fame so it attracted that crowd - just another part of the this film’s mixed up Punk/New wave/Rocky Horror/Lesbian appeal. I don’t think it’s a great film, by any means, but it has a number of fun setups even if it doesn’t really hang together. But the audience LOVED it and I really enjoyed it then. At the film’s end, the ushers came up the aisle and handed out free limited edition 12” promos featuring 6 songs from the film’s soundtrack (which when released was a double gatefold LP full of great tracks.) I remember the promo had Roxy Music’s Same Old Scene, Suzi Quatro’s Rock Hard and The Pretenders’ Talk of The Town (I already had The Pretender’s 1st LP with the memorable instruction: PLAY THIS ALBUM LOUD. Unquestioningly, I did.)

Two or three weeks later when the film was released, I took a friend to see it at the mall. The cinema was nearly empty and it was a lot less exciting.

It was fun to watch it again over 4 decades later. :) I like Pump Up The Volume too. I still need to see Empire Records.

I remember seeing Pump Up the Volume, but every time I try to remember it I think of Slater in Heathers.

I think I was too old for that teen pirate radio plot to resonate with me.