Well, since I just mentioned the film’s soundtrack, when I had a little free time, I looked for this videocassette which must be one of the most played ones I’ve ever owned. I bought it at Suncoast Video at Northridge Mall when I was in college, and as I had a small video library at the time and, somehow, a lot of free time even though I was involved in activities at the university and working full time, I watched it over and over again. Which probably means I got it my freshman or sophomore year when I was not quite as busy. Regardless, I’ve seen it enough times that even the previews before the feature (for The Book of Love and Metropolitan) were familiar.
At any rate, for those of you who haven’t seen it: A high school student, Mark Hunter (played by Christian Slater), has recently moved to Arizona from back east when his father has become the superintendant for the school district. His father bought him a short-wave radio to talk to his friends back east (this was in the days when long distance was expensive, young feller), but he instead runs a pirate radio station and broadcasts at 10pm every night. Although he is shy in person and has not made any friends, his broadcasts attract the attention of the local students, including Nora DeNiro (Samantha Mathis) who sends poems to his PO Box. Matters take a serious turn and the authorities start looking for him when he talks to a suicidal young man on the air. Suspecting it’s a prank, Happy Harry Hard-On (his on-air persona) teases the fellow but tries to calm him when he then suspects he’s serious–and the boy kills himself after hanging up. Meanwhile, the school principal is expelling students on thin pretexts to thin the herd while keeping the funding, and this comes to light as the FCC closes in on Mark.
The movie gives Slater a chance to go into on-air rants about the concerns of Generation X, and it spoke to me at the time. Come to think of it, the anti-consumerist and desire for authentic experience could probably apply today–I thought about offering to watch it with my young adult children to show them that some concerns might be universal for the age–but it’s an old movie by now and might as well be in black and white to them. Plus, Samantha Mathis appears topless briefly, and although that was a staple for late 20th century cinema, it is definitely not for 21st century movies, and they would be scandalized.
So although I’m not going to rewatch it every week or every couple of weeks as I did when the videocassette was new, I can definitely imagine watching it again.
Metropolitan is worth seeing, if you haven’t seen it
I haven’t, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen a copy of it on videocassette out in the wild. But if I see it somewhere, I will pick it up on your recommendation.