The Movie: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
What Is It?: Writer
Cameron Crowe and director Amy Heckerling survey a landscape of shitty teen
comedies and burn those flicks to the ground with one funnier, sexier, and more
truthful than any previous movie about high school. Sean Penn is the ultimate
burn out! Phoebe Cates is the ultimate dream girl! Judge Reinhold is the
ultimate senior schlub! Robert Romanus is the ultimate douche bag! But it’s
Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton who casts a spell of realism over all
these caricatures… well, maybe not Penn’s Spicoli. That dude just wants to jam
with the Stones.
Why Today?: On
this day in 1979, Congress adds the U.S. Dept. of Education to the
executive Branch.
