Pump Up the Volume poster
Pump Up the Volume

What’s Aged the Worst?

Shep Shepard reporter; gay caller performance; short on-screen shows; bedroom posters; the man who works with gangs downtown; wraparound shades; eagerness to phone

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:52Read transcript
  • The Shep Shepard TV reporter role could have been much funnier in better hands.
  • The actor in the gay caller scene underdelivers, as if a replacement was grabbed that day; the budget shows in some one-scene supporting parts.
  • A crossover is proposed in which Die Hard's Dick Thornberg washes up in Mesa hoping Hard Harry is his way back to network.
  • The shows seen on screen are too short to build an audience; the film should show one running until 2:30 a.m.
  • Bedroom posters in 1985-94 films were wrong, a missed chance for Nike basketball, hip-hop and alt-rock posters; Boogie Nights and my so-called life are praised for getting them right.
  • The man who works with gangs "downtown", raised earlier as the film's only Black character and deferred to this category along with the police-department banter, is recalled as "the gang leader" and called tough.
  • Slater is impeccably cool except when he dons wraparound shades to visit his PO box, looking like Max Headroom.
  • Mark's eagerness to cold-call people on his cordless phone is what made one host recoil in 2020.