This film has gotten better and more prescient with the rise of internet virality and cancel culture; it could be re-adapted for the 2020s very easily. The soundtrack is pretty good and pretty cutting edge at the time. I'd love to read the novel it was based on, but the only place I can find it is on Amazon for over $450! As for the production of the film, there are good and bad things. I think there are very interesting use of televisual imagery and the satire of mid 90's TV sensationalism. I LOVE the fact they have John Roark playing like six different guys on TV; the symbolism and deeper meaning of that remains even as the direct references to Larry King, Phil Donahue, Tom Brokaw, and others are lost to time. While I liked most of it, there was something not quite right about the representation of life of 20-somethings at that moment...while it hits on the media parody, it misses on the development of Cliff's real interior thoughts. Dorff is good in the role, but maybe his white teeth grin threw something off with the actual reality of the kind of guy Spab was supposed to be. We've all known guys like that, but Spab's disconnections from his own parents and homelife seemed contrived and came off more as a lampooning than developing his chracter. Overall, I've always liked this film despite its flaws and bleak themes. Dorff and Witherspoon's youth make them both beautiful to look at and the attitude and soundtrack really evokes memories of the time in ways that are hard to create with exposition or set design. I really hope the intellectual property gets rediscovered and re-optioned into a new adaptation. If given to the right filmmaker, and if deliberately aimed at lampooning modern audiences rather than playing to their bigotry, then I believe S.F.W. would still have a really good message today. Sometimes it is important to answer the bad news of the fucked up world with a loud, "Oh Well!" and go about your business of life.

I first watched _S.F.W._ back in 1995, and in that post-grunge era, mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, I liked the movie a lot, but I didn't quite get what the point was. Watching the movie now, over thirty years later, I still don't get what it's trying to say - if anything. Is this about how fickle celebrity status can be? Is it about mass media exploiting tragedy only as long as it is popular? Both? Neither? With all of these questions asked, I can't help but think the movie is just chaos. We're really just following the main character, Cliff, who had a similar rise to fame as Cobain, being lifted to the status of voice of a generation. Now, unlike Kurt, Cliff didn't make music that changed everything. No, he was taken hostage. What do we know about the hostage situation? Not really anything. It's just the inciting incident, and it could have been anything else. For me, the only reason I bother to watch this is for the time-capsule effect. I love the soundtrack: Marilyn Manson, Hole, Radiohead, et al. The grunge aesthetic and tone. Also, we get a young Tobey Maguire as a stoner. Maybe there's a deeper meaning in the story or maybe there isn't. So fucking what?

What the hell does it matter!