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Not the most creative title in the world, but hey, it's to the point.
Just finished watching the DVD of my favorite teen/high school drama, Pump up the Volume circa 1991. Watched the end of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen first, which was truly horrid, leading me to believe that whomever is writing teen dramas now needs to revisit the glory days of the 1980s and early 90s, when they actually had something to say. Pump Up the Volumn is about a boy who is uncomfortable talking to people, incredibly shy, who uses a radio bandwith to talk to the world, to say what he feels - sort of like livejournal or the internet has become - back in the late 80's, early 90's it was radio signals, because the internet, while it existed wasn't advanced enough and well not everyone could get on. He picks up a book called "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" by Lenny Bruce and through words tells how he feels. The film is your basic teens against authority theme - and is precursor to edgy teen dramedy's such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Popular, Freaks and Geeks, and My So Called Life which popped up on the television landscape shortly afterwards or around the same time. Veronica Mars references Pump Up the Volumn in one of its episodes - the one where the kid hosts a rogue radio show. And VM thinks it's the VP's kid and he says, yeah right, I'd get away with that. It also has a brief cameo by Seth Green later to appear on Buffy, Greg the Bunny, and the Italian Job. The theme song is Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen. Featuring edgy music and edgier/sex-edged dialogue it cut to the root of the teen situation without romanticizing it. Also depicted some of the difficulties with the US public school system's emphasis on standardized tests - specifically SAT scores. Flawed in places, it still hits more chords than most teen dramas before or since. Showing high school is hell for everyone and surviving it is a preview to adulthood. One of the best lines is - "Everybody is telling you what to do, everyone wants you to find a nice girl, plan a career, and settle down...like your parents. They don't care what you think and maybe that's not what you want." Pump came around the same time as the black comedy/satire Heathers which was controversial at the time and rarely seen now. Think Mean Girls except with a homicidal edge and better dialogue. Now I'm half watching a teen version of Pride and Prejudice...very odd, but not nearly as clever as Clueless, making me think yet again - the teen movie market has seriously taken a dive downhill since 1999. Actually it appears to be Pride And Prejudice meets Little Women if the parents died or disappeared. It's on EWAM and is circa 2003 and stars Kam Heskin and Orlando Seale and directed by Andrew Black...never heard of it. Also has moments of cleverness tucked in here and there. Yes, it is a bit pathetic I know, but I'm in a teen movie mood for some bizarre reason.
Saw Mirrormask last weekend - which is a movie that improves in retrospect. I am haunted by it. And find myself liking it more and more after the fact than when I watched it. The images stick in your head and flip around. It is a film you have to think about. It seems simple on the surface...but. Oh hell. The film is about a 15 year old girl who juggles in her father's circus. She hates her life and is frustrated with her father. And uses art as an outlet - drawing how she feels, her frustrations, her inner struggle. Creating in the process a fantasy world within her drawings -a sort of shadow world which explores all the psychological and emotional turmoil within. When she tells her Mom that she wishes she was dead and her mother has a freak brain aneursym - the girl freaks and her guilt/love/anger with her mother overwhelms her. Into the world of the subconscious we travel - and much like Dorothy's journey to OZ we aren't certain what is dream and what reality, how much is in the head and how much outside it. Is the girl dreaming or has she fallen through her pictures into the other world, exchanging places, albeit momentarily with the girl in that one? It is a story told more through visual images than words. Each character in the world of Mirrormask wears a mask. One that tells us who they are in the inside, their real face possibly the real mask. It reminded me a bit in style with the film Paper House - which is a story about a seemingly autistic child who uses art to deal with her pain - her pain has to do with her feelings towards her father who is both demon and father. It is the daughter/father version of Mirrormask's mother/daughter dilemma. Would be interesting to watch them back to back. Paper House was done in the 1990s, ages ago. Kidbro recommended it back when he was a film major and did art films. It haunts me in the same way and both had similar nightmare images. Also in both the resolution was found within the girl doing the drawings. Another one that deals with similar themes was of course Labrynthe - about a girl's envy of the attention her baby brother got and wish to be rid of him and her struggle to come to terms with the love/envy. Sometimes I think metaphors depicted in fantasy and sci-fi get to the root of problems, at least psychological ones, far better than straight literary fiction does. Or maybe it's easier to see and understand something, when it is shown and not told?
Just finished watching the DVD of my favorite teen/high school drama, Pump up the Volume circa 1991. Watched the end of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen first, which was truly horrid, leading me to believe that whomever is writing teen dramas now needs to revisit the glory days of the 1980s and early 90s, when they actually had something to say. Pump Up the Volumn is about a boy who is uncomfortable talking to people, incredibly shy, who uses a radio bandwith to talk to the world, to say what he feels - sort of like livejournal or the internet has become - back in the late 80's, early 90's it was radio signals, because the internet, while it existed wasn't advanced enough and well not everyone could get on. He picks up a book called "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" by Lenny Bruce and through words tells how he feels. The film is your basic teens against authority theme - and is precursor to edgy teen dramedy's such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Popular, Freaks and Geeks, and My So Called Life which popped up on the television landscape shortly afterwards or around the same time. Veronica Mars references Pump Up the Volumn in one of its episodes - the one where the kid hosts a rogue radio show. And VM thinks it's the VP's kid and he says, yeah right, I'd get away with that. It also has a brief cameo by Seth Green later to appear on Buffy, Greg the Bunny, and the Italian Job. The theme song is Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen. Featuring edgy music and edgier/sex-edged dialogue it cut to the root of the teen situation without romanticizing it. Also depicted some of the difficulties with the US public school system's emphasis on standardized tests - specifically SAT scores. Flawed in places, it still hits more chords than most teen dramas before or since. Showing high school is hell for everyone and surviving it is a preview to adulthood. One of the best lines is - "Everybody is telling you what to do, everyone wants you to find a nice girl, plan a career, and settle down...like your parents. They don't care what you think and maybe that's not what you want." Pump came around the same time as the black comedy/satire Heathers which was controversial at the time and rarely seen now. Think Mean Girls except with a homicidal edge and better dialogue. Now I'm half watching a teen version of Pride and Prejudice...very odd, but not nearly as clever as Clueless, making me think yet again - the teen movie market has seriously taken a dive downhill since 1999. Actually it appears to be Pride And Prejudice meets Little Women if the parents died or disappeared. It's on EWAM and is circa 2003 and stars Kam Heskin and Orlando Seale and directed by Andrew Black...never heard of it. Also has moments of cleverness tucked in here and there. Yes, it is a bit pathetic I know, but I'm in a teen movie mood for some bizarre reason.
Saw Mirrormask last weekend - which is a movie that improves in retrospect. I am haunted by it. And find myself liking it more and more after the fact than when I watched it. The images stick in your head and flip around. It is a film you have to think about. It seems simple on the surface...but. Oh hell. The film is about a 15 year old girl who juggles in her father's circus. She hates her life and is frustrated with her father. And uses art as an outlet - drawing how she feels, her frustrations, her inner struggle. Creating in the process a fantasy world within her drawings -a sort of shadow world which explores all the psychological and emotional turmoil within. When she tells her Mom that she wishes she was dead and her mother has a freak brain aneursym - the girl freaks and her guilt/love/anger with her mother overwhelms her. Into the world of the subconscious we travel - and much like Dorothy's journey to OZ we aren't certain what is dream and what reality, how much is in the head and how much outside it. Is the girl dreaming or has she fallen through her pictures into the other world, exchanging places, albeit momentarily with the girl in that one? It is a story told more through visual images than words. Each character in the world of Mirrormask wears a mask. One that tells us who they are in the inside, their real face possibly the real mask. It reminded me a bit in style with the film Paper House - which is a story about a seemingly autistic child who uses art to deal with her pain - her pain has to do with her feelings towards her father who is both demon and father. It is the daughter/father version of Mirrormask's mother/daughter dilemma. Would be interesting to watch them back to back. Paper House was done in the 1990s, ages ago. Kidbro recommended it back when he was a film major and did art films. It haunts me in the same way and both had similar nightmare images. Also in both the resolution was found within the girl doing the drawings. Another one that deals with similar themes was of course Labrynthe - about a girl's envy of the attention her baby brother got and wish to be rid of him and her struggle to come to terms with the love/envy. Sometimes I think metaphors depicted in fantasy and sci-fi get to the root of problems, at least psychological ones, far better than straight literary fiction does. Or maybe it's easier to see and understand something, when it is shown and not told?
