Oh my God, I get all puffed out to the max.

No, for sure. Oh God, get me. How could you? For sure. I'd be freaking out. I'd be scarfing up everything in sight.

So Paul, that was the Klingon language created by Mark Okrend for Next Generation, right? That's what those women were talking? What was that?

I find the first act of this film so disorienting.

Oh, yeah. And you were alive when this happened.

Yes. And dare I say destabilizing.

Really?

From the opening scene and the dialogue.

Do you currently feel destabilized?

Really?

Oh, yes. But for other reasons as well that we don't need to get into. But, yeah, what a radical, dare I say, anthropological artifact today's film is.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, more, I think, I think it's, most of its value to me seems to be anthropological. I didn't predict. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. We're talking about a film called Valley Girl, right?

Yes. The cultural touchstone.

That is Valley Girl. Yes.

Yes.

Believed to be a classic by some. Some. Not me. And well, on that note, maybe I should just say, I'm Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

And I'm Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and I really hope you can hear me giving my mic issues today.

And this is.

Multiplex Overthruster Summer of 83.

Hello, fellow listeners, just so you know, Paul had some very diff, we spent about the last half hour trying to sort out Mike's, I'm sorry, Paul's mic issues, so that's why he's a little sheepish today. You may not get 100% of Paul's searing wit, because you're-

Better than trying to solve Mike's Paul issue.

That's true. Mike and Paul are not doing well today, so that's all I can say about that.

No, we have beef, we have beef. But Javi, I have to ask you-

Do you?

Selfishly, as a prompt for you to reciprocally ask me-

Yes.

What is your, in a nutshell, headline, first impression or primary sense memory of this film?

Okay, so I did not see this film in theaters. This movie belonged to, again, my siblings who liked these kinds of movies, sex comedies, supposedly. My prime physical memory of this film up until today when I finally saw it was I remember that there's a scene where Skip is having sex, I think, with Susie, and the entire scene is set to this really annoying song that goes, Don't let her get there! Don't let her get there! And I just remember that scene playing on the TV downstairs and being like, Can somebody shut off that annoying song? Even though there were boobs on screen, all I could think of was that stupid song, and it's literally been stuck in my head for 40 years. So fuck this movie and fuck that song. And fuck Skip and Susie. Paul, what was, but Paul, what is your sense memory of this film?

Wow.

That was not what I was going for at all. But thank you for sharing. It says we've long since established on this podcast and elsewhere, sharing is good. It is. My, I had never seen this film.

This is a podcast, I thought it was at my Al-Anon meeting. I apologize. Do go on, Paul.

Oh, it's some sort of meeting. We are in a cinematic support group. My headline, all caps note on my first viewing of this film, which only concluded within the last hour.

Wow.

Is so many popped collars and pastels. Hence, one day, people will be able to witness us on YouTube, and I am in honor of this wearing a pastel popped collar.

You are indeed.

I can't keep the collar up the whole time. It's just wrong.

But if you ever want to know what Paul looked like in 1983, it's a spitting image.

Well, except for the hair.

We all know you had a lot less hair back then, Paul. Whatever.

Well, it was a it was a phase. So, yeah, this is this is a remarkable time capsule. And it occurs to me we have been on a kind of grand tour of times and places. Yes. And we in this recent stretch, we have experienced time capsules of 1983, New York, particularly Brooklyn to Broadway.

Yeah.

In staying a lot.

Yeah.

Then we went just slightly south to Pittsburgh for Flashdance.

A little southwest. A little southwest, yeah.

A side call southwest. And then we went to Chicago.

That's right. For? Risky business.

Risky business. Now, we have ventured to the alien frontier that is the San Fernando Valley in California, north of Los Angeles in 1983, and it's mall culture.

Where I live. I live a mile from the former Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Yes, may it rest in peace.

Oh, yeah. And now some stalker can triangulate how to come find me. But anyway, what I'm trying to say, Paul. You know, Paul, it seems like, yes, this is the most alien environment we have gone into because it is so deliberately portrayed as having its own kind of customs and languages and stuff in this film. And yet it is a locus of popular culture. I mean, the San Fernando Valley, that, you know, once that Frank Zappa song came out, you know, it just sort of seemed like it exploded. Like, I remember the Valley Girl episode of Chips. That's how, you know, like when all of the cop shows have to do the obligatory episode for whatever the trend is, you know? You know, I remember Chips. I don't, what was it? I don't remember. I mean, I know some Valley Girls getting into trouble on the freeway would have to be. I mean, I don't know what the fuck else they did on that show, but yeah. So it just seems like this movie is just bursting with references that either, I don't think the movie generated, but it just, it is a total time capsule of 83 and of 83 in a place that seemed like a vanguard of pop culture. Does that seem appropriate to you?

Yeah. And that may be the best way to appreciate the film, which is not great, but is fascinating.

If you approach this film with a desire to be uplifted by character, or dare I say even with a narrative expectation, you might be disappointed. Is that?

Yeah.

Well, I think it's fascinating as this sort of, again, this pop culture time capsule of a very specific time and place, and also as a platform for the primordial, prototypical, emerging force that is Nicholas Cage.

It's amazing that the last two movies we've seen, right? The Risky Business, look, Tom Cruise had been in Losing It and in Taps before this, but it was like the birth of Tom Cruise. It was like literally, and Tom Cruise went on to become, as we said many times, the greatest movie star in history.

Yes, like Venus emerging from the shell.

Yes, to a Bob Seeger soundtrack, yeah.

Yes, yes.

Whereas Nicolas Cage is sort of like the weird flip side, he's like bizarro Tom Cruise. He's been around as long. He's not as big a star, but he has been in action movies. He's done everything from being the biggest action star on earth when he made Con Air, right? To being like a dude who does- And The Rock. And The Rock, and then to being a dude who does like millennium films, and now he's like known to be this weird, unhinged actor, and like you see all of that here. But instead of emerging from a half-show, he emerges from like an ashtray, you know?

Yes.

Yeah.

He kind of emerges, I think, from the car ashtray in Wild at Heart, because I feel like there's this linkage, this early echo version of what will be the fully formed, full bloom Nicolas Cage identity. But you see he is unmistakably Nick Cage. He is a very, very rich in full force, I think just getting his sea legs as a lead.

Yeah.

I look at Nicolas Cage as having his sort of high McDonough period, you know, where he's doing this movie, he's doing Raising Arizona, even something like Vampire's Kiss, you know, and things like that. And then you get to, you know, 90s Nicolas Cage, which is body sculpted, you know, Cameron Poe, you know, from Con Air, kind of like, you know. And it's just interesting to see him, seems so s...

And Oscar nominated for... Leaving Las Vegas.

Oh, that's right, yeah, yeah.

By the way, and, you know, so it's just interesting to see him.

And facing off, in Face Off, with Tony Manero.

With Tony Manero, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, you're literally, I mean, look, I think in these movies, you know, like we've seen these three amazing movie stars, you know, Travolta, Nick Cage and Tom Cruise, and they are all iconic in their own way, in ways that pervade to this day. But wow, what interesting courses in life these people have taken, you know.

Exactly, exactly. And I think that that kind of trio, it's such a fascinating study of them all in this same moment.

Yep, yep.

And they're all, they all could not be more startlingly distinct from each other.

And yet the seeds for all of their futures are here, you know, with Tom Cruise, it is, you know, being this athletic, you know, a sort of beautiful incarnation of a sort of archetypal can-do American man. With Nicolas Cage, it is this sort of bizarre actor who somehow becomes an action hero, but in his soul, he's just an unhinged David Lynch figure. And with Travolta, it's cheese. It's just cheese. It's just cheese.

Satan's Alley is a precursor to Battlefield Earth.

Fuck yeah. So Paul, why don't you, why don't you tell us what this movie is about? Because we're 15 minutes in, as usual. And since you're Paul Plott today, we're going to be here for three hours. So let's, let's just get on.

We are in, again, San Fernando Valley, mall culture, Valley Girl iconography. And we have a classic kind of story of boy meets girl from different worlds. And we have this girl who is popular at her school, who loves shopping with her friends at the mall. And she meets this bad boy from the other side of the Hollywood Hills. This, this scary wasteland of depravity. And she falls for him, but all her friends do not approve.

They do not approve.

And she faces this, this existential dilemma of does she get back with the real shithead, asshole, popular kind of Aryan master, prom king?

I believe you mean Tommy.

Yeah, Tommy. Or does she follow her heart to Sunset Boulevard and the wild ways of young Nicolas Cage? Only one way to find out, and that is by traversing the firmament of the film that is Valley Girl.

You know, it's funny. Let's go to the film.

Let's ring the bell.

Ding, ding.

You know, it's funny because in the obligatory falling in love montage of this film, right, and we will talk about it because it is endless. I mean, it literally...

We have some real montages here.

It is 82% of the film's screen time. And what's interesting about it is they're quite literally seen leaving a movie theater that's playing Romeo and Juliet, which is hilarious because the idea that these two are going to watch a Franco Zeffirelli movie is already insane. But also, it made me wish this had ended more like Romeo and Juliet. But that's neither here nor there.

It does tease that clear parallel that the film is drawing upon. Although we never meet Randy, which I think is just a hilarious name for Nicolas Cage, given his general swagger in the film. We never meet his family. Nope. Or really any social context for him except his buddy, Fred.

Yeah.

And also the fact that he's well known in his local environs.

Also, he's a high school student who somehow allowed into this nightclub a lot.

Yeah, we never see him attending school.

He's also called a punk, but not with those pleats, and not with that belt, my friend. I'm sorry, but he's just not a punk. I mean, fuck it. Ann Arbor in 83, we knew what punk looked like. It wasn't that. So yeah, well, let's just, Paul Plot, just get us started.

Okay, so we, in contrast to Blue Thunder, we have a very different kind of entry into by a helicopter shot over the Hollywood Hills, descending into the San Fernando Valley, and then we immediately get this, I gotta say pretty glorious title sequence over a montage of this foursome of Valley Girls shopping, swiping their parents' master card in the old school.

You know, that was one of the most, the things I loved most to see, you know, so, hey kids, you used to have a physical credit card, which when you took to a store, they would have to actually take an imprint of, that's why the numbers are upraised, and then send it back to the credit card company to get their check for what you paid for in credit. That's how that shit used to work.

With carbon paper. With carbon paper so you could have the receipt.

Oh my god, when I saw that sliding machine, I was in heaven, it reminded me so much of my childhood, yeah.

It was a nice sense memory. But then as they're chatting, and we heard some of this, and it is indecipherable.

Indecipherable.

It's so disorienting, right out of the gate, I don't know who these characters are, I have no idea what they're talking about, except boys. And they're fixated on boys. In particular, they see one cute one, and they're just talking about their general social dilemmas. I believe you mean that boy's name is Brad.

That boy's name is Brad.

Yes.

Because, as we all know from Roy Lichtenstein, all white, square-jawed hunks are named Brad. And I know that producer Brad had a lot of trouble with that in his earlier years.

Don't forget, Brad from Fast Times.

That's right. And Brad from Superman 3.

Brad is the problematic platonic ideal, superficially.

And yet producer Brad is the platonic ideal, my friend.

Well, he has transcended.

Yes, he is.

In many ways.

I'm still here. I can't.

Yes.

No, but you know, you know, though it sounds like a joke, producer Brad's like my oldest friend in the world, okay? Like I've literally known him since I was 10. So like, you know, it's hard to compliment him because it leads to this, you know? It just leads to mockery. So Paul, you know, can I tell you something about the main credits of this movie though? Cause I do want, I do want- Please. I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry to pivot. That's what this podcast is.

It delights me when you instead of I are rewinding us to the credits, the main title credits that fills me with joy.

Paul, there's a bettenoir in this film that has so far gone unspoken and that I must point out. Okay. Now look, there's not a lot of people in the credits of this film that won record. Martha Coolidge, you know, obviously did Real Genius after this. You know, there's EG. Dailey, who was famously dotty in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. She's cute as a button. She went on to play the voice of Tommy Pickles in Rugrats. But there was one name, Paul, one name, that sent me into a paroxysm of, like, remembered rage. And that name is Wayne Crawford. Now, I don't want to speak kill of the dead, but I will. Wayne Crawford starred in a movie called Jake Speed. Have you ever heard of Jake Speed?

I have not.

Okay, Jake Speed is a movie, and the premise of this movie is that the pulp heroes Doc Savage, Remo Williams, are all real, and of course, the one they make up for the movie is named Jake Speed, and he's basically Doc Savage, right? And Wayne Crawford wrote the movie. I believe he might have directed the film also, or produced it or whatever, and also cast himself as the lead. Now, look, this guy, I'm sorry to have to say this, but this guy looks like an accountant from Encino, and when you see him in the movie, he's failing at making sushi and failing at handing it to somebody. That's his role in Valley Girl, right? And yet he cast himself as Indiana Jones, okay? Literally cast himself as Indiana Jones. And I had to watch this film when I was a kid, because I went to movies. And I got to tell you, I do not remember those two hours of my life fondly in the least. So when I saw the name Wayne Crawford in this, I was like, Wayne Crawford!

Jake Speed!

So there you go. He's my pet noir. How do you look in the mirror and say, you know, Indiana Jones? I mean, I look at myself in the mirror. I have, what's that word? Humility? A self-knowledge? I'm self-aware? You know, I'm a good writer. I'm not going to cast myself as Jake Speed. Anyway, I'm sorry. I just, I, ah! OK, that's it. I feel like John Belushi talking on the old SNL news where he was just going to paroxysm and like fly off. That's what's happening to me right now.

Wayne!

I'm so happy that we're, that we can all be here for you to help exorcise these demons. And I hope that you feel a torturous weight has been lifted off your soul and your psyche.

I will never get over Jake Speed.

And banished.

I'm checking right now to see if Jake Speed is a summer film.

Hold on. No. And banished into the now buried ruins of the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

All right, all right. So let's get on to Valley Girl. I'm sorry that I took us on this.

So onward. So we're catching little glimpses of these characters' worldview, including one I got a note of. And I think this is Julie maybe describing her boyfriend Tommy. He's got the vibe, but his brain is bad news. Which I think is a good line. That's so applicable in life. Anyway, she breaks up with popped-collar Tommy, as I call him, who's an asshole. Now in Liberation, we cut to them frolicking on the beach. There's a lot of frolicking in different contexts.

So much frolicking in this movie.

Fun and festive, and as an expression of female fellowship. And I appreciate that in this film. They see many passers-by and things, but Julie is fixated on the lean, here suit pillar that is a swimsuit-clad Nick Cage on the beach.

I believe you've missed out. First of all, Nick Cage's friend Fred overhears about that night's party while he's waiting in line at the concession stand over in the beach. But Paul...

Yes, an important plot detail. And then Fred tries to persuade Randy to basically crash this party in the valley. And Tommy basically says he doesn't want anything to do with the valley. I don't want to go to the valley. I'm not in the mood for the valley. He has nothing but disdain for the valley.

I'd like to first of all go to our second clip here, which is, when they're in the mall, before all of this, Paul, I'm going to just be Paul today. I'm going to rewind us all the way back. Just to give you an idea of kind of how these girls talk about boys, right? Let's go ahead and hear.

Can we just make a meta-observation about how we have reciprocally influenced each other?

We have.

I'm trying to race through the plot, and you are now moving us back. It's like Freaky Friday.

It really is. It really is.

And I have good news. Jake Speed was May 30th, 1986. It is a summer film. Although, they weren't confident enough to open Memorial Day. They went the week after.

If I'd made Jake Speed, I wouldn't be confident enough to open on Arbor Day, for God's sake. Anyway, guys, let's hear the girls talk about Brad, because I wanted to bring that clip in when we talked about Brad and Sadalia.

This is important.

Yes, it's very important.

I also saw the word for Brad.

Oh, I'm sure.

He's okay, I guess.

Ew, am I kidding?

Yeah, you know, he makes my mouth water.

Brad will be at my party tonight.

Right, that'll attract every girl west of Van Nuys Boulevard. Your place will be packed.

Okay, so he's awesome.

Julie, don't be so greedy. You know, save some for the rest of us.

I mean, Tommy is such a huck.

I can't stand it. I mean, he is so bitchin. I can't even believe you'd give Brad the kind of day.

Wow. Okay, so now you understand why we're talking about Jake Speed. I mean, this is not a sad- What's interesting about the beach scene then, okay? Because these girls are talking about two different men. Right before Nicolas Cage emerges from the water, looking much like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, might I add, not at all. But it's interesting, though. His appearance does feel a little bit not-male-gazy in an interesting way. Yes. But what's really interesting about-

He's got the bat signal in his chest hair.

His hair is weirdly shaved to look like the bat signal, yeah. But also, the guy they're talking about before Nicolas Cage comes out of the beach, they're complaining he's too hairy. And then Nicolas Cage comes out, and he literally looks like he has a fur Batman logo on his chest, you know. Let's hear the clip where they discuss Nicolas Cage's appearance, shall we?

My god! What a hunk!

Check out those pecs!

I'd go for that in a minute.

He's hot!

Oh yeah, he's my kind of guy.

Aren't they all?

Okay. Brad.

So, I have conflicting thoughts here.

Do go on.

Because at the outset, as we meet these young women, they're portrayed in a way that I find unsettlingly shallow. But on the other hand, I really appreciate and enjoy how unapologetically female-gazy the film is, which I think is just a refreshing twist on the norm, particularly of the era, and is kind of fun and funny.

It's interesting. You know, it's funny you should mention that. Because first of all, I read in one of our briefings that producer Brad prepared for us. You know, they arrive like Mission Impossible recordings. And that's why I get mined by a carrier pigeon that, you know, Roger Ebert, I guess, said that it's interesting how this movie is, you know, sort of respectful of its female characters and and how also like the producers insisted that there be at least four shots of boobs in the movie in order to justify the teenage sex comedy thing.

But neglected to specify the length of said shot.

That's true.

And so in Defiance, Martha Coolidge says, Yeah, sure, you'll get four shots of bare breasts, and they could not be more tasteful and fleeting.

And they're fleeting in a very casual way. But the other thing you see, you have to see this movie, there is a tension between a female director and a movie written by men about women. And for example, like and also some of the exigencies of the time like later on we get to a scene where it's clearly body doubles simulating sex and that's shot in the kind of very shadowy nine and a half weeks kind of like style of this thing. It's actually the scene I mentioned with the Annoying Song. So that looks shot like something that would have been in Skinimax and then you've got sort of a more documentary style kind of casual. And it's just it's just it's this movie does it is not a I wouldn't call it a feminist film even though it was directed by a woman because the script is so sort of you know guys in their thirties writing women in their fifth in their teens. But there's a really palpable tension between a lot of different ways of seeing sexuality and gender in this movie. And they're at odds with each other in a really interesting way.

Yes. And I think it is well worth observing and appreciating again this being 1983 a still too rare instance of a woman getting direct studio feature. But having to assert her power within the limits of a patriarchal industry that has put in some pretty strong guardrails. And in that context.

Including a stipulation of how many boobs you have to show.

Yeah, which is again, absurd and offensive. But I think she avails herself pretty valiantly.

This movie is, for all intents and purposes, it's like an indie film from the 90s. I mean, it's an Edward Burns film. It's a Kevin Smith film, you know. I mean, it's very roughly made. It was made for not a lot of money. I mean, producer Brad said it was about, what, like $333,000 or something like that?

The budget was $600,000, but $250,000, that was song licensing.

Yes, it was.

Yes, it was.

And they shot it in 18 days.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

You know what, honestly, my overwhelming sort of thing coming out of this movie was how much better indie movies look now that people have digital, and they're able to have a level of finish that is so much more professional. And this, to me, is a type of independent film that you don't see anymore because it is so rough, and because the roughness comes from your shooting in film, limited stock, editing is a lot more of a hands-on thing. So it's a time capsule. It's also interesting as a study in what low-budget movie-making looked like in 1983, you know?

Yeah, and the achievements in terms of the scale of it, I mean, the number of people in it, the size of the cast, the number of locations, the places it goes, the richness of the palette in terms of really creating a sense of time and place. The fashion, the music, there's a vision at work here that is cohesive and accomplished. And I appreciate that even though I think the weakest element is probably the script.

It is. The script for Valley Girl is the weakest element in other films, you know? Like if you told me, what did you hate most about Return of the Jedi? I'd say the script for Valley Girl. Which, by the way, just genuinely, and I just gotta say this out, and again, I mean, sorry, Wayne, you know, but I spent two hours watching Dixby, I'm not that sorry. Do they have kids this age? I mean, it's like, the script is very shallow. And I think the other thing I see in this movie is the director at war with a script that doesn't really, you know, seem to respect its characters. The script, every scene seems like a sketch or a schtick to me. The scenes don't have a lot of great dramatic energy to them. It's very poorly written in terms of like...

There are a lot of cliches.

A lot of cliches and a lot of scenes that just go nowhere. They just sit there, you know?

But meander.

By the way, and speaking of meandering, before we get to the big party where we finally see Wayne Crawford playing the part of Lyle, the guy who can't apparently hand sushi to a woman, there's a scene where we go to Julie's house, Julie being our main character, and we meet her parents, played by Colleen Camp and Fred Forrest, okay? And they're supposed to be hippies, but it's just kind of like, it just doesn't-

They're recovering hippies.

Sort of? I think it's because they ran a health-

They're sort of, yeah, I'm fascinated by this. So yeah, we cut to Julie's bedroom. She and her friend are getting ready for this party. They're all excited. That's kind of the flag the film has planted as far as our big act one plot turning point. And then, yeah, we meet these hippie, ex-hippie, recovering hippie parents who seem to be moving on a scale or on a slide towards yuppiedom but are trying to like cling to their hippiness.

Right.

It's, I'm not quite sure it works.

Nope.

But the two of them are weird, especially when we first meet the dad.

Yeah.

He is quite a creep in that he ostensibly hits on his daughter's friend.

Sort of, I guess.

Sort of, by saying like, oh, if I were 20 years younger or something, and then the wife is like, oh, elbowing him or something.

Yeah.

I was like, what is that doing here?

Yeah.

And then, so immediately, you're just like, oh, put off a little bit.

And later on, there's a scene where Frederick Forrest shows Julie pictures of what he looked like in the 60s. And, you know, he's all hippied out. And he's like, yeah, we all looked so different back then. I'm like, you don't look that different to me, Frederick. You look like your character runs a health food restaurant. You're smoking weed all the time, though you're apparently you're not supposed to. I don't understand any of these parent characters.

Strangely, of all the films we've seen, these are the most involved parents we've had.

That is true. Good observation, producer, but they do seem to care about Julie.

That's a fair point.

Yeah, and they do seem to care about her. And they also seem to be fairly, you know, it's interesting you should bring that up, producer, because they're also fairly kind parents and they're fairly generous as parents, emotionally, right?

Yes. And it's, but this is not obvious at the outset. They do have a bit of an arc of revealing those dimensions and depths because they're kind of set up to be almost more antagonists as parents to the daughter.

I guess.

I think later, in terms of challenging her, judging her, and then later gives a space for them to be more accepting and supportive. And there's actually a really nice scene with Frederick Forrest and his daughter, Deborah Foreman, playing Julie, that where he actually is giving her good father advice without judgment and without like pushing an agenda. And it's, yeah, so it's a weird mixed bag. It's like, it doesn't all quite work, but some of the-

It's almost like the writers had no clear sense of who these characters were when they wrote the script and then didn't revise it very much. I don't know. I've heard of that.

Yeah, it does feel like this film could have benefited from a little more script development before.

Maybe a couple of couple of weeks of honest work in the writers room with this one. God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Wayne. Why do I? Why, Wayne?

We're going to get you through this by the end of this episode.

All right, so we get to the party.

We're going to exercise the demon fully. So we get to the party. Susie is into Brad, but Tommy is taunting her because Tommy's not ready to let go. Again, this is where my note was, so many pop collars and pastels.

My note was, holy shit, tucked in striped pants and deck shoes.

Yes. So many.

Tucked in striped polo and deck shoes. Yeah, wow.

Yes.

Hey, do they even have deck shoes anymore? Do those exist outside of Boston, outside of like Chesapeake Bay or some shit like that? Do people still wear those? Sparry topsiders? Because look, when I was, when producer Brad and I were in high school, if you want a pair of sparrry topsiders, and you wear them without socks, you were just like styling. I haven't seen a pair of sparrry topsiders in 30 years.

You know what? I bet we can make that happen for you.

Please don't.

Here then emerges one of my favorite subplots of the movie, which is The Graduate, which is sort of interjected into the film, out of the blue.

For no reason, and not paid off in any... Suzie's stepmom or mom.

Well, there's a twist. But yes, so Suzie, Julie's friend, is hosting this party. Her parents are there to keep an eye on things.

One of them is played by Wayne Crawford. He's cast himself again. Yes, yes. Sorry.

But it's not Suzie's mom. It is Suzie's stepmom. Who is the... played by Lisa Purcell, Beth, Mrs. Brant. Who is...

Lee Purcell. Lee.

I'm sorry, Lee Purcell. How did I get that wrong? There's no way, another way to say this. This is the hot mom of 1983.

Yes, yes.

This other kid is a Greg who...

Skip. Skip is the one that's being hit on by the mom, yes. So, sorry. Let's go to the scorecard. Brad is the one that everybody's looking at and thinking is awesome, but doesn't seem to play much of a role in the film. Randy is Nicolas Cage. Tommy is the Aryan, wears a lot of pink hunk, who is dumped by Julia at the beginning, and then Nicolas Cage has to fight him for...

And still trying to get back to her.

Exactly. But who also pervs out on EG. Daly's character in a quite rapey and awful way in this party. And Fred is Randy's best friend.

Yes.

There's no way to keep track of all the characters and people who pop in and out of this movie.

Well, especially because the script presents them and then sometimes dumps them. Sometimes they're very different characters.

Yeah, because Brad kind of vanishes. There's pretty quickly and like we never hear from Brad again.

Brad is like the fucking spoon in the Matrix. Like there is no Brad.

Yeah. You know, so Skip is this other kid who Susie has a crush on, apparently. Right. And so then they meet at the kitchen island with her and her parents, including the hot stepmom, who immediately. Kind of starts.

Mrs. Robinson sent this guy in a big way.

Yeah, exactly. And it's so messed up, especially the fact that Susie is totally oblivious to this.

And by the way, and that Lyle, obvious, and that Lyle, the husband played by Wayne Crawford, is standing right next to her.

It is not picking up on this at all either.

He's too busy failing to hand her a piece of sushi.

Yes, yes. But this is a setup that is going to be developed further.

And it's, well, you're so, you're so charitable and using the word developed.

Anyway, well, let me, developed in a way that I found unexpected and a little refreshing in the twist.

It shows back up. EG. Daley winds up, okay, so Tommy tries to provide.

Tommy is wooing, what's her name?

They wind up in a bedroom upstairs and you see her boobs, but then he basically tells her, don't tell anyone about this. I won't tell anyone about this.

Because she's asking, oh, does this mean we're an item now? That we're together.

And he's like, nope, I'm just using you.

No. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, to get back at as his ex and make her. He's an asshole. Anyway, so all this is set up, but then finally, Randy and Fred, Nick Cage and his buddy arrive and they stick out like two sore thumbs, wearing red and black. So they're totally not in the pastel color palette and wearing very different punk-ish, vaguely not clothes.

They just don't look preppy like the people in the Valley, with the pop collars and the tech shoes and the pleated pants.

They look anti-preppy. They're unfamiliar with the exotic cuisine that is sushi.

Oh yeah. Now, I will say that, as we discussed with the Breakfast Club previously, this is 1983 in Los Angeles, and this is literally the beginning. Now, this is interesting to me because this is the beginning of the sushi craze. To the extent that sushi was an alien food stuff in the Breakfast Club, I can see how it would have been an alien food stuff in LA in 1983 when, you know, the terrorists, yes.

But Javi, I, it is, it is worth observing what is and is not normalized in the context of the film.

Which is?

Well, there's something that's horrifyingly normalized in the prom that we'll get to.

Yeah. A horrible misogyny?

Homophobia.

Oh, that too, yeah.

In terms of one of the featured songs that's played.

Oh, god, yeah.

But yes, we're at a point where Succi apparently has not been mainstreamed or whatever. Electric Avenue is playing at the party. Randy and Julie make massive icons.

Oh, my god. It literally is like 93 percent of the running time of this film is the sequence where they're just looking at each other. It goes on for fucking ever.

They lose themselves in each other's eyes a lot in this movie.

Yes.

And fairly effectively.

One of the interesting things in this film is the romance is utterly without substance. It is literally based entirely on this eye fuck in a montage. I mean, it really is.

I mean, arguably, it is based on a mutual whammy.

Well, and yes. Oh, my god. The mutual whammy. Paul, you have elevated the whammy. And what's interesting is that the difference between the cultures is very handily set up by things the characters say, like, for example, clip number four.

That chick Julie, she's truly dazzling. Yep.

Which is not one of ours.

All righty.

And to punctuate this point, Randy and Fred have been violently exiled.

Yes.

From the party. Because Tommy does not, cannot handle the sight.

No.

Of this-

Virile, masculine-

Wild man, sort of road warrior looking guy from across the hills.

Yep.

Putting the moves on his ex that he's trying to get back on. So he beats Randy up, and then he and his friends literally, physically throw him and Fred out of the party.

Which leads to one of two things I have highlighted here, which is the first of Nick Cage's freakouts in this film. Because if there is one thing we know about Nick Cage, is that he is cage against the machine, man. He just forages, he freaks out, he does it. This might be the first Nick Cage freakout committed to film, Paul.

I think this is a cinematic milestone.

Holy shit.

Because no one freaks out.

No one.

With more kind of effervescent vitality and just passionate verve. Paul. Than the great Nicholas Cage.

Paul, do you know how Ra's al Ghul from Batman has the Lazarus pit, and that's what keeps him alive? I truly believe that Nick Cage has the freakout pool in his home, and he just dives into it every day and comes out with renewed freakout energy. So let's just bask in the glory of this milestone that Paul has just flagged for us, shall we?

Who the fuck was that guy, huh? And I was doing all right with that chick. Who the fuck does he think he is? Maybe he's your boyfriend. Nobody is going to tell me who I can score with. I want this chick. She wants me, so fuck it. We're going back.

Film history. Film history.

But it does not get better.

No, it doesn't.

I mean, that is glorious. That is glorious.

It is like Nick Cage emerged from the freakout pool, like one of those aliens from the abyss, you know, and just arrived fully formed. I adore this.

It reminds me, if you and our listeners will please indulge me, I don't know why anyone does anymore at this point. But for those of you who do, I am immediately taken back, last summer, Star Trek II Rathicon, Nicholas Cage's direction to Ricardo Montalban, his first day on the set, when he's finding Chekhov and Terrell, and was just going big. And Nick Myers has, you know, I heard this famous line from Olivier, who said, an actor should never show the audience his top. I believe that demands an asterisk, with a important footnote, which is, unless you are Nicolas Cage.

In which case, you're all top all the time.

You, we can, show us all the top you want, man, because it's glorious.

We've had to find new, renewable sources of top for all the top Nicolas Cage has spent in his career, okay? Like, I mean, there's no limit.

He is, he is a, he is a powerful and priceless natural resource.

Like the wind, like the sun.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Not like fossils.

You avoided national treasure. You didn't say that, you could have gone there.

No, that was too obvious. That was, that was, that was not gonna, not gonna hit it on the, on the nose that hard. But, yeah, his freakouts are a force of nature. And, and, and what a treat in the, here in the host trench of Act One, that we are, we are getting this peak, this pinnacle announcing the fact that, yeah, first he and Fred, Randy and Fred are driving away. They've been kicked out and exiled. And he's like, no, I'm taking command of the plot now. I'm going to, I am in charge of my own destiny. And they drive back to the party against Fred's probably sounder wisdom.

Yeah.

And what is, what does Randy do?

So Randy climbs to the bathroom window. Now, here's the thing. Randy, Randy, now Nicolas Cage has grabbed this movie by the horns. And he's declared that he's going to take this movie, right? And then Wayne Crawford comes back at him and sticks him in this bathroom for what appears to be 69 minutes of screen time. He's literally stuck, he's really just stuck in the shower, hiding in the shower because people keep coming into the bathroom and he can't go into the party. So he's just hanging out in the shower. And I know it's the rule of threes and there's three different people come into the shower before Julie shows up. But fuck the, it's like, it's like Wayne going, no, no, no. I want a languid, plotless pace in this film. Nick, fuck you.

Let's unpack this.

Wayne.

So the expectation, they drive back and park a skew in their crappy car. And Nick storms out. Fred is like, I'm staying in the car. He doesn't want to get beaten up again. Who would? Or thrown out again. And the expectation is, Nick Cage, this fountain of fervorous defiance, don't know if that was a word, you think he's going to just storm in. No, he does not do that. He becomes ninja random.

That's right.

And he goes around the side, finds a window to the bathroom, climbs in, not quite with this, you know.

Not quite, not quite with his Cameron Poe action hero stuff yet. He's, he's, yeah.

Yes, goes into the shower that has like a translucent, you know, frosted plastic, you know, whatever, enclosure, and hides in the shower. Now, I'm watching this thinking, what the hell are you doing, Nicholas Cage?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Climbing in the bathroom without hiding in the shower. And then, of course, people come in, use the bathroom to make out, to like do different things, to touch up makeup, whatever.

Supposedly, he can get out of the bathroom, it's a whole thing.

And it goes on, and on, and on. And so, I'm thinking, okay, did he just not think this through? Is he getting cold feet? But no, what I believe we are intended to discern is that his plan is he's going to stake out the bathroom.

Hoping Julie gets there?

He's still hoping that at some point, Julie will need to pee or freshen up.

Dude, I could go and meditate in the Himalayas for 10 years and not discern that as his motivation.

It's the only plausible explanation, but it also just seems wildly irrational, because there's no guarantee Julie's gonna need to use the bathroom.

No, no, I mean, if he had said, Fred, go in and give her like this spiked drink that has something that will make her vizine that gives her diarrhea or something, I could buy that, but he's-

Don't give anyone any ideas. We are not responsible for any action that anyone's taken based on anything mentioned in this podcast. But yeah, so he waits this interminably long time as other party goers come in and out of the bathroom. We're like, there's not really a lot of suspense about whether he's going to be discovered. None of them actually need to use the toilet. So we're spared any kind of vile creepiness of him being a total peeping tom.

And then Julie comes in and they have the-

But finally Julie comes in, he emerges like the Phantom of the Opera or something, and is like, don't be scared. And they flirt and then he makes the proposition.

Let's do it.

Like, this is very strange. What are you doing back here?

I forgot my comb. Really?

Now?

Well, to tell you the truth, I kind of thought that maybe you and I could-

We could what?

We could get out of here.

Like, I don't think you'd be any more welcome down there right now.

I mean, let's leave the party.

I'm so sure.

Kill. I'll meet you out front.

Wait a minute. Where are we going to go?

I don't care.

What are we going to do?

Anything.

I gotta say, like, I mean, however, whatever the quality of the writing is, whatever the- Nicolas Cage is fucking magnetic in this scene. It's like, just his eyes are like, I mean, the dialogue is vapid, but he's really intense and amazing.

There is such a study in contrasts in this film between Nicolas Cage's performance and everyone else.

Yep.

He is committed at a height and a depth that has not even occurred to anybody else to reach for or even look for.

You know who it really didn't occur to? Wayne Crawford.

Dear Lord.

I'm going to start keeping track of how many times you mentioned him.

I think producer Brad, you need to get the buzzer ready. So every time he says Wayne Crawford, you need to hit the buzzer from here on out.

I just really hated Jake Speed and I was so annoyed by the hubris of casting yourself and never mind, never mind.

It is an egregious...

The point being, Nicolas Cage is giving it his all like he does in everything he does and everybody else seems to be treating it like they're in a really low budget version. It's really interesting. Martha Coolidge is directing a real film. Nicolas Cage is acting in a real film and everybody else seems like they're there to do a job they hope doesn't get too much attention.

Again, I want to be kind to everyone because making movies is hard. It's hard. Some people probably do, but most people don't set out to make a bad movie. They come showing up to try to do their best, presumably. Everyone else in this movie is forgettable. Yep. Nicholas Cage is unforgettable. Unforgettable. Yeah. It's such a different way that we've seen these other leading men announce their emerging stardom. This is so weird and interesting and unique. But yeah, he is incredible in this scene, delivering that voice.

Very vapid dialogue, but it's just so intense, and he's just kind of-

And his command of his instrument, of his presence, his tone, the timbre of his voice, the cool factor, the confidence, he just exudes this complete, like, he is in such command and so comfortable in his skin and in his nicageness. And it's exciting to see.

But the other thing that's really exciting about it, Paul, is that like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, every once in a while, you just see the real person, because he's still at that level in his acting career where he's still, there's still a real person there. This is not a multi-millionaire guy who has a trainer and all that stuff. So everyone said-

He's not a successful star yet.

He's a human being and it's amazing sometimes to see how the performance cracks into real humanity and that's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a thing that redeems, you know, look, it's pretty clear by now that I didn't like this movie very much, but being able to see that actually kind of redeems a lot of the movie for me because I feel like I'm actually watching a glimpse into the person he was and the person he became, you know?

Yeah, and it's worth noting, again, he is still an aspiring actor, he's been working, but this is the film, this is the first time, I believe, he has planted the flag of his assumed identity of Nicolas Cage and not Coppola.

Exactly, yeah.

That he is, he is now announcing himself as this person, this collection of eccentricities and behavioral specificities.

Right.

And yeah, it's like, okay, he is still finding his way, but he is mostly kind of like finish the recipe.

Right.

They're figuring it out. And it's just exciting to see him like taking it out for a spin.

So then Nicholas Cage takes Julie out on a joy ride along with Fred and her friend, right?

But I was going to say, so Julie agrees, but on one condition. She says, okay, but I have to bring my best friend, who's Stacey, Heidi Holliker, and they leave through the. I guess they all sneak out through the bathroom window or no, no, he goes out the bathroom window. They come out and meet him. And then I don't think we have this clip. I should have asked for it. But this is maybe one of my favorite character introductions, as in a character introducing himself to another character.

That's where Fred says, I like long walks on the beach and a cool chardonnay.

It's better. Fred says, Hi, I'm Fred, and I like tacos and 71 Cabernet. My favorite color is magenta. That's how he introduces himself to Stacey, who then very quickly says, I'm simply going to freak out and die as she's getting into the car with them. So Stacey is stuck in the backseat with Fred tagging along with it.

I love this so much.

At this point, the movie is like, okay, because I'm struggling in this movie until this point, when these elements come together and it feels like it's finally coming to life.

A little bit, yeah, sort of. And so they go, they cross the hill to go to Hollywood, which apparently is another planet. They literally treated like first contact with the fucking Klingons.

But Javi, I would say at this time in the 80s, to me, both the Valley and Hollywood were other planets. Being in Michigan.

That's true, that's true.

Yeah, depending on one's vantage point. But yeah, they go cruising on Sunset Boulevard. An officer and a gentleman is playing at Man's Chinese Theatre, not the TCL. And then what's funny and striking is they're passing all sorts of passersby who all know-

Oh, Nicolas knows everybody. Yeah, he's literally the mayor. He's apparently the mayor of Hollywood, yeah.

Of Hollywood. They pass a midnight show of Rocky Horror Picture Show. They're passing all sorts of cool little-

This is sort of LA travelogue kind of quality to this part of the video.

Yeah, it's kind of nice.

They go to a club where-

They end up at this, yeah, at a club.

Yeah, no, they end up at a club where the plim souls, the plim styles are playing something.

Plim souls.

The plim souls.

Plim souls.

They're playing a song that we recognize. We hear the following exchange. Shall we hear it at gun number 7?

This is what we call living on the edge. You don't have places like this in the valley, do you?

No, we're just not into loving it.

So what do you do over there that's hot?

We go to normal parties, go to normal places, buy nice new clothes.

It's no different from what we do. It's the way we do things that makes the difference.

All right. So now we know these are two people from such different places. How could they possibly fall in love with each other with these differences?

I know this huge gulf between them, which is the Hollywood Hills.

She goes to normal parties, Paul. Normal parties.

Yes.

And she buys new clothing.

Randy, exactly. Randy, though, is asserting, this is the real world. It's not fresh and clean like a television show. And so Stacey is freaking out at this. She is completely not coping with her surroundings and the people she who are...

All these Hollywood bizarros, man. She can't handle it. No.

Yeah, she can't handle it. She can't handle this at all. Then Randy and Julie again lose each other in each other's eyes, lose themselves in each other's eyes.

They lose something.

They kiss finally for the first time. They then leave the club, go park on a look out point and start making out inside the car as Fred and Stacey are flirting outside the car. And meanwhile, we cut to her parents who were staying up late because she was supposed to be back no later than 1 a.m. And it's clearly gone way, way past.

Now, this is the beginning of Colleen Camp and Fred Astorak's character kind of caring about Julie and wondering what she's doing, all that. I want to, you know, Paul, I'm going to go back a half hour just to torture you. Oh my God. Because I do feel like we do need to hear the introduction of Julie's parents just so we get an idea of who they are because they do figure. So let's just hear clip number three. Now, this happened about 20 minutes earlier in the movie. I'm sorry that I didn't introduce this earlier. I apologize to you, our listener.

I think we're sure a lot wilder then.

Yeah, different priorities, that's all. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

It's almost like this character that's being played by Frederick Forrest is his character from Apocalypse Now. Do you remember Apocalypse Now? Never get off the boat, never get off the Saucier.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, do you think maybe after the war, he moved to Hollywood, found a nice lady, tried to de-hippie a little bit, opened a health food restaurant?

It's a tantalizing hypothesis. Maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

The shared Apocalypse Now Valley Girl universe has not been nearly explored enough.

Anyway, it had not occurred to me, but now I will be pondering it deeply. Yeah. Randy brings Julie back at sunup. The next morning, and then we get the what we think is going to be the stereotypical parental interrogation. But we're seeing Julie's mom, let's just say, in a striking yoga pose.

Oh, is that right?

Where she has her sort of crotch elevated and pointed toward the doorway that Julie enters.

The things I've repressed from memory. And I only saw this like an hour ago.

That's okay. But it's less judgmental and more compassion and concern and support. But still, there's some tension and there's a little bit of a disconnect. They're not on the same wavelength yet.

Look, it also just seems to me like the primary gesture of this entire movie is, hey, isn't California weird? You know, sushi, yoga, who? You know, and it's just a little bit like that's not a joke. You have to develop that a little bit to make it funny and add some character. I don't know. Anyway, it's a thing. Wayne.

Then we get a driving school sequence.

Which has the one great visual, actually not visual gag in this movie, which is that the great, God, what is the actor's name? I forget the actor's name.

Yeah.

He played the great Les Nessman in WKRP, right? The actor's name is Richard Sanders.

Yes. He's playing the driving instructor.

It is one of those stereotypical, it's like Mr. Hand, in fact, it is the oblivious high school teacher who dresses like a square, and he's trying to run the driving test while they're all talking about guys and boys and all that. I don't even know what they're talking about in this, honestly, because it's gibberish. But the best part in it is that while they're talking about guys and all of their situation, he keeps trying to get them to do things and they're not doing them. And finally, he finally yells, You're going the wrong way. And then you cut to Julie talking to her friends about boys or whatever. And you hear a door opening and closing. And then when they go back to the master shot, he's no longer in the car.

He jumps out of the car in terror because Julie keeps looking away, looking to the back seat to talk to her friends, instead of paying attention to where she's going. And he does not want to die. So, it's kind of funny, but the scene doesn't quite stick the landing comedically.

But the visual gag of he's in the car and then you hear a sound and then he's not in the car is not too bad, yeah.

It's pretty good. Then we get, we're back to Susie's hot step mom, Beth, lounging pools off.

Oh my god, this scene is cringe. This scene is so cringe.

As Skip now is delivering groceries.

It is shot with about as much subtlety as a porno movie, which is what it's quoting, I assume. You know, he shows up with the bag, she's wearing the swimsuit, she's at the pool.

Yes. And she is attempting to put the whammy on him. They've clearly been on each other's mind since the meeting at the party.

Yeah.

And as if it's not obvious enough.

Oh my god, Paul, right?

She says, I don't think we have this clip.

I don't want to hear the clip because it's so egregious. I honestly like it. I don't want to hear that.

Got a little tip for you, Skip. Plastics, which is a shameless riff, a quote of The Graduate. And yeah, but he, for something, he can't get it on with her.

Yeah, he can't do it.

And he says, I actually have two more deliveries I got to make. I got to get back to work. Um, but she kind of leaves an open invitation for him to return. And then when he has the confidence and courage.

And the scene is so cringe. And frankly, the plastic things only makes it worse because it's like, it's yeah, because it's hanging a hat on a hat.

Like, it's just like, we get it. Not to mention that beat us over the head with it.

Like, come on, don't quote a better movie.

Yeah, never a good idea.

Never evoke a movie that is manifestly better than yours in a way as if to say, we're doing the same thing because you're not. You know?

Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, so.

So that's not a good idea. Then we cut to Julie. We finally see her part-time job working for her parents.

At the health food store.

Their Foods for Health, which is a health food store and I guess also restaurant.

And so another one of those things that, you know, like people from, you know, the Midwest heard about California. Oh, they eat sprouts over there. Oh, you know, isn't that funny?

Yeah.

So there's just little weird jokes about, oh, how weird the food is there and whatever the health stuff. Randy arrives, we get him meeting the dad, which again you think is going to be a bigger deal, but it isn't. It's just kind of matter of fact.

Yeah.

And then Julie leaves work with Randy. And then we get the dating montage.

Oh my God, the interminable dating montage. It literally like, I had a birthday waiting for that montage to end. It's the song, I'll melt with you. And they play, I think the entire song.

They, I think they do, pretty close. So they started DuPars, we get glimpses of Winchell's donuts. We get, you know, a makeout scene on the beach. They're just so freaking happy.

It's a nice guided tour of Los Angeles, actually. I mean, it's nice to see LA in that in that period, knowing it as well as we do now.

Yeah, it is kind of that. I enjoy that. I appreciate like vintage LA iconography. But it also takes place clearly over a period of many days, many dates. And then we land on them in the food court sharing pie and being observed with great dissatisfaction by a very jealous Tommy.

Tommy, yes.

Who then goes to try to Iago all of Julie's friends and stirring the pot of their collective disapproval of Julie dating Randy, who is not socially acceptable to the standards of the denizens of the vow.

Yep. And this begins to thicken the plot such as it is, because this is going to lead to the breakup. So basically, we then go to a slumber party.

Slumber party.

Slumber party.

Yeah. Frolicking.

Frolicking in underwear. They're trying on Mrs. Robinson's lingerie at Suzy's house. They are yammering on about boys and boys and boys and boys and boys.

The slumber party ends.

Thank God.

With a phone call. So we're at Suzy's house and none other than Skip calls. But is he calling for Suzy? Or is he calling for Suzy's hot stepmom?

Imagine the mystery contained herein.

Exactly, exactly. But Suzy is delighted because she's convinced he's calling for her.

That's right.

And tells him that her mom, stepmom, is not home, is out late on a date, which does not seem to sit well with Skip. But then Suzy very excitingly invites Skip to come join the slumber party.

Wow.

And he turns down the invitation.

What?

What?

What the hell, Skip?

Skip, what's going on? Skip.

Next day, next day, Skip bikes to Suzy's house.

To that annoying song that I quoted earlier?

And this is an uncanny mirroring of the opening dream sequence of trading of risky business.

It is indeed. Yes.

It's a go on.

Yes.

Almost shot for shot.

Where Skip Bikes up to Suzy's house, knocks, no one answers. He lets himself in.

Yes.

He goes upstairs. He announces himself. He goes up to the master bedroom, that he hears the shower on and he sees the silhouette of a naked woman showering in the shower.

The faint sort of a whisper of pubic hair is visible, steam, all that kind of thing.

It's fairly tasteful and it's restraint. Then we cut away back to DuPars, where Julie and her friends are, or one of her friends, I think, is having a talk and trying. It's sort of a semi-intervention. Like her friends are now actively trying to sabotage relationship with Randy.

Yeah, they wanted her to break up with Randy. They feel that Randy's not.

To get back with Tommy. Not that Tommy's great, but he's socially acceptable.

Exactly, yes.

And it's like, oh, you're standing for the class resident or something.

Yeah, and she's going to think of all these other things. It's all about being prom king and prom queen is what it is.

Yeah, yeah, it's all about her social status and whatever. Then we cut back to Susie's house and Skip is getting out on in bed with who we think. Is the mom. Is Susie's hot mom and then who we think is Susie comes home, climbs the stairs, but there's a twist.

There's a twist. Oh, no.

It's Susie's hot step mom that has come home.

Oh, my God.

And finds Skip in bed with Susie.

Imagine the delight and surprise of the audience finding out that Skip was out for the... Gives a shit. Anyway.

This whole subplot could be thrown out of the film and you would miss nothing because of like, wait, what? Why?

How? Okay.

What? And then it doesn't go anywhere from there other than we see them together at prom, but it's just like, who cares? Because neither of them are sufficiently to help us to...

And because nothing in the movie is. Exactly. And by the way, this romance between Nicolas Cage and Julie is meaningless. So, I mean, this is a montage.

It just kind of evaporates in this stretch of the film.

And also, in this stretch of the film, there's a missing scene, because by the time we're having this conversation, it appears that she's already broken... Isn't this where it appears like she's already broken up with him?

Well, she's having... This is... Then we have the couch conversation with her dad.

Right.

That you referenced earlier, and he pulls out the pictures of his old hippie days, and Julie's wanting to get relationship advice from him.

Right.

Because all her friends disapprove of Randy, but she really likes it.

She likes the Randmaster. Yeah, she's in it.

And he gives her, I think, unexpectedly good advice. Yeah. Without pushing an agenda or choice. Like, you have to decide and make the choice. But he basically tells her, don't worry about what other people say, follow your heart.

And he shows her pictures of himself as a hippie, as if he's not a hippie now.

Yes.

To prove that, you know, sometimes people don't look the same as other people, but it's still cool.

Yeah. And so if we take this scene at face value, we think, oh, well, obviously, she's going to follow her heart.

And stay with Randy.

She's going to tell her friends, get over it.

Right.

Randy's awesome. I love him. And so he doesn't conform to your social norms. But like, yeah, it's more important. I'm an individual.

I love his Batman-shaped fur. I'm in. Come on.

Right. I'm not a number. I'm a free man. Like, I mean, just all of this stuff that you're in.

Let's like, of course.

But then, in one of the darkest moments of foreshadowing, where I had this spasm of apprehension that we might be taking a turn into horror, it is revealed that Julie sleeps with a creepy clown doll that she is cradling. Javi, what the hell?

You know what? I honestly, at this point, the movie is gone into this sort of abyss of tedium.

You've got to do parts to get some parts.

Scenes are missing. There's a breakup missing in here someplace. There's things I haven't seen that are being talked about. Then you've got the creepy clown. Mentally, dude, I was at Teru Sushi, enjoying the beginning of the sushi craze in the Valley. Was it the clown from Poltergeist, Paul? Because...

No, but it should have been. Then we go back to do parts and we basically have like the semi-gentle subversive intervention scene where Julie with her friends succumbs finally at last to peer pressure and they basically are making her choose between Randy and them.

Right.

Which is so fucked up.

Yep.

It's like with friends like that, like forget, like just, it's so, it's so kind of heartbreaking, but really twisted.

Producer Brad, is this where clip number eight would go? Then let's hear it.

Like this has been too tough, you know? I mean, it's not really fair. It's either Randy or you guys. Life's not fair. Randy is totally special to me, Stacey.

And I don't understand why.

I mean, he doesn't do the things we like to do.

But Julie, you left out one possibility. Totally gnarly sex.

All right. So that's the...

Which they have not had yet.

Well, of course, they have to be virginal. Yes, exactly. They have to be virginal so that we continue to love them and not expect Jason Voorhees to come and kill them with a machete, by the way. Exactly. Which, by the way, would be far more entertaining than anything that's happened in this film so far.

That would be a welcome twist.

Yes, it would.

But then, just as they convince her to conform and succumb to their peer pressure, conveniently, none other than Tommy arrives and basically tags them out, sidles up next to her, Julie tells him it's over with Randy.

Though it's not.

Though she has not told Randy this. And then Tommy has a bracelet ready to give her and put on her, claiming her again as his own.

And he's such a scumbag. He's such a scumbag. And just even, even like, you can tell from the way he was directed, like the way he eats, you know, like they have him grab her hamburger and take a big bite of it and open up chewing.

And then as he's already reaching for her burger, he's like, oh, are you going to eat that? Like, and he just starts eating all of her food.

It's very clear that he's not a nice, I mean, like, not that he hasn't been coded as being anything desirable up until now, but just in case you were missing, in case you didn't know Tommy was an asshole, he also eats with bad manners. Just FYI.

He is Galactus Devourer of the Valley Girls. And their lunch is at DuPars. Cut to later, presumably that evening, Randy then arrives at Julie's to pick her up. She appears in a bathrobe kind of tearful and tells her, he tells her he loves her and she breaks up with them and says, I can't see you anymore. And then we get freak out number two.

Yes.

I know what this is. It's your fucking friends, right? Shit, Julie. I mean, what is this? It's between you and me, not between the rest of the fucking world. So fuck off. It's your friends. Well, fuck you. Now, fuck off for sure.

Okay. That is the one time in the movie I laughed out loud because his mockery of Valley speak is precious. You know, it's totally precious. And in the middle of a Nicolas Cage freak out too. Come on. It's the best.

And, producer Brad, am I correct that that was not scripted? That is all Nick Cage bringing that scene home. With inspired improv.

It's funny because I was going to say this doesn't sound like it was written by the people who wrote the movie, especially Wayne Crawford. Yeah. But let's, but let's, let's.

Can I tell you a little bit about Cage and Martha Coolidge?

Please go on.

Please.

In an interview in 2003, he said to Martha Coolidge, you basically discovered me. You discovered the surrealistic interpretation of myself, which is Nicolas Cage. And he attributes the freedom he found on set with Coolidge for giving him a sense of dignity as an actor. And he believes that he became who he is because of her in this film.

You know what? I fucking love that. That makes me so happy. Yeah. And look, we're bagging on this film a lot, okay? And some of it with good reason, some of it I'm just being an asshole, because I saw a movie called Jake Speed that I really didn't like, that I felt insulted by. However, I have to say, I think Martha Coolidge is a really good director. I really admire and appreciate her work. And I appreciate her work in this film, because I think she's working against a lot of stuff that you don't see in her. Like, you don't see in Real Genius, for example, as all of the humanity of this film, but very little of the misogyny, very little of the stupidity, you know? And I think that Nicolas Cage finding this movie to be a landmark and having that kind of regard for her is really touching to me, actually. I really do like that. So, Brad, producer Bradley may have just redeemed this film for me in a minor way. But you know who you haven't redeemed for me?

Wayne.

So then, Randy, again, foreshadowing decades later, leaving Las Vegas, we have now hitting the Sunset Strip as Randy hits the bottle, smashes it, kicks cans, has a classic breakdown, goes back to the club, distraught, drinks some more, and then this hot ex of his, Samantha, of course, sees an opportunity to swoop in and puts the mousse on him. They get it on in the in the scuzzy bathroom. Yep. Then he emerges to a million miles away playing.

Again. That's the only thing Ben knows, apparently. Yeah.

Leaves out, leaves the club wasted.

And then we have, as we alluded to earlier, the one moment of Latino representation in the film, a low rider full of vatos.

Oh my God.

Presumably from East LA. Drive up and Nick Cage starts, tries to start something with them, which is ill-advised.

Yeah.

And he is then rescued into an alley by none other than Fred, who gives him a pep talk and is basically like, hey, if you really love this girl, you gotta do some wild and crazy romantic shit.

Oh my God. It never fails.

No, no, no. Oh God. Cringe. And then we get a montage of Nicolas Cage doing every stalker-y-

Doing wild and crazy romantic shit, which is very stalker-y.

Allegedly romantic. He's in a sleeping bag in front of her house. He dresses up as a movie theater usher. He dresses up as a, he's a weird, he puts on a weird southern accent and becomes a car hop.

It becomes surreal.

Yes, it does.

This whole sequence, this montage of just increasingly inexplicable behavior.

And inappropriate behavior, by the way. That should in no way be inappropriate.

And that he does and that he is not assaulted or arrested for. So first one morning, apparently, I guess, on our getting a ride to school, Julie is picked up in front of her house. Randy jumps into the backseat, the car with her to try to win her back over. Again, he's kicked out of the car. But then Randy sends a radio dedication. I got a little bit of nostalgia for this.

When you could call a station and that's not creepy.

It's sweet. OK, sure. You could call a radio station and make a dedication to somebody.

It's creepy because they're broken up and he's like sending her songs to the radio.

Yeah, yeah, that's a little creepy. But, you know, he doesn't know the story. He doesn't know the whole story. So anyway, we see like it's maybe starting to wear like down.

Sure, sure.

Julie then is like at school and going through a textbook. And then he sees that that Randy has left photo booth pictures of himself.

He has broken into her locker or her home and put pictures of himself in her school bus.

Paul.

Yeah. Paul.

Yeah.

What's next? Is he going to kill her pet? Huh?

They're sweet pictures. Oh, yeah, sure. Then, then he either gets a job or like, maybe abducts and knocks out and takes the uniform of an usher at a movie theater. And in a very thin disguise is they're taking tickets as Julie and Tommy and friends are going to see a movie. There's a great line, again, I should have asked for this clip, where then Tommy again, not recognizing him.

He's wearing 3D glasses, so you can't tell that's Nicolas Cage.

Yes, he's wearing 3D glasses as a disguise. And so-

Hold on, the old style, the one blue-

Yes, the anaglyph or whatever, the red blue. And so, Tommy, so Julie recognizes him. Right. But Tommy does not, but sees the glasses and says, ooh, bitching, is this in 3D? And then-

Nicholas Cage says-

Randy says, no, but your faces have a nice flight.

Like-

What does that even mean? What does that even mean? I don't even, oh, God, anyway.

It's great.

Then they're at like Mel's, then there's like a Mel's diner or something, and he's posing as a car hop. Again, how, how did he get a job? Did he abduct a server and are they tie him up out back and take their uniform?

I like that there's a whole short film where he's literally doing that, where he's literally got a syringe full of like an animal tranquilizer that he got from the LA Zoo, that he stole from the herpetology lab, and then he's going into the Mel's diner and there's some poor southern person who's like, they just want to make a living, and he literally injects them in the neck, fucking throws them in the bathroom, takes their clothes off and then pretends to be the bellhop, the car hop. I mean, it's lunacy. It's a horror movie.

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe it's chloroform, but I mean, who knows? Maybe he just knocks them over the head with a bottle.

Halothene, like in Let the Right One In. Yeah, I think, yeah, there we go. Okay, anyway.

To be honest with you. But then, and then the piece de la resistance, Julie wakes up one morning and sees him camping out in a sleeping bag in her front yard. Creep! Outside her window. Piece of creep. None of this has worked. Big, big, big shock that none of this worked.

Shocking.

Like, and, so...

This whole romantic comedy thing that happens in romantic comedies, and you see it constantly. It's do stalker shit and she'll love you. It's, it's, it's not true. I know this, I know this, I know this from real life, Paul. Yes. They don't like that shit.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing. I give the movie credit for essentially turning this sequence and flipping on its head the cliché of the extravagantly deranged stalker behavior to win a woman back into a cautionary tale, a PSA, essentially, that says, yeah, none of this is going to work. Like all of this is a bad idea. It's not going to work. So don't do this. I take as the underlying message, which is good, except.

The way the film resolves is basically still a valentine to touch on masculinity.

Well, yes, because that's a detail. But yes, so Randy and Fred are back at a lookout point where he is probably wistfully nostalgic for when he was making out there with Julie and looking out over the valley, mourning the loss of this relationship and grieving the fact that none of his attempts to move her back has worked. And then we have an exchange. Fred says, what you're doing ain't working. You need a good plan. And Randy says, oh, I didn't know that. Like no shit. Then Fred pitches a more ambitious plan off camera that we will soon see so many dramatic things in this movie.

It happens off camera.

Yes, as Randy plays. And I promise you, listeners, we're in the home stretch. We're heading into the finale. As then Randy pulls out this really weird square whistle thing that he starts playing. I don't understand why or where that came from. But it's a little moment of, I don't know, he's expressing his existential angst through alien music.

I mean, again, these characters are so not developed. It's just hard to know, because most of what they do just plays like a gag, you know?

Yes. And so then we cut to Julie's house, a chauffeur in a, not a limo, but a kind of a town car.

Kind of a white town car, yeah.

Is bringing a tuxedo-clad Tony to pick her up for her prom. Julie's dad is freaking out. And so the dad, they'll welcome him. They're gonna pose for a picture to put on the corsage. The dad is sent to go get the camera. And what does he do, Javi?

He smokes weed, man, weed. Because he's a recovered hippie. He's gotta smoke weed, man. He can't get past his daughter going to school, going to the school prom unless he does some weed.

He flees into the bathroom, puts a towel under, by the bottom of the door gap, and hits.

And smokes weed, man, weed, weed, man.

To settle his nerves.

The hippie lettuce, man.

While he keeps them all waiting to take the picture.

Oh my god, yeah, whatever. Oh god.

It's kind of painful. And then, of course, again, we get the cliché of him taking photos with the lens cap on. It's just like, come on, then he's corrected.

I mean, this movie, this script is literally just like, literally should be called Low-Hanging Fruit, the Motion Picture, because there is not an obvious gag that these writers won't just go for at the expense of character or whatever else, you know?

Yeah, there's so many other things that would be more interesting. But we do get the revelation, totally out of the blue. He's like, oh, there's still pictures from our wedding on this roll of film. And then Tommy's like, what? How could that be? And Julie says, oh, they just got married a few months ago. Again, this is out of the blue, whatever. And then they're just weird. And so Tommy and Julie go off in the car to prom. The chauffeur is not Nicolas Cage. So at first I'm like, oh, is this the plan?

Can you imagine if it were Nicolas Cage and he's actually... Anyway, go on. And this is his great gesture to drive all three of them off a cliff.

Yes. That would be a good movie.

Oh, go on.

Okay. But then we stay with Julie's weird parents.

Oh my God. Yes.

For no good reason. And they're just weird together.

And apparently he's not supposed to smoke the weed. But then she says, hey, do you have any of that weed for me? And it's just, it's so like, it just, it.

Then finally, the prom, last, like, there are two, three scenes left.

Thank God.

Julie and Tommy arrive in the car in their conservative prim prom regalia.

Well, he's wearing a pink tuxedo made out of, he's wearing a pink satin tuxedo. So I don't know about the-

He's wearing, yeah, he's wearing, yeah. I mean, it's for, but she's wearing this very prim prom.

Yes, she's wearing a very nice prom dress. Yes, she is.

Dress. Then Randy and Fred sneak into the prom. Dressed appropriately, which I think is quite surprising, there's a whole thing about where the cups that we need for the beverages, for the punch, whatever.

Oh my God, in the Pantheon of Low Hanging Fruit, there's an entire subplot that happens here about spiking the punch. And the whole thing is the teachers can't find out because there's no cups, but they spiked the punch. But apparently Susie and somebody were out getting the cups.

And Chip, Susie and Chip are too busy fornicating to get to the prom on time.

I don't even know who Chip is.

With the cups.

Chip's the guy.

Skip.

Who with the love, no, Skip.

Skip.

Sorry. Skip. Whatever. At this point, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. And the cups show up, but then it turns out the teacher's cool and is okay with the punch being spiked. I don't fucking know. Again, it's like.

Yeah. Then this is the other moment where this becomes a horror movie.

Oh my God. It's terrible.

I am reminded of things that were normalized in 1983. Josie Cotton is playing. And the next song is Johnny Are You Queer?

Johnny Are You Queer. Yeah. A song, by the way, that has worn and aged about as well as Julie Brown's Everybody Run, The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun. Okay. Like, you know, also, by the way, also made worse. So here's, there's a couple of things that happened here. First of all, the song's kind of offensive to begin with. Maybe it's ironic. I don't know. It is, it is 1980s New Wave. It's not ironic. Anyway, the person announcing the Prom King and Queen is a woman who is very, very heavily coded as gay by her haircut, her lack of makeup, and also her, dare I say, humorless and strident attitude as she delivers this regret-filled monologue of how she didn't get to go to her prom. So there's a lot happening here. And then Nicolas Cage and Tommy start having a fistfight.

Yeah. Randy assaults Tommy backstage because Tommy and Julie are waiting backstage, presuming they're going to be named Prom King and Queen.

Yeah.

It's sort of everybody like assumes like that's just like a given. So, Randy like just comes out of our deck and Tommy then retaliates and knocks down Randy.

And it turns out that Tommy does kung fu. Tommy has been to one of these San Fernando Valley kung fu schools that we see in every street ball.

Tommy then does this inexplicable display of kung fu moves.

Right.

Randy then kicks him in the balls, knocks him out onto the stage, and then he's dragged off stage. And then he walks out, triumphant with Julie, in her prom queen crown.

Who is delighted that her boyfriend has just gotten beat up by some ruffian from Hollywood who's been stalking her and breaking into her home and her locker. Yeah, it's good.

Yes, she's discovered this is where her heart truly lies. And then they are making their way off the stage, down through the crowd, to the buffet table with Tommy giving chase, Julie then pelts him with a face full of guacamole, which I appreciate. Again, the only other example of Latina representation, arguably. And then they flee, Randy and Julie, with then a horde of prom attendees led by Tommy chasing them. They get away with apparently they've set something up with the chauffeur, maybe, maybe not.

It has been said previously that Tommy is, has booked a room at the Valley Sheraton, where he is presumably going to de-virginize Julie. So the moment-

But was booked by, the chauffeur was booked by Tommy, but the chauffeur has no hesitation or problem of instead being directed and driving Julie and Randy without Tommy. So, I believe there's a hint there that maybe part of Fred's plan was a conspiracy to bribe the chauffeur as the getaway car for Randy to then abscond with Julie from the prom.

Paul, your generosity of spirit-

That's my only possible reading of this sequence. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.

All right. Well, you know what?

Otherwise, the chauffeur is just clueless. All right. So then they get away. Julie tosses the bracelet out the window and the chauffeur is asking, oh, are we to the Sherman Oaks Sheraton or whatever it is? Randy says yes, and off they go.

That's it. Not only is that it, this scene is framed as a direct quote of the final scene in The Graduate. They're literally sitting next to each other in a moving vehicle, and they're looking at each other with great trepidation, except at the end, they smile at each other. And it is, Paul, it literally again, it's like the low hanging fruit. It's like literally anything that gave these people character would be okay. You know? And instead, it's just literally he beat up the boyfriend, that puts her back in his good grace. I mean, it's nuts. It's nuts.

It feels like, okay, we need an ending for this movie. How do we end this movie? We don't know how to end this movie. What's the quickest, dirtiest, easiest, obvious, dumbest way to end this movie? And that's how that's what they do. And it kind of sucks.

It sucks because it says that this behavior is fine. It says the stalking behavior is fine. It says that going in and violently beating your competitor for a suitor, less some Cro-Magnon is a good thing. I mean, it's insane.

I mean, that's only scratching the surface of it. It doesn't, like, if you play it out, okay, how is this going to play out?

Yeah.

Beyond the final frame of the film, in terms of the internal logic and architecture of the narrative. Okay, Tommy booked them at the Sheraton.

Right.

So, they're going to the place that he's booked. Are they going to then try to claim the room under his name that he booked?

Yeah.

And then wouldn't Tommy think that, oh, maybe that's where I'm going to go look for them?

Or maybe Tommy, being shallow as he is, is going to pick somebody else up, go to the Sheraton where he's got a room that he has reserved, and then find fucking Randy and his ex-girlfriend there? I don't know.

Yeah. Also, are there not going to be consequences for the criminal assault?

Yeah. Causing a food fight at the prom?

I mean, I know it's a movie.

We're overthinking, whatever, blah, blah. But still, this is not a good ending.

So, Paul, there's been a criminal assault at the prom. A food fight was started, right? They're stealing a hotel room. There's been property damage.

Presumably, yes. Are they even going to get away with it? Because it's like, I don't know how lax hotels were in Sherman Oaks in 83, but yeah.

And pervasive homophobia. So we've got, so the ending of this movie just sucks.

It falls apart. I just, and again, it's like, yeah, I know it's a movie, but still, I want to, it could have ended better. And I, it makes me sad. It makes me a little sad.

Here's the thing, Paul. At one point in my notes, I wrote, the sound mix in this movie, what are they trying to be? Are they trying to be Robert Altman? What is this? And I don't know if it's that the sound mix was just bad because it's a low budget movie or if they wanted sort of dialogue to be going over each other or whatever. But it's one of those things where like, this movie was not made for a lot of money. There's obviously not a great script attached to it. They lucked into a great director. They lucked into some really great talent. And the movie is such a study in the tensions between the very, very unambitious nature of the project with Martha Coolidge and Nicolas Cage suddenly being the two number ones on the call sheet.

And having an excess of ambition.

Exactly.

Like, they're really seizing every opportunity they can, trying to make the most of this.

Exactly.

And yeah, and that is the fundamental tension in the film, is that they're straining against the restraints of the material, the time and resources at their command. And given that, my hat is way off to them. I just have nothing but admiration and respect for them. I wish that they had had better material to work with and from. Because this could be a great movie. Like, I think there is a great movie version of this, that could have existed, but...

No, this movie could have been to the Valley, what Risky Business was to, like, you know, the suburbs, you know, Skokie, and, you know, where's Northwestern? Evanston, you know? This movie could have been to Sherman Oaks, what Risky Business was to Evanston, especially with this director, you know, who was very clearly trying to give this thing a rough kind of documentary style to it, she's, you know, but the material just isn't there to support it.

Yes, and being a woman in 1983, trying to direct features, not afforded the same, well, I'll just say privilege.

Privilege is right.

That her male counterpart directors clearly were, and that's fundamentally unfair, but yet it was enough to springboard her to keep directing, which is a win. And again, to catalyze the iconic identity fully formed of cinematic Nicolas Cage.

And also to continue her collaboration with the lovely Michelle Meiering, who went on to play Jordan in Real Genius, one of the best, like literally a female character in a movie who was smart, stem forward and not boy crazy. I mean, like literally that character in Real Genius is a watershed in a lot of ways. So I mean, I also I wanted to bring, you know, she plays one of the one of the gaggle of chattering school girls in this movie. But wow, she's good in Real Genius. And again, that's Martha Coolidge being able to like, you know, do that. So you know, a lot of a lot of good came out of this movie.

Yes. And I hope the podcast persists to allow us to discuss Real Genius.

But Paul, I think I think that what I think the thing that we most need to dwell on here, though, is that it was the success of this movie that allowed Wayne Crawford to make Jake Speed. Producer Brad, now that we're done suffering through this conversation, quite amiably, I've enjoyed speaking to you, Paul. It's just a subject.

I was going to say, hey, hey, wait a minute.

No, no, I I love me some Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and some producer Brad. But let's face it, this movie, we were spoiled.

We were spoiled with some recent gems.

You know what, I want to ask a question. We have had some flash dance. We really surprising and fun, right?

Flash dance and risky business. I think we were genuinely spoiled by some great films that I personally, I don't think I would have ever gotten around to seeing if it were not for this podcast. And I'm so grateful.

Unlike the summer of 82 where we knew every movie going in.

Yeah.

Summer of 83 is two things. One of them is a bit of a shit show, to be honest with you. I mean, compared to 82.

I have to say, there's a lot of quicksand. It's a lot of quicksand.

I have a friend who might be our listener, who told me that it was really fun watching us trying to make the best of it. But also, you know, like, so it's a bit of a shit show, but also it kind of is the summer where you and I, it's what you just said, it's the summer where you and I catching up on the movies that maybe kids were a little bit older than we were watching, and that non-genre kids were interested in. And seeing, you know, and I think I wrote in one of our blurbs, I wrote, while Paul and Javi were busy counting Ewoks, other kids were in business, risky business. And I feel like that's what we were doing, and this is a portrait of a world in which I never lived. And I do appreciate that enormously, although it is making me go like, maybe I should have done more of that.

Yeah. But also, like, I'd never seen Valley Girl. It had always been on the periphery of my awareness, and I felt like, you know what, I want to see it, and I'm glad I saw it. For nothing else to see, again, the birth of cinematic Nicolas Cage.

I know.

It's worthy of that. And if there was a way to just do a highlight reel of just all the Nicolas Cage material, which probably someone's done, maybe it's on YouTube, he's not in an enormous amount of the film.

No, he's not.

But every moment he's in, I think it's worth watching.

Well, that's another thing that's really interesting is that the movie's called Valley Girl. He's barely in it. I mean, not barely, but he's, you're right, he is not showcased in it as much as you'd think from the poster. He's actually kind of playing the role of the girl in it, in a way, because he's the object of desire, and he's the one who's talked about, and he's sort of the one. So there's almost a weird switching of the roles, but the movie is portrayed and sold and almost recognized as Nick Cage movie when it's really a Julie movie.

Yes, but unfortunately, again, I think her role is underwritten. I think as an actor, she's just not in the same caliber as he is, certainly not in terms of charisma. And again, as I said, I think pretty much every performance in this film is relatively forgettable compared to the unforgettable imprint that Nicolas Cage makes that's just...

It's almost unfair. You know, it's almost unfair that, I mean, honestly, like if they had somebody like, I don't know, I mean, like Judge Reinhold, or what's another actor who, not Judge Reinhold, who never would have played this part, but I'm trying to figure out like, you know, Adrian Zmed, or like Cool Rider, like this movie would have been forgotten, you know?

Martha Coolidge said when she was casting, she was tired of all the headshots of all these chiseled Hollywood types. And when she saw Nicolas Cage, it just jumped at her as, I don't know if the term was goofy, but just different. And that's what she was looking for. Good for her.

Yeah, good for her.

She wanted a weirdo.

Yeah, and she's-

She got a weirdo.

And she wanted to make a real movie too, you know? Yeah.

One final thought from you guys. Is this the first film that has the preppy blonde bad guy that we see all throughout the 80s?

Is this the birth? Well, it's not William Zabka playing him, so you're kind of at a disadvantage there. But yeah, I don't think- Right, cause he comes later. I don't think I've seen that character in any other movies, have we?

That's a good point. That's a good point. I don't know what we have.

We haven't seen it in the summer films, but all the films I can think of come after Revenge of the Nerds, Better Off Dead, Pretty in Pink, One Crazy Summer, all these blonde guys with their pop colors.

Birth of an archetype. So, producer Brad, can you tell us a little bit about the lasting cultural impact of this film and how it landed?

More than you've already done?

Yes, please. Well, can you tell us a little bit about how it landed and all that?

Sure. Valley Girl opened on April 29th, 1983. It opened at number four with $1.9 million. Flashdance was the number one movie that weekend. The Hunger, which we watched as our spring special, also opened on April 29th and it was number five at the box office.

Imagine that as a triple feature. Wow.

Which would you open with and which would you close with?

I think you got to close with The Hunger.

That would be your late night one, yeah. Valley Girl stayed in the theaters through the summer and into the fall.

That's amazing.

We are seeing it in four movies that in August and August 12th, there were four movies that we did not see, which were Cujo, Smoking the Bandit 3, The Man Who Wasn't There and Curse of the Pink Panther.

Praise Cthulhu. And dear listeners, this is not a stretching or bending or breaking the rules. There was a time where movies would stay in theaters.

Forever.

Four months and months and months.

All right. So for the year, Valley Girl was the 41st highest grossing film with $16.8 million. Remember the budget was only 600.

Yep.

Amazing.

It was $400,000 ahead of Krull. Valley Girl ranks as number 4,346 at the all-time box office, $130,000 ahead of Tremors, $200,000 behind Herbie Goes Bananas.

I have to say, I take some pleasure in Valley Girl defeating Krull, and I just got to reiterate, they should have cast Liam Neeson as the lead in Krull, and that would have been...

If they cast Liam Neeson as Valley Girl, it would have been a better movie.

Oh my God. Can you imagine?

Grody.

Tubular to the max. Hey, Paul, I want to also bring something to this. You said, yes, young people, movies are in theaters forever. The thing you want to also talk about with movies being in theater forever is, this movie opened in April, and it's still in theaters in August. Now, movies are not projected digitally. They have to have a physical print of this film at the theater, right? Can you imagine, after four showings a day, how many scratches there were probably on that print of the film, and how shitty that movie probably looked? Because the one thing people don't realize is how shitty most movie going was in the 1980s. Like, going to the movies was a real crapshoot, and most theaters sucked. And I bet when you're watching this movie in August, you're probably watching it in a theater with, like, in some multiplex with three rows. You know, I mean, it was probably, like, this movie probably looked real bad when we saw it.

Yeah. And it was only in 73 theaters in August.

Wow.

Yeah.

So it was probably in drive-throughs and dollar theaters and, you know, who knows where we caught it. But, yeah, I'm glad we did. I'm glad we did. I'm also glad it was relatively short, shorter by a considerable length than this episode. So what's next? What else is playing and what's opening on the horizon as we enter the home stretch of August and the end times of the summer of 83?

And they call them the dog days of August, which compared to what we've already seen, like, I don't know how much worse this shit can get, because this is not my favorite summer of all time, my friends. I don't know if you need to.

But let me just paint a picture for you and our listeners. Oh, do, do, do paint. Even as we endure these trials of our soul, that are some of these films in the squandered summer of 83, beckoning us on the horizon is the summer of 84. Because in the summer of 83, it was too soon to respond and reflect the turning point, the changing tide that was brought in by the glorious summer of 82. But in 84, that's when the chickens come into roost. That's when we start seeing the bloom of seeds that were planted by the glories of the summer of 82. So stay strong, my friend and our dear listeners.

All right, producer Brad, what's the murderer's row of next week's Multiplex Offerings? Let's hear it.

Or 83 gives us the quickie versions, the low budget versions of our highlights from 82. So.

Oh yeah, the knockoffs.

Next week, we're going to August 19th of 83. It's the 13th weekend of the summer.

Lucky 13.

Six movies open this weekend. The most for the summer. And as you remember, as you recall, last year we saw The Beastmaster.

That's right.

Oh yes.

At this time. So are you feeling lucky?

Are we going to get a low-budget quickie knockoff of a fantasy sci-fi extravaganza that's done as a money laundering scheme or something? I'm crossing my fingers.

All right, well, here you go. Option number one.

No whammies, no whammies. Oh.

Rodney Dangerfield, Easy Money.

Wow. You know, here's the thing.

Back to School is really good because it's got the Triple Lindy and it's got Kurt Vonnegut. Not this one. Sorry.

Nope.

Not doing it. Not doing it.

It does have Joe Pesci.

It has Joe Pesci and Jennifer Jason Lee, which I forgot.

I'm okay. I'm doing so. You know how some movies we haven't seen and then we're glad. I'm good. I'm good.

Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Okay.

Here's your poster for number two.

Oh, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Oh, yeah.

This film is on the National Film Registry.

Yes.

I'm sure our viewers are dying to hear his.

Brian James, William Sanderson, Barry Corbin, Ned Beatty and starring Edward James Olmos.

That's great.

Yes.

Admiral Adama himself.

Yes.

Edward James Olmos.

I'm sure this movie's, with that cast and that name, I'm sure this movie's a real knee slapper.

It's an important film. It's a landmark film, but it also feels like homework, I'm going to be honest.

Spinach, I think is what we're trying to say.

All right, here's your option number three.

Oh, oh, I don't even, oh.

What the heck is that?

What's happening? Getting it on.

Getting it on?

Don't miss the stripped down fun and hot wired action. It's the funniest, sexiest, craziest comedy around.

You know what, we've done three of those in a row. I feel like we've done three of those in a row. Flashdance was in the sex comedy, but I don't care.

I believe this poster is lies, lies, lies. And I am not going to be seduced by...

They are trying to get us to pay. And what they really want is to show us four boobs. And I don't know...

No, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no. I know a con when I see one, my friend.

Yeah. Here's the poster for option number four.

The fuck is that?

What the hell is that?

The golden seal. The golden seal? And this isn't like a seal, like sealing a letter. It's an actual seal.

Yeah. That's gold.

It's an extraordinary friendship, an unforgettable adventure.

Holy shit.

Is this like...

Wow. Please tell me that, do you set this up so that the sixth one is...

What the hell? This is not a real movie.

No, no, no. Okay, I'm fine.

These are the movies that opened the sweet home.

I don't believe this is a real movie. A boy and a seal on an adventure.

Is the seal telepathic and the boy played by a young Don Johnson?

Is this like a foreign film?

You know what this movie looks like? Just from the poster, it looks like... You know those Mentos commercials that were very clearly, they took commercials from like Scandinavia and like we put an American song in the, but they're just weird? That's what that looks like to me. This movie is like...

This movie has Steve Railsback before Life Force.

I was going to say this is like a Scandinavian take on ET. But it's a boy and a seal.

And Steve Railsback was who they got to be in it so that they could sell the movie in America. No. No.

Okay.

Option number five.

I'm fascinated, but I'm dismayed.

Yes?

Five. Here you go.

Number five.

Metal Storm.

Metal Storm, The Destruction of Jared Sin in 3D.

It's high noon at the end of the universe.

I can still hum the theme song at the beginning of this movie. It goes like this, ready. Da da da da, bum ba dum ba da ba da dum. Da da da da, bum ba dum ba da dum. Earl and I went to see this at the State Theater. What fun.

It may or may not surprise you, I have never seen this movie, because despite the very cool poster, the movie itself looks like garbage.

Well, because it is absolute garbage. However, it does, yes, go ahead.

I say, it is a good poster, unlike Crawl, which was horribly from photos compilation. This is a painted poster, which is nice.

The one saving grace in this movie is the villain is played by the same actor who played Mick Jagger in Road Warrior, in The Road Warrior.

Interesting.

Yes, not that that would get me to see this.

I recognize him now.

So what's next? Yeah, what's next?

This is our last one, number six.

Sanny and Alexander, isn't it?

You're the hunter from the future!

You're the hunter from the future!

A horrible poster.

I don't care!

It's you're! I don't know!

I kinda like it! You're!

Well, read the poster for the audience.

He's from a future world. He's from a future world, trapped in prehistoric times, searching for his past. A hunter of incredible power and strength in his quest for his origin. And the woman he loves must fight hostile tribes, battle deadly beasts and try to survive the violent forces of a newly born earth. You're the hunter from the future.

You're! You're!

You're!

You're! You're!

You're!

So, never seen it. And I will say, this is a film that has been requested by a viewer slash listener who I can't remember who, but someone asked, are you guys gonna do You're?

I'm gonna watch the shit out of this movie. I'm gonna watch this movie like there was no tomorrow.

Fanny and Alexander are still playing.

You're!

You're! You're!

You're!

You're!

I'm excited. How many more weeks are left, by the way?

Three more weeks, including-

Three more.

Okay.

Okay. So after this, there are two more movies, and then we do the Maltese.

Two more weekends.

Then we have to do with the awards.

The multi-awards, and then we gotta, yeah. Hey guys, I gotta say, like, I had never seen You're the Hunter from the Future. I've heard about this movie-

You neither.

Since the Earth was young. I think we won't see Metal Storm instead, cause it was in 3D. I'm in, I'm so excited about this. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am.

I can't believe the number of films you guys haven't seen. Yeah.

Yeah. But thankfully, because of this podcast, it is being rectified all over the damn place. Audience member, we're done torturing you. Next week, we will see you're the hunter from the future, and I cannot wait. But until then, we will see you in line.

At the Multiplex.

Catch you later.