“Just wait'll those Japs see me and my eagle come chargin' over the hill!”

September 10^th, 2012

Racing with the Moon, (1984)

Nicolas Cage is Nicky

All this talk of nostalgia is a perfect segway into Racing with the Moon, another film that looks to the past to explore how youth slips away. It's the story of two young men killing time during the Christmas of 1943 awaiting induction into the US marines. The debut film of writer Steve Kloves - who would go on to write Wonder Boys and all but one of the Harry Potter movies – Moon has such a lived-in specificity of place and time that I was surprised to learn that Kloves was born in 1960. Maybe some of that credit goes to director Richard Benjamin who was born in 1938 and would go on to direct The Money Pit and, um, My Stepmother is an Alien.

Anyway, Racing with the Moon kicked up my own memories of times gone by - namely, Fast Times and The Best of Times. Which is an irritating way of saying that it stars Sean Penn and features Crispin Glover as an asshole rich kid that Nic Cage clocks in a bowling alley before wiping the blood of Glover's girlfriend's blouse. It's kinda pretty awesome. 

"..."

August 26^th, 2012

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, (1982)

Nicolas Cage is Brad's Bud

What can I say about Fast Times at Ridgemont High that hasn't been said before? Unlike The Best of Times, Fast Times is a well-known and -regarded classic. It's the movie that effectively kick-started the careers of Amy Heckerling, Cameron Crowe, Sean Penn and Forest Whitaker not to mention Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates. 

I'm realizing now that I had a crush on Cates as a prepubescent boy but not because of her famous stripping scene here but from her girl-next-door charmz in Gremlins and Drop Dead Fred. Along with Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands and Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values Cates seemed like a girl I could actually approach and have things in common with. That may sound ridiculous given the sex-bomb mantle she was given thanks to Brad's masturbation fantasy in this movie but such is the world when you grow up watching TV. Famous, imaginary people are your friends. Re-watching the film now I'm amazed at how real and lived-in the characters all seem. Cates isn't a goddess (outside of Brad's mind); she's just a girl. Even Jeff Spicoli, who lives in our collective cultural memory as a sort of stoner version of a Tex Avery character, living to make mischief and torture Mr. Hand, is given a surprising amount of sympathy and dimension.