La ragazza di San Diego

I was born a year after this movie came out, so I couldn't relate to it right when it came out.

I just recently saw Valley Girl a few days ago on the WE channel. I thought it was an interesting movie... Many people say the slang is outdated, but I don't know how many times I've heard someone say that something was "rad" or "awesome" or if someone was "getting laid."

Sure, the characters are vapid and shallow. They're like, from the valley, like, you know? I loved the characters of Fred and Randy, especially. I know many boys that have the attitude Fred has.

Nicholas Cage was SUPERB as Randy. I just wish there were more guys like that character: a rough-and-tumble punk with a dopey grin.

I've got to say, any movie that makes me giggle from the style and makes even Nicholas Cage adorable (Keep in mind that I come from his "action movie only era") rocks.

The first time I saw Valley Girl, I was bedridden and as sick as a dog, out of junior high school for two weeks with a nasty illness. I watched it on a tiny black and white set with the volume turned down to a whisper so my parents wouldn't hear and make me shut it off. I was mesmerized. It was a revelation. Martha Coolidge's milking of the Romeo and Juliet premise (with Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman filling in as star-crossed lovers in the San Fernando Valley) was smart and convincing. I was amazed by the hot "Val" chicks. I was thrilled by the interesting vocabulary words. I wanted to be like Cage's tough Randy and fall in love with a beautiful girl like Foreman's Julie to the sounds of Eddie Grant, Modern English, and The Plimsouls.

Everyone has a great list of cinematic guilty pleasures, and "Valley Girl" has been on mine from the first time I saw it. It was clear from the first "valley view" of the San Fernando that it was several cuts above your average teen-aimed movie. Obviously, Nicolas Cage was pretty impressive, even if I had no idea of his heritage or his future. I liked Deborah Foreman, too, and the supporting cast was well-chosen. If the plot was trifling, it was at least clever and certainly not pretentious. And the music, from the opening by Foremen and her friends to the closing shot of the limo ride to Modern English's "I Melt With You," is a big plus. Overall, an very entertaining take on love across the valley of cultural differences from Martha Coolidge, who is one of our most underrated directors.

The teen movie of my generation is *not* "Valley Girl"-- it's "Clueless". I can hardly recall Bush's presidency much less Reagan's. My earliest recollection of fashion magazines does not include sun-tanned celebrities with feathered hair but rather pale, flannel-wrapped grunge girls. However, I do know enough about the valley girl phenomenon: the talk, the style of dress, the malls and gallerias, the hippy parentage, the wholesomeness, the pastels..you know what I mean. So I wasn't completely detached when I saw the movie.

So now to what I thought of it: I really really liked this movie. I even bought the video.

I think growing up surrounded by the GenX mumbo jumbo made me appreciate this light-hearted flick. It's a nice love story, kind of like a watered down Romeo and Juliet. The acting may not have been good enough for Shakespeare, but it's a movie, so it's perfectly fine that these people are "actors" and not melodramatic "thespians". Also the script was just right; it wasn't too phony, it had a sense of humor.. Examples would be Randy and his friend's visit to the valley party. The bathroom scene was ticklish.

Randy's depression and Julie's frustration and heart-to-heart with her dad were parts of the movie that didn't disappoint. In other movies of this kind the actors are often unable to carry their characters from one emotional situation to the next, and they end up making themselves unpleasantly flat. Randy and Julie have appropriate sincerity--remember, they're playing two young kids in love. The dreamy, whimsical quality of the movie fits just right.

In conclusion, this is a wonderful, timeless movie. Though the time in which it is set plays a major role in the movie, the essential love story is timeless. The great thing about this movie is that it uses a *very* common theme but still comes out fresh and affective. Even for younger viewers like me, who didn't grow up in the 80s, the movie can be just as endearing as it was to its first audiences.

In the tradition of "Romeo and Juliet," a punker named Randy (Nicholas Cage) begins a relationship with shallow teenage girl named Julie (Deborah Foreman), but peer pressure from her equally shallow friends forces her to break up and go back to her ex-boyfriend (Michael Bowen). Randy refuses to take this lying down and tries to get Julie back. Will he succeed?

Fine performances by Cage, Foreman, Frederick Forrest and Colleen Camp (as Julie's hippie parents), sensitive directing by Martha Coolidge, and totally tubular soundtrack by Modern English, The Plimsouls, and Men at Work (to name a few) makes this fun sleeper one of the best 80's teen comedies (fer shure).

My evaluation: *** out of ****