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#55. The Substandard Looks Back on Fast Times at Ridgemont High
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Dudes Chatting — Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 35 Years Later: Pegged to a Variety retrospective on the film's 35th anniversary, the hosts revisit Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) as the template for the modern teen movie. They note that its reputation was built largely on VHS after Universal nearly shelved it. The cast is canvassed: Sean Penn as Spicoli, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, and a young Nicolas Cage (billed as Nicolas Copeland before he changed his name). The Phoebe Cates pool scene is discussed; Vic notes she married Kevin Kline. They observe that high school culture has shifted — more SAT-pressure and status competition now, closer to the world of Spider-Man: Homecoming than to 1982 — and mention the short-lived Fast Times TV series (featuring Courtney Thorne-Smith and Patrick Dempsey). Cameron Crowe rankings close the episode: JVL puts Jerry Maguire #1, Almost Famous #2; Sonny reverses the order (Almost Famous #1, Jerry Maguire #2, Vanilla Sky #3); Vic aligns with Sonny. Vic performs a micro Gene Shalit review of Aloha ("not interesting as a bowl of poi... no stars... not the big kahuna").
Micro-episode; no Reviews or Box Office segments.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of TheSubstandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. And TheSubstandard show notes are often posted by Jonathan Last on Fridays at weeklystandard.com. Not this week.
Sonny00:00:36Not this week. No show notes this week?
JVL00:00:37Probably not.
Sonny00:00:38Boo. Tweet complaints to at JV Last.
JVL00:00:42I pulled a hammy with last week's show notes.
Vic00:00:45That's a lot of stating. So Variety did a story commemorating the 35th anniversary of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It featured interviews with Cameron Crowe, who wrote it. And he wrote a book. Apparently, he did it as an undercover assignment, and that became a book. I actually went to Amazon to look for the book, and the cheapest one you can get was for $300. Really? It's very strange that it's... First edition? It must be paperback. You cannot get a low-priced copy of the book. Do they have an e-book? Not that I saw. Hold on. They do have the movie. I'm going to effort this while you talk. They did have a movie.
JVL00:01:24Jeff Bezos would not allow this to happen. Right?
Sonny00:01:25If it's out of print, it's out of print. Yeah, it's out of print. It's not like Jeff Bezos can magic up new copies of it. Yeah, he could.
Vic00:01:33And also interviews with director Amy Heckerling. So she's been around for a long time. I thought the piece was interesting because it sort of reminds us that this was the first teen movie of its kind. Heckerling or Cameron Covert is explaining that there were, prior to this, other teen movies. The only serious ones being like Rebel Without a Cause, Blackboard Jungle, but after that, a lot of it was just silly. And so this was filmed in 81. Mm-hmm. But it's... But it kind of still, in my opinion, reflects sort of late 70s culture, obviously, because you know how that is. It's not like suddenly everybody's wearing, quote, 80s clothes and 80s haircuts. Right. They look like kids from the 70s. And the other interesting thing is they had a lot of emphasis on wanting to do a lot of scenes in the mall, which Heckerling said she liked because she's not an outdoors person, much like us.
Sonny00:02:23She doesn't like to film outdoors. We should send her the malls episode of The Substandard.
Vic00:02:26This is, you know... It's also all about mall culture. But that was like the first movie that sort of captured that sort of, this is where the kids are these days, hanging out at the mall. And that's true. Let's go Mallrats. Mallrats is a better movie. And it's sort of, you know, from that time period, in any event. And that was at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, by the way. Is that in New Jersey?
Sonny00:02:46No, no, L.A. Is that in L.A.? I don't know.
Vic00:02:49It's a total L.A. scene, but it reminded me of hanging out at the Ocean County Mall. What was the mall you hung out at, JVL?
JVL00:02:56It depended. Oh. We bounced, Chris and I bounced around between the Morristown Mall, the Cherry Hill Mall,
Vic00:03:02the Echelon Mall, and sometimes the Deptford Mall. Deptford.
JVL00:03:06Those were our four malls of choice. Cherry Hill was a big one, too.
Vic00:03:11Funny enough, Universal almost killed the movie. They didn't want to have it because it's never been tested. They didn't think many teens or young people are going to see movies like this. It's funny. They thought this in 81, 82. So they didn't market it well. It had a mediocre box office of about 27 million, but it did insane. It had numbers on VHS. And beta. And beta. Now, obviously. What's Vich's? Vich's? Vich's is like. It's pronounced Viss. And that's obviously for us. Even I did not see that in a movie theater.
JVL00:03:44I would have been nine. Your parents drew the line on that?
Vic00:03:47Oh, when it came to like kissing or sex. Well, sex is different than violence. Oh, no, don't look. Yeah, don't look. If there's, oh, gone with the wind. Better not look. They're kissing. Oh, guy gets his head blown off. That's okay.
JVL00:03:57Yeah, no. Is there sex in it, or is it just topless Phoebe Cates? That is, I would say. I don't remember. I haven't seen it. Well, there's 20 years.
Sonny00:04:03Well, there isn't a whole abortion subplot.
Vic00:04:05Yes. Right, but do they show people doing it? Yes, they do.
Sonny00:04:09I don't think they show entry.
Vic00:04:10No, I mean, it's not a porno. I don't mean like that.
JVL00:04:13There was a scene. I mean, they're on-camera love scenes.
Vic00:04:16Yes, there's two. Jennifer Jason Leigh, when she loses it for the first time, and they show her, it's a breast shot. And not that I've seen this. I don't remember. I don't remember. They do it in the dugout, and they do it in the dugout.
Sonny00:04:26I'm going to have to check your Google search history when we get back to the office.
Vic00:04:29I'll give you the timestamp. And then later on, she does it with the other guy. And in that one, Heckerling initially had some frontal male nudity, and so Universal rated it X. It was Sonny's face. Gross. It's like you sucked on a lemon. And they changed that. Phrasing. So they blurred it. But yeah, it was pretty vivid in that sense. And of course, the- And I would say this is why I think it did so well on VHS, was the Phoebe Cates scene where she emerges from the pool, and it's Judge Reinhold's fantasy in his mind.
JVL00:05:07My name is Judge. And of course, and then she walks in on him. Thank you.
Vic00:05:12But I thought- But it's funny-
JVL00:05:13Well, that's the scene everybody our age remembers. Rewind, play, rewind, play. Phoebe Cates walking out.
Vic00:05:18And maybe in slow-mo, or maybe that's only my- It's slow-mo. My head is in slow-mo. It was in slow-mo, yes. Absolutely. And she walks in. She was 18 at the time. So anyway, she was born in 1963. Okay, and you know who she's married to. She's been married forever. She's been married for like almost 30 years now. Kevin Kline. Yeah, Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates are married. Anyway, featured a great cast. Sean Penn, Forrest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Lee, Judge Reinhold, I mentioned also. Also, with not a speaking part, but they always mentioned that he was in it, was Nicolas Cage. As Nicolas Copeland. As Nicolas Copeland, before he changed his name. So that's, yeah.
JVL00:05:59Did any of you guys watch Fast Times?
Sonny00:06:06Was that the TV show? The TV's been off. Yeah, yeah.
JVL00:06:09The TV's been off. Before my time. When did that come out? Starring.
Vic00:06:12Oh, geez. No.
JVL00:06:14No, anybody? No, nothing.
Vic00:06:16Let me throw a little name at you.
JVL00:06:19Remember, this used to be a thing, three name actresses. Miss Courtney Thorne-Smith. Oh, wow. You know, I believe. Young Patrick Dempsey. Of course.
Vic00:06:28Also.
JVL00:06:28Yes.
Vic00:06:29Yeah. Do you think it holds up? Doesn't hold up. I mean, it's important, you know, but. I mean, it's funny. Did you, JVL, when you watched it.
JVL00:06:38Dean Cameron playing Jeff Spicoli, the Spicoli role. Taking it over for.
Vic00:06:42Yeah, for Sean Penn. Sean Penn. When you watched Fast Times, were you in high school? Did you watch it later on as an adult?
JVL00:06:49I saw it probably early high school, freshman year. This would have been. Like a Samizdat movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris somehow got his hands on the two of us watched. Good. Pause, rewind.
Vic00:07:01Pause, rewind. I liked it better then when I, you know, my wife had never seen it. Oh, my gosh. I said, you got to watch this movie. It's so great. You know, it's like a part of, you know, our generation growing up. Yeah. There's all the.
JVL00:07:13And Kate sees it and you're like. Yeah. I remember being angry at all the kids in that because my life in high school was nothing like that life in high school. And I think by the late 80s, early 90s, when you and I were in high school, it had already changed. All of the pressure to get into like college. You couldn't just like goof your way through high school anymore. We were all doing four hours of homework a night and stressed about the SATs and stuff like that. And in a way, that movie is an artifact of all sorts of different periods. But one of them is this was before getting into college became insanely important. Yeah, that's right. That has, I, my sense is that real high school. High school is now much more like the high school depicted in the film version of 21 Jump Street. Oh, yeah. We're like, definitely. There are, you know, everybody's cast sort of flow together. There's a lot of conflict. Everybody's worried about the SATs and trying to get into a good school. Or like Spider-Man Homecoming.
Vic00:08:08Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're all surrounded by nerds. It's acceptable to be a nerd. You know, there wasn't this real hierarchy that was much more pronounced back then. Although some of those other characters were fantastic, too. In any event, that was a Cameron Crowe. Moon Unit Zappa.
JVL00:08:26Moon Unit Zappa was also in Fast Times, the TV series.
Vic00:08:32But you know what they said was, because it did so well after it came out, Universal learned its lesson, and then they did a huge package deal with John Hughes. So then I think John Hughes shortly came after that, and then all the teen movies came out very, very serious and successful.
Sonny00:08:47The only reason I knew that this 35th anniversary was happening was because I saw an ad for a 35th anniversary Fathom Events screenplay. You know these things, like the Fathom Events, where they show the old movies? And I just am kind of curious to know who goes to these. So it's one thing when you have a repertory theater that is showing rare movies that nobody's seen, or showing movies in 70mm or something, you know, the AFI Silver here in town will show Heat in 70mm, or Interstellar in 70mm, something like that. Okay, that makes some sense to go to. But who is like, you know what I really need to see is this movie? It's on cable all the time, that's being just kind of streamed over the internet, like the picture quality's not going to be, you know, anything to, you know, write home about. I just, I don't understand who these people are.
JVL00:09:37Just a five second detour, having never been to a Fathom screening of anything, but always wanting to go, is the picture quality more like TV 1080p on a movie screen, or is it actual like theater quality projection?
Sonny00:09:50I mean it's theater quality projection, I mean it's like a 4K, you know. Projection. So not. So it's, but it's like, but it is just a DCP, it's not like they're, you know, they're taking a 35mm print around from town to town. Right. It's like, okay, this is fine.
Vic00:10:06So do you want to jump right to our, we're talking about Cameron Crowe anyway, Cameron Crowe ranking, since he wrote Fast Times and he's very talented, and we like him. And we needed a ranking. And we needed a ranking. We needed a ranking. JVL?
JVL00:10:23I would just do top five. Top three. Yeah, me too. Top three. Number one, Jerry Maguire.
Vic00:10:29Oh, wow.
JVL00:10:31Number two, Almost Famous. You know, those are the only two I really love, frankly. Just top two? Top two. We're close. I really, the rest of the truth is, I love everything about Cameron Crowe. I root for Cameron Crowe. Just the work, qua the work, is not my favorite thing in the world, which is not, it's judgment on my part. It's judgment on your taste, not on him as an artist.
Vic00:10:55Where's Vanilla Sky? That's a remake. Right. Of Abre Los Ojos. Abre Los Ojos, yeah.
Sonny00:11:02So, who cares?
Vic00:11:05I would say it wouldn't crack my top two. It's weird, unless you're into that sort of-
JVL00:11:08It's better than We Bought a Zoo. Yeah, I was going to say, it's- Better than Aloha.
Vic00:11:12It's good if you're into that sort of religion thing. Better than Say Anything.
Sonny00:11:16Yeah.
Vic00:11:17Wow.
Sonny00:11:19Top three. Number three, Vanilla Sky. Number two, Jerry Maguire. Number one, Almost Famous. There is that kind of period of work, and I don't know if it's just a function of me being between the ages of 15 and 19 or so when they came out, but that 1997 to 2001 or 2002, whenever Vanilla Sky came out, run, is actually, I still kind of love all those movies. Even Vanilla Sky, which is a mess, and not necessarily a great movie, I still like it. It's weird.
Vic00:11:50It's a weird movie, I thought. I would say three singles, two directs. Jerry Maguire won Almost Famous, so we're the same that way. I noticed nobody mentioned Aloha. Yeah. Did you see it? No. Oh my gosh. You know who did see it? Gene Chow saw it. Oh no. Yeah, he did, but it was, since it's a micro episode, it's Micro Gene. Okay. Okay. Just one line? Yeah, really. It's really short. Aloha was about as interesting as a bowl of poi, which is to say it's not interesting at all. You'd be nuts to see it. Macadamia nuts, that is. Macadamia's from Hawaii.
Sonny00:12:21I don't get it.
Vic00:12:21Yeah, it's from Hawaii. Gene. Let's just say, at the box office, it wasn't the big kahuna. It had a lot of stars, but I give it no stars. And that's the Critics' Corner. Mahalo. How's that? I'm sure it's fine.
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