SLC Punk (1998)

Tagline: God bless America… They’re going to need it.

Curiosity: I’m testing my love of another childhood favorite.

Plot: Steve-o (Matthew Lillard) talks about his life as a punk during the summer of 1985 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He and his friend Heroin Bob (Michael Goorjian) are struggling to get by, and their dedication to the anarchy ideology isn’t exactly helping. What follows are a series of vignettes about drugs, sex, and comedic mayhem as shit slowly but surely gets real.

Thoughts: I loved SLC Punk when I was 14, and I still love it now, although for slightly different reasons. The cast went on to do so much after this movie that it’s almost surreal watching them in bits parts. Jason Segel alone has delivered for me time and again (Freaks and Geeks, Knocked Up, How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Til Schwiegger went on to do m.f.-ing Inglourious Basterds. Goorjian’s IMDB page is stuffed with credits. And Lillard… was in In the Name of the King? Point is, I like the cast. And the music’s pretty great too.

I used to relate to this movie because it captured a lot of what I felt living in a similarly square town. Blue Bell is by no means Salt Lake City, but it’s still a beat scene, daddy-o. I had issues with the bummer ending and the protagonist’s love of anarchy (I’ve always taken my politics from Joe Strummer, not Sid Vicious) when I was younger, but not so much anymore. Ultimately, the film is about growing up. Taking your ideals and trying to integrate them into the real world, compromising what you can while still maintaining your dignity if you can. Oh, and getting the fuck away from all your stupid drugged out friends, because they’re only going to hurt you in the end and possibly kill your best friend [SPOILER].

Even the film’s flimsier parts – Steve-o’s occasionally misguided rants, any bit of melodrama really – seem beyond my reproach, because they capture how I remember my high school days. Being punk rock means arguing how punk rock things are or are not ALL THE TIME. I listen to a wider array of punk bands now than I did when I was like 16, but I’m sure 16-year-old me would still hate the 24-year-old version of me for listening to Wilco and Sarah McLachlin.

Reflection: BEST USE OF GENERATION X EVER.