Some recommendations

SLC Punk

In the 1980s world of Salt Lake City Utah, the city’s only living punks navigate anarchy, love and growing up. To them, the face of evil is Ronald Reagan and the embodiment of oppression is Utah liquor stores only selling 3-proof beer. Main character Stevo (Matthew Lillard, as viewers my age may recognize as Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo franchise) and his friends suffer from an intense fear of becoming their corporate sell-out or otherwise misguided parents. Or everyone finding out that they’re really posers. The film blinks between punk shows and house parties, seas of liberty spikes and Mohawks, self-indulgent monologues about fascism and changing the system from the inside, and fights pitting rednecks vs. punks vs. posers vs. mods vs. Nazis. While the movie covers the politics of teenage identity and psychology behind rebellion, one line Stevo delivers sticks out to me as perfectly encapsulating the restlessness and urgency communicated through the young characters: “In a country of lost souls, rebellion comes hard but in a religiously oppressive city which half its population isn’t even of that religion, it comes like fire.”

High Fidelity (2020)

Yes, this is better than the John Cusak original. Here, Rob is played by Zoe Kravitz, and the gender-swapping expands to minor best friends Barry and Dick, here reinvented as Simon and Charise. The 2000 version, although inarguably a cult classic that shaped so many die-hard vinyl fans of the modern era, doesn’t exactly hold up to today’s standards of quality film. Everywhere that Cusak’s Rob was whiny or entitled gets more growth in the remake — whether because expanding the form from movie length to TV show naturally allowed for more depth, or because taking his problems and adapting them for modern viewers by catalyst of a queer woman of color protagonist made us more appreciative of their complexity. Kravitz’s Rob is effortlessly cool, not just in music taste but in fashion, pop culture and dating, and though she’s easy to criticize she’s even easier to root for. And as expected, the soundtrack is fantastic and reason alone to watch.

Big Mouth

After the first season of “Big Mouth” was released in 2017, shocked Netflix viewers quickly realized that despite its goofy animation style, it was far from being a show for children. It centers around a class of middle schoolers ranging from pubescent to deep in the trenches of hormonal change, and is South Park-esque in its off-color humor, although “Big Mouth” relies far less on politics for laughs and instead follows the humiliating and hilarious ups and downs of early teenagerhood. Comedian Nick Kroll, a co-creator of the show, voices an impressive number of its characters, and undoubtedly my generation’s favorite comic, John Mulaney plays others. Part of the show’s excellence lies in long-running jokes and incredibly specific character tropes. One of my favorite recurring gags is a character’s pit bull, Featuring Ludacris, a talking dog who delivers depressing one-liners that muse on the confines of his life as a pet. This show has endless wisdom to impart on those currently coming of age (or laughs for adults reminiscing on the horrors of teenagerhood), but you may have to sit through some wildly inappropriate jokes first.

The Birdcage

This 1996 remake of a French film called “La Cage aux Folles” is one of three Robin Williams movies I’ve been hooked on lately, though significantly cheerier than the other two (“Good Will Hunting” and “Dead Poets Society”). In “The Birdcage,” Williams plays the energetic owner of a Miami drag club, and Nathan Lane is his effeminate partner who loves a little too hard. When their son decides to get married to the daughter of a prominent Republican senator, the couple must conceal their identities, orientation and occupation to seem acceptable to the prospective in-laws. This movie shows a family storyline that may be a pipe dream for some viewers — conservative hypocrite parents having to eat their words and learning to love those different from them. Although the LGBTQ representation (and stereotypes) are ’90s-outdated, the message at the heart of the film is sweet and still rings true.

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson

This Netflix original sketch comedy show was created by and stars Tim Robinson, an ex-writer for Saturday Night Live. Robinson’s sketches are clearly everything that was too over-the-top absurd for the more mainstream comedy show, and are played by a variety of hired actors rather than a rotating cast of comedians. I think Wired author Peter Rubin best described the allure of the show in his review, which was actually a reflection piece after a rewatch of the show (the first time through having disliked it): “That thing my brain does, where I’m unable to let go of embarrassments both real and imaginary? Whatever that is, it finds a kindred spirit in ‘I Think You Should Leave.’” The simplicity of the comedy and reliance on everyday experiences rather than pop culture makes it accessible for all audiences, and it keeps viewers moving between bouts of second-hand embarrassment and fits of laughter.

Josette Thornhill is a senior at Aragon High School in San Mateo. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.