There is no needle drop quite like the one that kickstarts Pump Up the Volume. We are less than five minutes into the movie. Credits are still popping up on screen in neon, graffiti script, but we’ve already seen that the kids are not alright in this completely ordinary town. The camera leads us into a bland suburban home, into a room stocked with cassettes and audio equipment. Someone— we’ve heard his voice, but have yet to see his face— literally drops the needle on a Leonard Cohen record.
“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded/Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed,” he sings.
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