4:20:02 #1: FAST TIMES

4:20:02 FEST: REVIEW #1 FAST TIMES
In honor of 4/ 20/ 02, I’m going to be reviewing four so-called stoner flicks. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH is the first in the series, and represents the early days of my own experience with drugs. Enjoy the review, and check out the other three entries.

Some twenty years after it was made, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH has become regarded, rightfully so, as a cult classic. It is probably THE movie that best depicts the decade of the 1980s and is also one of the greatest of all of the comedies directed at teenage audiences. The entire movie brilliantly captures the essence of movies taking place during high school, and set the tone for a whole new breed of teenage comedies that would feature loads of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It’s almost amazing to think that when this film came out there was a furor over the content in this film, most of which today looks pretty tame, and a concern by the studio that the film would tank at the box office. Well, the movie went on to become a huge box office success, and was even rated highly by the majority of critics. Personally, I think FAST TIMES may be the best comedy of the 1980s, for a number of reasons. It has a spectacular cast of (at the time) up-and-coming actors, a killer soundtrack, and some of the most amusing and at the same time true-to-life scriptwriting of any of these types of teen comedies.

FAST TIMES takes the same premise as a whole truckload of movies that came before as well as since its release. We essentially follow the students and teachers of Ridgemont High School through their school year. Along the way, we’re introduced to Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn in a great comedic role), a wanna-be surfer and stoner who is constantly late for school, history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston in a hilarious role), naive freshman Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), sex expert Linda (Phoebe Cates), and more. The exploits of these characters ensure that FAST TIMES keeps you entertained and amused from start to finish, and if nothing else, Cameron Crowe’s script is a revealing and authentic look at high school life in the 1980s and still holds a lot of realism even today.

So, why does a comedy as dumb as this (most of the jokes revolve around one of a couple of things: mostly, sex and drugs) work? Well, there are a number of factors that play into this. First, I think the cast is one of the best ensembles ever assembled. We have a variety of actors and actresses who were just starting to make their way into film, and, despite their youth, they are believable in their roles. Penn is fantastically amusing as Spicoli, and Ray Walston gives the performance of a lifetime as Mr. Hand. This film single-handedly launched the film careers of a number of the young cast members, including Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Eric Stolz, Anthony Edwards, Forest Whitaker (who plays the football hero, Charles Jefferson), and Nicholas Cage (billed here as Nicholas Coppola -- his real name).

Another reason why FAST TIMES is so good are the realistic situations that writer Crowe puts his characters into. We have the truant stoners who pull up everyday in a VW bus filled with smoke (memories of my high school days flood in...), the jocks, sex-crazed freshmen trying to score, and the politics of boy/girl friends. There are the fast-food jobs held by the majority of the students, field trips, football games; all aspects of high school life are hit upon in the script. Reportedly, debut scriptwriter Cameron Crowe posed as a student and attended an actual high school to base his screenplay on, and his work sure paid off. Never has their been a movie about high school life that so vividly recreated the situation. In spite of all of its laughs and comedy, there are also a number of serious issues hit upon by the script including loss of virginity, and abortion.

One final aspect of the film that is great is the soundtrack that seems to create scenes strictly made for the song that accompanies them in the finished film. A couple examples are the now famous scene of Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool (yeah, the one that would get rewound and played back MANY times), the use of Led Zepplin IV, and many others. I really think the soundtrack consideration in this film is “awesome, totally awesome!”

Since this is an entry in my 4:20:02 festival, I’ll explain the nature of the drug use in this film. For the most part, drugs take a back burner in FAST TIMES to the other comedic devices used. Really, the only drugs here are used by Sean Penn’s Jeff Spicoli character, and although Spicoli is clearly the main attraction of the film, his drug use is never really glorified in any way. It merely seems to serve the purpose to provide the obligatory “stoners” into Cameron Crowe’s fictitious high school.

FAST TIMES is number one in my four-part essay on drug use in film, and it pretty accurately reconstructs what the first part of my drug use actually was; indeed FAST TIMES is a good title for this period. Some three years ago when I first smoked a bowl of marijuana while enjoying a viewing of PINK FLOYD: THE WALL, life instantly changed and began to speed toward the end of the first major segment in my life: high school graduation. Life was indeed full of FAST TIMES, and drug use seemed only to speed up the whole thing, and cause the spiral of time to throw me around. My senior year of high school pretty much was that of Jeff Spicoli’s, with one major difference. I could get away with smoking pot before school with my own little posse because I had enough knowledge to pass any course I took regardless of my mental state. Actually, I think use of marijuana only enhanced my performance in most classes, perhaps due to stimulation of thought and creative processes. Overall, I’d say that the whole film of FAST TIMES could be considered a metaphor for the first year or so of my drug use. It was fun, but it seemed to go by too quickly, much as the film runs. The drugs were great at this time; I was young, carefree, and having the time of my life. What could stop me? Well, find out in the continuing story. Part two is GROOVE.

The chaos, calamity, and all out fun of my senior year of high school instantly come to mind when watching this film. I honestly can say that many of the circumstances in FAST TIMES are quite similar to actual instances from my high school experience, painful though some of them are, so I guess some twenty years after its release, FAST TIMES still hits close to the actual high school experience.

I would highly recommend FAST TIMES to anyone looking for a funny movie to keep you entertained for a good hour and a half. Please note, however, that this film is not appropriate for the youngsters. It includes some pretty heavy sexual content, and quite a bit of nudity, so keep this in mind. If the content is not an issue, I’d say give FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH a go.

Thanks for reading.... 4:20:02 Review #2 is GROOVE