When you see James Merendino's imaginative yet schizophrenic film SLC Punk, keep in mind that, unfortunately, it's a pretty accurate depiction of what it's like to be young in Salt Lake City. Stevo, who is played with frenetic energy by Matt Lillard, describes Salt Lake like this: "It's like Jesus Christ took a shit and it landed right here." He's speaking for a lot of people when he says that.

It's not that the city is ugly or useless-- I can drive less than 20 minutes from my house to some of the best hiking, mountain biking, skiing and snowboarding in the world. But, as the movie takes great pains to make clear, being different is looked down upon, and it doesn't take much adverse behavior to qualify as different 'round these parts. Just a few weeks ago, Salt Lake's finest decided to crack down on a drum circle-- a fuckin' drum circle-- that congregates in a local park (which, ironically, is named Liberty Park). The cops brought in the riot squad, replete with helmets and Plexiglass shields, and next thing you know, it looked like Chicago '68. The crazy part was, only the cops thought it was a riot; everyone else just kept telling them how ridiculous it was that they were breaking up a drum circle. SLC Punk hits this kind of absurdity right on the mark.

Everyone I know from Salt Lake and has seen the show has said almost exactly the same thing: "Shit, that's so much like my life it's depressing." Which makes me think that the tale is probably somewhat universal. Sure, some of the things you'll see in the movie are freaky, but we locals just take them for granted (as I'm sure people who live in Wichita take Lenny-like farmboys for granted and people in Hackensack take mulletheads for granted). Like Mark, the Norwegian transplant, says when asked what Miami is like, "It's like any other city. Streets, houses, what else is there?"

That said, the movie and its accompanying soundtrack reveal as much about Salt Lake City in what's not said as in what's said. Take, for example, the time: 1985. It was at least the tail end and often much further away from the major punk movements in London, New York and elsewhere. But this trend, like others, didn't hit our mountain burg until we were knee-deep in that soap opera called the Reagan Years. Likewise with the soundtrack, which features some great songs from the Velvet Underground, Fear, the Stooges, Exploited, the Ramones and others. Most of them were past their primes by 1985, but when you're in any place other than the world's trendsetting cities, you get used to piecing your existence together from much broader sources.

Also notice that while the movie is called SLC Punk, there aren't any Salt Lake bands on the soundtrack. That's because the closest thing we've had to "punk" that's made it past Utah are the avant-hardcore stylings of Iceburn and the melodic indie-core of the now-defunct State of the Nation (whose core members grew up in Southern California anyway). But, most of the bands on the soundtrack are either from London or New York, which means there are a whole lot of "outsiders" who, if this movie were made about their town, wouldn't have any representation, either.

-Shan Fowler