zkonedog

I'm generally a big fan of 1980s flicks, counting the likes of Back to the Future, Karate Kid, & Hughes' Brat Pack films (especially The Breakfast Club) among my all-time favorites. I never saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a youngster in the 1990s--only watching it for the first time as a pushing-40-elder-milennial--so perhaps that alone explains my middling reaction to it.

For a very basic overview, Fast Times is a slice-of-life film from the late 1970s (maybe early 1980s). It follows a group of high school students as they work menial jobs, navigate the classroom, and--most importantly--scheme to get laid.

If you feel that description a bit lacking, you are correct--but Fast Times is that kind of film. There is no real plot present other than vignettes centered on a few main characters. It is a couple short steps away from being an out-and-out sex comedy. This will be factor #1 in determining your enjoyment.

There are also two absolutely iconic pop culture pieces here:

-Phoebe Cates coming out of the pool. A 1980s sexual awakening moment if one ever existed.

-Sean Penn's Spicoli, the airhead surfer/stoner made even more hilarious by the fact that Penn would of course go on to a super-serious career.

There is an argument to be made that without those two elements, Fast Times is quickly forgotten. Why? Because it bops around so much and so quickly as to not have any sort of overriding theme or message. Yes, the rest of the cast--the likes of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, Brian Backer, Ray Walston, & Forest Whitaker--is solid and most would go on to great careers. But director Amy Heckling would perhaps have better been served by "picking a lane", so to speak, as the A-plot and having everything revolve around that. As-is, the movie is more a series of segments than a full story.

So, overall I settled on a right-down-the-middle 5/10 rating for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I'm sure nostalgia for the era and original viewing experience (plus the couple iconic moments described above) vault this much high on other scorecards, but from someone who didn't "live it" this is a tough one to fully buy into.

Billy Joel is a pop/rock music legend! For 50+ years his impeccable songwriting, ivory-tickling, unique vocals, and everyman persona have created a catalog of epic proportions. And So It Goes is a documentary that captures all of that and gets Joel's perspective on it all.

For what is essentially a chronological biography, there's no way And So It Goes should be as good as it is. Not at a whopping 5-hour runtime (two 2.5 hour episodes). But directors Susan Lacy & Jessica Levin use every ounce of that extended runway to examine different angles of Joel's life and music.

This is of course a doc that somewhat trades in the tried and true "trade lengthy artist participation for steering clear of controversial topics" formula that HBO Docs seems to prefer. Yet, it is never a big problem here because Joel is generally so forthright about his own personal demons or foibles.

The two things about And So It Goes that stuck out to me the most:

-I hadn't realized how special of a songwriter Joel was. At every life stage, he crafted tunes from his own experiences that are generalizable enough to be enjoyed by mass audiences--and stand the test of time. A true gift.

-The way Joel's personal relationships (wives, children, father, managers, etc.) impacted his artistic journey. While a lot more straightforward and less uptight about his own life than many musicians seem to be, he also is able to talk about the ups and downs of his life and come to some kind of terms with them.

As someone who came of music-listening age after the majority of Billy Joel's catalog was already established, And So It Goes was exactly the doc I needed to help understand the method behind Joel's remarkable song-crafting madness.

Matilda is one of the quirkiest books you'll ever read--half a serious ode to education and childhood, half a terrifying story of domineering teachers and ignoramus adults. This film adaptation is, well, almost exactly the same--problematic for the over-the-top (if played for laughs) violence but endlessly entertaining and endearing because of the actors and story.

For a very basic overview, Matilda is the tale of the titular young girl (Mara Wilson) who is ignored by her idiot father (Danny DeVito) and equally daft mother (Rhea Perlman). Equally as imposing: her schoolmaster The Trunchbull (Pam Ferris). But frequent trips to the public library, a friendship with teacher Ms. Honey (Embeth Davidtz), and a special set of abilities allow her to cope with the confounding world of grown-ups.

The hallmark of the DeVito-directed Matilda is its cast, which is about as perfect as can be had in a flick. DeVito gives an absolutely iconic performance as Mr. Wormwood, while all the other principals are also stellar. The proceedings are equal parts tear-jerking and gut-busting at various times.

The ceiling of Matilda--much like its paper predecessor--however is that it is such a dark and sometimes explicitly violent view of childhood (thank/blame Dahl for that). It is absolutely unthinkable that similar material would be presented that way today, and I think even in the mid-90s it was pretty "bleak humor", so to speak. If always entertaining and clearly trying to be tongue-in-cheek, I'm not sure this is necessarily a great way to portray childhood in any objective sense. I know individuals who are still a bit traumatized from seeing this as a child and having it burrow into their nightmares.

Fortunately, the sweet messages and laugh-out-loud humor of Matilda carry the day in the end. Even with the problematic portrayals, it is a movie that can thoroughly be enjoyed and has remained relatively timeless due to its simplistic-but-evergreen themes.