Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

lookingglass

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Fast Times at Ridgemont High

So I decided to dive into our DVD collection last night and give this one a spin. It's been a while since I've gone back to Ridgemont, and I've kind of missed it.

I think I'm going to shock most of you by saying this, but I've never seen this film as a comedy. I know... it's always on the lists of "The best 80's movies" and people talk about how funny it it is, and I don't disagree. However, I've seen this as a very true depiction of what it was like to be a teen. It seemed like someone crawled into my high school and followed us around with a camera. That's not to say that we did everything the kids did in the movie, but lets just say a lot of it hit very close to home for me.

Also, this movie got me thinking. If a director wanted to make this film today in 2008 it would NEVER get a green light. Ridgemont is just too frank with it's depictions of teen sex and sexuality. To be honest, it makes Superbad seem like Snow White. That makes me sad. I wish a more honest high school film could be made, because it would be totally worth the exploration. The only other film that seemed to hit me like this one does is Welcome to the Doll House. The total honesty of both of those films make me realize that Stephen King was right when he said, "When I meet someone who says high school was the best years of their life I don't want to be friends with them."

Is this worth the rental? Yes, but you may just want to fish it out of a bargain bin at Best Buy if possible. You'll want to watch it at odd hours of the night, and reflect like I did.
 

buzbyjlc10

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Oh my gosh! We watched Fast Times alllllllllllllll the time in college (I graduated last year)
Like when there was nothing on tv and we couldn't decide on a DVD it was automatically Fast Times! Even now, I'll be talking to my ex online (he's graduating next week) and he'll go "guess what I'm watching" and it's more often than not Fast Times! It is a very to-the-point movie and isn't shy about any of the topics. And you're right, superbad is a baby movie in comparison (although, I love superbad too haha)

Ahhh the classics
 

valanhb

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The entire 80s teen movie genre will never be able to be repeated. Yeah, some of them (a lot of them) were cheesy and all that, but you just can't talk about stuff like that anymore!

Fast Times was a great flick, and yeah...it did depict a lot of what actually happened, especially having graduated high school in 1990.
 

kiwideus

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Fast Times is one of the best movies I have seen. I definitely will have to see if I can find it for my collection!
 
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