I Can’t Work for That Corporation: 30 Years of Say Anything…

Over at the Ringer, I wrote about the 30th anniversary of Say Anything… It’s a tremendous movie which I feel has gotten even more interesting over time, brought to the screen by an auteur director whose career strikes me as rather mysterious.

It is no accident that Say Anything… takes place in Seattle, which would very shortly prove the staging ground for the sea change most readily associated with Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Sub Pop Records. You remember or you’ve read about it: out with khakis and in with flannel, muddy guitars replacing glimmering synths, or, more darkly, heroin and high-end coffee instead of coke and Diet Coke. With his next picture, 1992’s Singles, Crowe would formally assert his status as midwife to this changing of the guard. With Say Anything…, the underground would take a tentative step toward the obliterating light of the mainstream.