Night one of Cage viewing went well. Extremely well, in fact! I was just planning to watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High and call it a day, but the lack of Cage appearances really left something to be desired, so I figured, fuck it! Let’s go straight to Valley Girl! That’s right, I did a double feature out the gate. I know this might seem over zealous, but what can I say, I’m ambitious. I made sure to take notes all night, marking down interesting thoughts, feelings, and moments that I can share with you as I watch.
As I was preparing my viewing area for the exciting first night of TWC, I remembered that I had purchased this awesome saint candle last November in Davis, CA when I was visiting my dear friend (and hard core Cage supporter) Nicole.
I decided to start the night with a ritual lighting of the Saint Cage candle before beginning each movie. What was nuts is that Nicole texted me half-way through Fast Times at Ridgemont High to ask if I had entered the Cage yet. The Saint Cage candle has psychic powers? Most likely, it does.
Ok, if you haven’t seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High in a while you need to get into it! This movie kicks so much ass! I’ll start with Cage’s part, as it’s so short this will only take a quick second. For one thing, he is billed as “Brad’s Bud” under the name Nicolas COPPOLA. That’s right, this was before Cage was Cage, yo. In fact, if you check the Coppola family tree (which is a really awesome time suck) you will find Nicolas KIM Coppola in the third generation. Oh yes, his fucking middle name is Kim. I was pumped to find out he was a Coppola, but to find out that his middle name is Kim really was icing on the cake. He changed his name to Cage for Valley Girl, so he wasn’t Nick Kim Coppola for long. As someone who has a fucked up middle name this really brought me a lot of joy.
I spent most of the film on pins and needles waiting for the Cage appearances, of which there are only two, but I jumped for fucking joy the minute his mug hit the screen! Here are pics of both sightings. The first one is when Brad gets fired from the burger joint, Cage is working the back line. The second is from the football game when Forrest Whitaker is going apeshit on the opposing football team, Cage is an excited football fan.
Sean Penn really steals the show in my opinion, easily the best work of his career. Anyone who’s seen Fast Times could attest to that. What I loved most about this movie is that the 1980’s teen flicks really didn’t hold back and worry about offending people, as made example by the scene when Brad is practicing breaking up with his girlfriend in the burger joint bathroom as he is scrubbing the words “big hairy pussy” off of the mirror. This brought me much joy.
Another scene that jumped out at me took place in the first scene in Mr. Hand’s class. He passes out a stack of freshly copied syllabi to the class, and for a brief second it cuts to a shot of the whole class smelling the fresh xerox paper. Super weird, but also I totally get it.
Fast forward to 2:33 here to see the paper smelling.
Something else thing that cracked me up is the fact that Somebody’s Baby by Jackson Browne is the soundtrack to both of Stacey’s suuuuuper awkward sex scenes. Great selection!
The film wrapped up with the standard school dance scene, and the still image with text overlayed explaining where they are now, and I was feeling energized and excited for what my future with TWC holds. After deciding there wasn’t enough Cage in the Fast Times I decided to throw on Valley Girl and keep the train a rollin!!
Watching Valley Girl was like watching a film with thick British accents, it took me about 30 minutes for my brain to adjust to the insane valley girl speak and understand what the fuck these girls were saying. It was great seeing Cage as a heartthrob, it is very likely that is the first, last, and only time in this whole 70 films series that he can actually pull it off, so I tried to enjoy it while it lasted.
He is first spotted at the beach before any of the Valley Girls know he’s actually a punk rock boy. All that I was focusing on is was his insane chest hair situation. It looks like the a failed attempt at the Texas Longhorns logo. Also, how many teenage boys really have that much chest pube going on? Impressive…
Now anyone who has seen a heavy portion of TWC know Nicolas Cage is prone to the occasional flip out in his films. Some amazing person doing important work did edit a slew of these epic cinematic moments here. I would like to keep a running tally of his flip outs as we work through the films.
Cage has two flip outs in this movie, the first when he get’s kicked out of the Valley Party, and the second when his girl dumps him. They were decent flip outs, but I know we have some high quality freak outs to look forward as well. FLIP OUT TALLY: 2
Overall, I actually found Valley Girl to be a little boring, but I was thrilled by the authentic 80’s culture. Especially the non-stop montages of teens falling in love and neon street signs in LA, it really made the 80’s film stereotypes live up to their reputation.
Stay tuned for Rumble Fish, coming up next!