In case you missed it, I was recently on the Mastering McConaughey podcast to talk about Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation with some new friends. (Maybe go take a walk after this and throw it on…just a suggestion.) During our review, the MM fellas alerted me to a movie I had never heard of (I am reminded daily just how much content exists out there) and I became so intrigued I almost derailed the entire episode to research it. Instead they artfully steered us out of that skid and I forgot about it… until now.
Glory Daze (1995, 100 minutes) is a late entry into slacker movie canon. It first caught my attention because of its absolutely stacked cast (more to come on this) and my interest grew when I discovered the soundtrack was both recorded and compiled by the punk band The Vandals. The plot is easy to cover, and is well tread ground. Jack (Ben Affleck) is graduating from art school, and unsure of what to do next with his life. (Oh no!) Heartbroken over his last relationship and very attached to his housemates, Jack decides he’s going to stay in Santa Cruz another year and hold on to whoever and whatever he can. Parties, angst, and antics ensue.
Glory Daze came and went without making too many waves. It was given middling reviews and everyone moved on. It was released the same year as Mallrats, and so we can see where Affleck’s career was heading if it wasn’t for Good Will Hunting, which he must have been writing around this time with Matt Damon. Damon appears for all of 2 seconds in Glory Daze which I guess we can call a cameo even though he wasn’t very famous at the time. Once you watch it, you can see why this movie faded away and never really hit cult status like other slacker movies. It falls a little too deeply into the grooves of a “coming-of-age” story. And while its set against a backdrop of punk music, punk concerts, skateboarding, and drinking with wild abandon, its core is still very cookie cutter.
On the other hand, those elements are certainly what make Glory Daze special. The soundtrack features well-known SoCal punk bands (like NOFX) with lesser known bands from places like… Ohio. It’s energetic and fun and you only wish that the story would pick up in the same way. Part of the mopiness of the story is that Jack (Affleck) is kind of a drip. That’s part of the whole story, sure, but he never gets to any depth of himself. He only moves on at the end of the movie by finally confronting his ex-girlfriend about his feelings, which she points out aren’t feelings but a need for security. Jack seems to agree because he lets her go and leaves Santa Cruz. It’s a payoff suited to Jack, who is self-centered, but I couldn’t help but want more for him.
When compared to his housemates, Jack’s developments feel limp in comparison. Affleck is also outshined by the rest of the cast which doesn’t help matters either. Let’s start with my favorite, Sam Rockwell, who was working more than Affleck at the time but didn’t receive any sort of top billing. Rockwell plays Rob, the only fella to have a lady, Joanie (Megan Ward). The two are planning to do a very grown-up thing and move to Los Angeles together. His friends obviously hate this idea only because, it seems, they don’t have anyone themselves. Rockwell steals his scenes. Maybe because he’s a total babe and is having a resurgence in popularity on TikTok, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Rob is aloof, but charming. Not a great boyfriend, but you get the appeal. It’s more than you can say for Jack, who is basically a bully.
Also outshining Affleck is French Stewart as Dennis, the eternal student. After 6 years and 3 degrees Dennis finally feels ready to move on to graduate business school. But between Jack’s desperate pleas to stay and a professor’s (John Rhys-Davies) interest in Dennis’ photography, he spends the movie considering taking yet another year in Santa Cruz. Dennis is the grandfather figure of the El Rancho house - he often reflects on how he “made” all the boys. Turned them from lame freshmen into… well… less lame seniors? (Jury’s out.) In the end he too decides to leave, forced out by the discovery that his professor isn’t interested so much in his photography, but Dennis himself.
That leaves us with the last two roommates who had planned to stay all along. Mickey (Vinnie DeRamus), a cartoonist for the newspaper and Josh aka “Slosh” (Vien Hong) who was a computer science major but dropped out thus “freeing himself from fear.” Which I have to say, I loved his little speech to Jack toward the end of the film. He explains that for a long time, failing out of school was the worst possible thing he could imagine and when he dropped out and realized life kept going. He was released from that fear. “I thought the world would end. It didn’t,” he says. For a movie that is pretty hamfisted with its more poignant moments, this one works.
Mickey on the other hand has an almost silly arc in that he has women falling over him the entire movie including his friend Chelsea (Alyssa Milano), but is unable to see it. Like, at all. It’s pretty unbelievable that women could throw themselves so hard at someone and have them be quite that oblivious. It feels like these advances and moments could be more subtle, but perhaps I am missing something, perhaps it is an attempt at humor. If it’s that, then I guess it is funny (in a way?)
I don’t want to come off as SO negative because this movie is enjoyable for what it is. It lacks some rewatchability but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy myself. Mostly, however, for the exact reasons I was curious about it: the wild cast and the soundtrack. I should mention that other than Matt Damon, Brendan Fraser, Leah Remini, and Matthew McConaughey also have bit parts. It’s fun to just think about all those people in one place, at one time, making this little punk rock movie. The writer/director, Rich Wilkes, is a punk rocker himself, and you can see those experiences infused into his work.
In a way, Glory Daze, is like SLC Punk’s gentler more suburban brother. And I appreciate it for that. Also, what’s wild to me is that Wilkes wrote this movie around the same time as Airheads and Billy Madison. Airheads is a masterpiece in my mind and I wish he had kept going with the rocker/weirdo comedies rather than getting a bit more melodramatic. I mean - the movie ends with Ben Affleck’s character writing “Angst for the memories” on a window for his ex-girlfriend.
So, yeah.