This week, Zach takes another look at an ’80s coming of age film – Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and must compare and contrast the two very different films and their themes.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written by Cameron Crowe and adapted from his 1981 book of the same name. As a freelance writer for Rolling Stone magazine, Crowe went undercover at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California, and wrote about his experiences.
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2 Comments
What is the music at the end of each podcast? I like it.
Robert Romanus (Damone) was on the soap ‘Days of Our Lives’ for a couple years in the mid 80s playing a Damone-type scumbag named ‘Speed’.
One of my favorite gags in Fast Times is music related and it’s a bit that a lot of people miss. Damon tells Rat to play side 2 of Led Zeppelin IV on his date with Stacy. When we actually see Rat on his date and they are in the car, the song ‘Kashmir’ is playing, which is from Side 2 of Zeppelin’s 1975 release ‘Physical Graffiti’. Cracks me up EVERY TIME!
As for the sanitizing of theatrical releases as we got into the late 80s I have an alternate theory. The advent and widespread adoption of home video. By the time Bush took office, VHS players were in almost every home in the country. Pornography was viewable in the home, as well as TONS of direct to video trash pics full of gratuitous titillation. The word Unrated was plastered prominently on many, many, many movie boxes. Working in a video store in this era, there was plenty of T&A to be had on demand and in the privacy of your home so a little extra skin wasn’t necessarily needed in major theatrical releases anymore.
The PG13 effect (certainly related to the conservative cultural upsurge) was also beginning to show up by this time, where movies that were borderline ‘R’ could open up a much broader audience by cutting just a few gratuitous boob shots and ‘F’ bombs and promise make a crap-ton more money.