It's January 1997 and, believe it or not, I just saw Fast
Times at Ridgemont High for the first time. Like many other
80's favorites that people have been pleading for me to watch and
review, it didn't live up to its overinflated hype, but it was still
entertaining, and captured the essence of the early 80's, from the
primitive video games to fashions and slang. One thing director
Amy Heckerling always manages to do well in these aimless teen
comedies (e.g. CLUELESS) is integrate what is current-at-the-
moment clothes and dialect. This may tend to date her movies,
but it also serves as an accessible time capsule to that time.
The movie, based on Cameron Crowe's supposedly factual
book, centers around a group of high school kids, most of which
work at the mall. Judge Reinhold takes pride in his burger-flipping
job, a very young-looking Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates
work at a dine-in pizza parlor, and dorky Brian Backer takes movie
tickets while his slimeball friend Robert Romanus scalps concert
tickets. The unemployed characters are also seen around the mall,
with Sean Penn's pothead character Jeff Spicoli attempting to get
service sans shirt in Reinhold's burger joint and beefy football player
Forrest Whitaker shoving quarter after quarter into Space Invaders
and Pac-Man.
There are plenty of in-school scenes featuring two teachers
on opposite sides of the spectrum. Vincent Schiavelli is the nervous,
outgoing type who wants all the kids to like him and Ray Walston is
the crusty old fart who runs his class like a military outfit. Walston's
main problem is braindead Spicoli (undoubtedly the inspiration for
the BILL & TED movies), who disrupts class on a regular basis and
even has a pizza delivered to the classroom one day.
In the Heckerling tradition, there's not much of a plot, just
a series of loosely related scenes, most of which involve sex. Cates
schools Leigh on a certain sexual technique, Backer tries to work up
the courage to ask Leigh out, Reinhold is walked in on by Cates
during an intimate personal moment, Penn trashes Whitaker's car,
and so on. These anecdotal-type scenes work as a whole and manage
to be almost poignant, especially in its telling of Leigh's disastrous
history with men and boys.
Cameron Crowe, who has recently hit it big with the
wonderful JERRY MAGUIRE, knows how people act and interact,
and scripts it well. The ensemble cast acts it well, particularly Penn
and Leigh. FAST TIMES is a quintessentially 80's movie, which
means it includes sex and nudity. Leigh and Cates disrobed because
everyone had to in order to make it big in the 80's. Nudity is a rare
commodity these days, and this movie is still cut to shreds when
aired on TV, so splurge for the fifty-cent video rental, especially if
you're interested in seeing Phoebe Cates' breasts.
Copyright © 1997 Andrew Hicks
