the groundhog day project

The whole point to movies like Pump Up the Volume or The Legend of Billie Jean (watching again today), is that not only is the system broken but the measures to fix it are broken as well. That Mark's father, the school commissioner, does his job only as his rebellious son is being arrested and Lieutenant Ringwald only tries to do his job after its too late here... and manages to do the right thing in the end by specifically by not doing his job when Billie Jean confronts Pyatt--this is a measure that things are not really working. There's no legitimate oversight... Of course, that brings up an interesting point about Pump Up the Volume --imagine if, instead of broadcasting that letter about Cheryl Biggs under the guise of Hard Harry Hard-On, Mark had pointed out the problem to his father. He wouldn't have garnered the interest of Nora, of course, would have remained the quiet nerdy guy. But, he might have save the school without some of the trouble--Paige blowing up he...

Okay, this is really me, now. No more hiding. Listen--we're all worried, we're all in pain. That just come with having eyes and ears. But, just remember one thing: it can't get any worse, it can only get better. I mean, high school is the bottom. Being a teenager sucks, but that's the point; surviving it is the whole point. Quitting is not going to make you strong. Living will. So, just hang on and hang in there. You know I know all about the hating and the sneering. I'm a member of the "Why bother?" generation, myself. But, why did I bother coming out here tonight and why did you? I mean, it's time. It begins with us, not with politicians, the experts and the teachers, but with us, with you and with me, the ones who need it most. I believe with everything that's in me that the whole world is begging for healing' even the trees and the earth itself are crying out for it. You can heart it everywhere. It's the same kind of healing I desperate...

You ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up? - Hard Harry Hard-On Pump Up the Volume is not about the stuff that's wrong with the whole country, or society as a whole. There are hints of bigger stuff (especially in Mark's final speech) but mostly, Hard Harry's broadcasts keep spiraling around Hubert H. Humphrey High School, where Principal Cresswood (Annie Ross) is following in Joe Clark's footsteps (a la Lean on Me ), weeding out the bad students rather than making them (or at least helping them make themselves) better. (Plus Murdock (Andy Romano), the Vice Principal does his own locker searches without anyone around and eventually gets into a fight with a student.) Meanwhile, the lives of many of the teenagers at the school... welll, they suck. They live in Paradise Hills, Arizona, suburb of Phoenix. (And presumably the equivalent to Paradise Valley, that includes eight resorts; it's a tourist town.) And, they're living in ...

"Feeling screwed up at a screwed up time in a screwed up place does not necessarily make you screwed up." - Hard Harry Hard-On No teachers today, again , except as antagonists... Well, I suppose my take was that Joe Clark was the antagonist of the larger story if not the throughline of Lean on Me . And, for so many high schoolers, plenty of teachers are the antagonists. Not just teachers--parents, other adults; like they're all the phonies Holden Caulfield saw them as. The perspective here: this movie puts us on the side of the teenagers. Hard Harry Hard-On (Christian Slater) starts us out with the radio show we will learn is an unlicensed broadcast--that's the basic setup for Pump Up the Volume . Hard Harry Hard-On, of course, is also Mark Hunter, a fairly shy (meek may be a better descriptor) high schooler. Mark's parents grew up in the sixties but have turned establishment--his father is the "youngest school commissioner" in Arizona's history...