Wassup Rockers *movie review*
While reviewing movies isn’t something I normally do, Jason Saint has written a great review of the movie Wassup Rockers so check it out!
*****
Looking Outside The Box
In 1995, director Larry Clark presented the movie “Kids”. The critically acclaimed film dealt with several controversial topics including underage sex, underage alcohol abuse, violence, and a general overview of what life is like in a world without good supervision. Although shunned by the box office giant-seekers, “Kids” would go down in history as being one of the most true-to-life films, and was way ahead of its time.
Recently, I picked up another film directed by Clark called “Wassup Rockers”. I first heard of the film when New York horrorpunk outfit Blasé Débris did a song sharing the same title, but upon seeing that the film had the same director as “Kids”, I knew I had to see it.
Right away, we’re introduced to a character named Jonathon Velasquez, who tells about his fellow Hispanic friends Kico, Louie, Eddie, Carlos, Porky, and Spermball (who tries to shed his nickname to go by his real name, Milton, throughout the movie). After introducing his friends, the audience gets a look at the neighborhood that the 7 friends live in. Littered streets, people sitting outside guarding their homes, and graffiti are only the introduction to a Hispanic teen getting gunned down. We later learn that he’s another friend of Jonathon’s when they go to visit and see a memorial set up outside his fallen comrade’s front door. The teens pay their respects and head on to school.
Firsthand, we learn that the teens are part of a counterculture that Clark is known for invading in his films. The chosen rejects who choose to dress in black with long-hair and who don’t want to look like everyone else. It’s clear that the teens aren’t going for any specific image, just dressing how they feel. The first scene showing all the friends together is memorable and fun, as it shows Jonathon leading the pack, skating down the street with his friends joining him one at a time. Stopping only to harass some black girls that make fun of them for being “rockers”, this later leads to a confrontation that the friends ignore.
We’re then shown a look at the teens in a scenario that I’m myself familiar with. Not having enough money to go out and see every concert that comes through town or to spend hundreds of dollars at the mall, the characters are shown laughing on a playground they’re too old to be on, but not quite old enough to leave behind. Each of the teens are in that all-too familiar stage in life where we transcend from being children to being adults. They’re trying to grow mustaches and hang out with the older crowd, conjuring memories of leaving the kids table to join the adults for the first time. After skating through their neighborhood, the mood winds down as they start talking about past sexual encounters and start drinking what little bit they have to drink. In yet another memorable moment, the teens take to their instruments and play a short hardcore punk set to each other with a Casualties poster present. At first, you can see that they’re tensed up but once the music gets heavier, Kico loosens up and starts to enjoy himself as he gets immersed in the music. His eyes close and his emotions come out more with every lyric, which is exactly how I felt the first time I heard punk rock.
The next day, the boys make the bold decision to skip school and travel to Beverly Hills to skate outside their high schools. Upon getting there, they get noticed by a couple of more proper girls who point out their house, something you can tell the guys aren’t too familiar with experiencing. When the girls are rushed away, a cop shows up to harass the skaters which leads to a very funny scene where they all lie to the officer about their age, addresses, and leads into all but one of them escaping. They then arrive at the girls’ house after skating around the upscale Beverly Hills neighborhood which leads to a conversation pointing out the contrast between the world the girls are from and the South Central ghetto that Kico, Jonathon, and their friends have grown up in. It’s a very deep and involved scene where Kico explains the way things are, whether it’s what’s right or not, and how you either deal with it or you let it eat you alive. Leaving there, the remaining 6 enter a world of bigger problems that they’re not prepared to deal with and can’t wait to get away from.
“Wassup Rockers” is one of the few movies I’ve seen that shows what being a teenager really is like. It’s not a movie about trying to get a scholarship or trying to get a date to prom, that’s not what everyone was doing in high school. “Wassup Rockers” focuses more on the group of kids you saw in the back of the classroom who smoked during lunchtime and hung out under the bleachers at the football games, if they even went. It’s one of those rare movies that reminds me of the things that me and my friends were into and the way that we enjoyed life, living in the moment and not worrying about the next day. It’s a fun story with great characters and an impressively high level of emotion captured in scenery and mood rather than dialogue. The acting is perfect, as it’s not completely perfect. The words are flawed, the speech runs quickly then slowly just as if the character were actually speaking and not following a script. Yet again, Larry Clark has captured the essence of how it is to be young and what life is like on the other side of town. I would recommend “Wassup Rockers” to anybody, especially if they came from the walk of life that doesn’t involve sports cars and Letterman jackets.
****
About the Author
Denise Borders 39, Los Angeles. Denise founded PWV in 2008 and remains the primary manager and photographer/videographer. She is not secretly obsessed with Joey Cape.
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