A decade before writing and directing Clueless, Amy Heckerling helmed another quintessentially SoCal smash. And Fast Times at Ridgemont High may be the pinnacle of ‘80s high school age hilarity, carefully capturing the details of teenage life at home, school, work, and play in a fresh & funny way that would help define the decade. First-time screenwriter Cameron Crowe nails the real-life emotions, vocabulary, and attitude of its adolescent protagonists, while a generation of performers such as Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, and Jennifer Jason Leigh were catapulted to stardom on screen.
“Amy Heckerling’s portrait of high school/shopping mall life in Southern California is still just about as good as it gets…The panoply of teen types and turmoils is dead-on accurate.” – Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
Marc Edward Heuck writes about Fast Times at Ridgemont High on the New Beverly blog.
