for some of us, fast times at ridgemont high was the coming of age film, largely because of the two ladies you see here: jennifer jason leigh and phoebe cates.this flick also launched sean penn, and was one of an endless barrage of coming-of-age flicks of varying quality between 1978-1985, and was one of the last film appearances by the great ray walston, but so what?
fast times stuck with us because of its underlying seriousness, realistic portrayal of our deepest fears, and the most bodacious ta-ta's the 80's had to offer.
sure, molly ringwald was the girl we all wanted to rescue, but all that we had to sustain us was a solitary crotch shot from breakfast club. cates & leigh dropped trou more than a decade before molly got around to it. by then, most of us were already married.now for the sad truth: fast times hit the screen 26 years ago. ms. cates appeared in a string of forgetable comedies (okay, we'll give you paradise), married actor kevin kline and went off to be a mom. as of this writing, she is 45 years old. ms. leigh continued to drop trou in films of ever-increasing quality and eventually even managed to keep our attention when fully clothed (a la hudsucker proxy, one of her best performances). she is now 46.
look in the mirror. we have become our parents. how did that happen? it all went by so fast. will the next 26 years go by even faster? how long before we become our grandparents?(my beard came in completely grey this autumn. like fast times, it's officially history.)