August 13, 1982 was a day like any other day for the teenagers of this great country. We probably got up, threw back some Cheerios, and then biked over to the pit to jump our bikes into, you guessed it, a pit. And then after that we probably cruised past Driftwood to see if any of the cute waitresses were working the ice cream counter. Along the way, we passed throngs of bikini-clad tourists who, by and large, arrived as strangers but left as minor characters in the books of our lives, with whom many an intimate memory is shared.
We'd just gotten out of school for the fucking summer and here we were only weeks from having to start the whole ridiculous charade over again. The last thing we wanted to do was drag ass to the local theater to watch a movie about kids going to school.
Yet there was something about the trailer to "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" that enthralled us.
It certainly wasn't the star power because, as far as we knew, there was none.
Despite a cast that included Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Nicholas Cage, Eric Stoltz, Forest Whitaker, the film's biggest star was Ray Walston, whose epic turn as the feisty Mr. Hand joins a career featuring roles in "South Pacific", "Paint Your Wagon" and "The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington", not to mention "My Favorite Martian".
Adding to the list of unproven entities upon which the fate of this big-budget major studio film was riding were first-time screenwriter Cameron Crowe and first-time director Amy Heckerling. In hindsight, its only fitting the film should largely revolve around the losing of one's virginity.
On paper, there's nothing special or even remotely remarkable about any of the characters' lives, yet the intricacy with which the various story lines intersect and the calamity that quickly ensues proved insanely watchable because, unlike other teen flicks of the day, the acting was as snappy as the script itself.
Keep in mind that '80s teen movies weren't exactly renowned for their acting performances.
What also made this movie different from other movies of its ilk was the fact that it came with its own carefully curated movie soundtrack album from none other than Irving Azoff, who coaxed new songs from the likes of Jackson Browne, Sammy Hagar, Billy Squier, the Go-Go's, and seemingly every member of the Eagles not named Glenn Frey.
The film, shot for a cool $4.5 million, wound up making over $25 million at the U.S. box office yet Hollywood showed amazing restrain by not making a single sequel. In a weird sort of way, "Fast Times", the movie that created the template by which every other teenage day-in-the-life flick adheres, remains one of the few '80s films untainted by corporate greed and crass commercialization.
Thinking about it now, if such a movie had been released in 2017, they'd be filming wildly to have a sequel out by Christmas, plus there would be three different soundtrack albums, two of which feature exactly zero songs from the movie.
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