Women's Pictures - Amy Heckerling's Fast Times At Ridgemont High

The Film Experience is proud to welcome back Anne Marie and her series "Women's Pictures" after a month long hiatus. September's episodes (each Thursday) will focus on Amy Heckerling. If you missed previous subjects, Anne Marie's series on female directors already covered Ava DuVernay, Ida Lupino, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Agnes Varda, Kathryn Bigelow - Editor
 

The days are getting shorter, the weather is turning colder, and just as you perfected your righteous tan, the bell rings and it's back to school you go! Anne Marie here, after my own (all too brief) summer vacation, ready to celebrate Back To School month with the female filmmaker who has exercised as much influence on the Teen Film genre as John Hughes: Amy Heckerling! While Heckerling's ouevre has run the gamut from slapstick to parody to fantasy, she's best known for two genre-defining high school films made a little over a decade apart: Clueless (1995), which we will cover later, and Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982), the topic of today's lesson.

When Heckerling set about making Fast Times at Ridgemont High in the early 1980s, she wasn't looking to define a genre. There wasn't yet a teen film genre to define. John Hughes was still two years away from making Sixteen Candles, and American Grafitti, now pointed to as the first teen film, was already almost decade old with few major successors. What drew Amy Heckerling to Cameron Crowe's script about high school students was the realness of its characters. Fast Times At Ridgemont High was no nostalgia-tinged look backward at youth; it was an expose written by Cameron Crowe, who'd gone undercover at a high school for Rolling Stone to observe contemporary teens. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was something new: high school from the teenager's perspective. [More...]

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"That could never be wrong."

Team Experience: Oscar's Best & Worst Moments

Neil Patrick Harris' big musical opening had fun shadow effectsAre most of you over your Oscar party hangovers now?

I polled Team Experience (and myself) on their very favorite moment and their "Agony!" bit alike from last night's show of shows and here's what they had to say about the 87th Academy Awards. Please do share your single Best & Worst moment in the comments, too as we work our way through putting this film year behind us.

BEST MOMENTS

Timothy: Pawel Pawlikowski muscling right on through the play-off music in order to pay due tribute to his late wife.

Julien: That opening song was really some... Oh who am I kidding ? Watching Julianne finally clutch that Oscar was a dream I thought would never come true. 

Nathaniel: Once you get past Julianne I'd go with 1) Emma Stone reaction shots  2) "Glory" 3) Jessica Chastain saying "Chivooooo" 4) the insanity of "Everything is Awesome" - particularly the fake Oscars and the Batman interruption 5) Patricia Arquette's infectious righteousness (sub-shoutout to Meryl & JLo). I understand that people are up in arms the day after but that's called 'missing the point because people love to be outraged' which is an epidemic online that distracts the world from progressive goals like eradicating inequality and sexism. 6) "because you're rich"

More heartfelt applause (and then some jeers) after the jump...

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César Winners: Kristen Stewart (!!!), Timbuktu, and More

Can Timbuktu upset IDA for foreign film at the Oscars? The big winner of the 40th annual César Awards (aka the French Oscars) was the Oscar-nominated foreign language film from Mauritania, Timbuktu. It took home seven prizes but despite the excitable headlines 'round the web it wasn't quite a clean sweep and not quite super dominant since it had no acting nominations. But it did terrifically well, all told, losing only one of its 8 nominations, Set Decoration, to another retelling of The Beauty and the Beast starring new TFE obsession Léa Seydoux. Can we please get that one stateside?

Saint Laurent, France's Oscar submission this season (mixed reviewed but also loved by Team Experience) won only Costumes. If it had such restrained love at home, one wonders why France submitted it as it was not typical Oscar bait - way too gay/risque for AMPAS.

The history-making news is that Kristen Stewart became the first American woman to win a competitive César for acting (Adrien Brody won for The Pianist previously). The César Awards often give American stars tributes and honoraries (like Scarlett Johansson last year and Sean Penn this time) but they don't regularly compete and they certainy don't win. The prize was Best Supporting Actress for Clouds of Sils Maria. We can vouch that she's just fantastic in it as the close confidante / personal assistant of Juliette Binoche's diva actress. Their chemistry is, as Margaret said, "insane".  

Which is why this part of Kristen's acceptance speech is so great...

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Djackman Unlinked

Hugh Jackman was honored at the Museum of the Moving ImageReviews Under the Influence on Pitch Perfect. I LOL'ed. Hence the share
Movie|Line talks to Christopher Nolan at the tribute to Hugh Jackman at MoMi
ET Amanda Seyfried on Channing Tatum "everybody wants to have sex with him" and her own reputation. Amanda is fun!
/Film Clint Mansell will score Noah for Darren Aronofksy - YES
Ultra Culture hates on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its drip-fed storytelling; only nine hours until the protagonists meet the antagonist!
Hollywood Reporter Sean Penn is mouthing off again. Not that he isn't partially correct. He just doesn't have enough of a sense of humor about his self-seriousness to always pull it off.
Advocate Our beloved Sir Ian McKellen's long battle with prostate cancer.
Gawker Hunger Games themed reality tv is on its way. Without the death. But still, i don't think we're that far away from a Series 7 world, do you?

Today's Watches
Quentin Tarantino's epic introduction to Django Unchained here in NYC. Courtesy of Gothamist.

Tarantino from katie sokoler on Vimeo.

and Amy Poehler & Tina Fey's first promo for the Golden Globes

List Mania
Eric Kohn at Indiewire Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning & Amour. Yes, they can co-exist on a list
Film Doctor chooses his worst films of the year from Savages to Battlefield (poor Taylor Kitsch!)
Stale Popcorn on the best movie posters of the year from The Paperboy to Gayby
New Yorker terrific year-in-review via Anthony Lane. Love the shout-out to Eva Green in Dark Shadows

Awards Mania
Split Sider The Globes ignore all your favorite comedies again
In Contention looks at category fraud. I'd love to believe I coined the term and maybe I did since I've been the loudest voice complaining about it for 11 years but who knows.
In Contention Sony still thinking Amour is going to happen. Me too.
Oscars the 104 eligible Motion Picture Scores and some composers have multiple chances including Alexandre Desplat (4) and Danny Elfman (4), and James Newton Howard (3)