The Triangle

Issue date: 2/1/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: MCT Campus Matthew Lillard's breakthrough performance as a pot-smoking nomad in SLC Punk! forever brands him as a cult fan favorite.

The winter season usually shows an obvious slow of good products of entertainment to show or even bother reviewing, but unlike winters before it, this winter lacks greatly in rather amazing albums or films. So, with the lack of things to review, I thought it would be interesting to add a single "retroview" every week, showcasing some film or musical album from the past that might be worth bringing up once again for your enjoyment.

For the first week of this newly born section, I thought it would be fun to bring out one of my favorite underrated films, SLC Punk!, An independent film released back in 1998. The film was launched across mainstream theaters, but it never seemed to catch on and after asking quite a few people, it seems that no one has ever heard of it! The movie follows the last two true punks left in Salt Lake City (SLC in the title), Steveo (Matthew Lillard), and the ironically-named needle-phobic Heroin Bob (Michael A. Goorjian). The year is 1985, and Salt Lake City is the centre of a pure straight-laced Mormon faith, making these amateur anarchists' jobs all that much harder.

These two rare birds, roaming the streets of SLC with their army fatigues or garish leisure suit jackets, take you into their world through the narrative of Steveo, who breaks the fourth wall constantly through out the film. The story picks up after both Steveo and Bob's completion of state college, then jumps around with the chaos and liveliness that both Steveo and Bob share. The events of the primary storyline can take place over a few days, weeks, or months - it is never really made clear. The primary storyline takes a backseat to a plentiful amount of flashbacks that make way for flashbacks within flashbacks in fashion of stories being told by Steveo himself and what you get from those flashbacks is entirely of Steveo's perspective.

Steveo pointedly singles out all of the "posers" of SLC and tries to define what it means to be a true punk, all the while questioning his very own reasons for being a punk trying to overthrow a capitalist society. Michael Goorjian does an incredible job bringing out the complicated and rather mixed-up young punk, Heroin Bob, while Matthew Lillard does just the same to bring Steveo to life. The two come together to make a very convincing duo and in result generate a very fun coming-of-age film.

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