Valley Girl

In this episode, Anna and Derek chat about grand gestures of movie love, Mrs. Robinson vibes, and much more during their discussion of Martha Coolidge's Valley Girl (1983).

Connect with '80s Movie Montage on Facebook, Bluesky or Instagram! It's the same handle for all three... @80smontagepod.

Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.

Transcript

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And it's in the valley. What? The party's in the valley.

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I don't want to go to the valley. Trust me. I don't want to go to the valley. Trust me. I'm not in the mood to go to the valley.

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Hello and welcome to 80s Movie Montage. This is Derek.

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This is Anna.

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And that was Cameron Dye as Fred talking to his buddy Randy, played by Nicolas Cage, in 1983's Valley Girl.

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What's wrong with the valley? I

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don't know. Not in the mood. I don't want to go to the valley. I

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feel like sometimes that is how our friends feel about coming to see us.

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Spoilers. We

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live in the valley. it I like living in the valley I don't think I talk like a valley girl but I guess I am a valley girl

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it's really no you don't it's really interesting how like the 80s have like kind of portrayed the valley they kind of go back and forth just to create some like weird dichotomy or dichotomy. I

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like that. Yeah. You just created a new word. Yeah.

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Because like in Karate Kid, it's a whole thing. But

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that continued into Cobra Kai. I mean, it's hilarious. Yeah. We're like, oh, he's from Reseda.

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Yeah. But I mean, where Randy lives in Hollywood, it's just over the hill.

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It's just over the hill. And I'm not sure why Hollywood has a one up on the valley. I've Maybe not on the record, but I've made my thoughts very clear about how I feel about Hollywood. Yeah, every... Hollywood is trash, by the

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way. Exactly. It's not that the Valley is like this weird oddity. It's just, you know... Bunch of suburbs and some city-ish areas. And then there's Southern California generally and L.A. and Orange County. And then Hollywood is just kind of like... Its own crazy thing. Do you want something that's almost as crazy as Venice Beach but without the ocean? Visit Hollywood!

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Yeah. So, Valley Girl.

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Yeah.

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Let's dive in.

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Let's do it.

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I have, and I mentioned this at the tail end of the last episode... I have brought up this movie so many times that I had a false memory that maybe we had already done it. So I had to make sure that wasn't the case. All to say, I'm so happy that we're finally covering this movie. Like everything else we cover has its faults, but I do love this movie.

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Yeah, it does. But it's an oddly wholesome movie.

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Yes, it is.

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Yeah. In some ways, maybe like a little overly simplistic, particularly at the end. But yeah, it's really just like a teenage high school-ish. I don't know their ages because they're in high school, but they're drinking. I

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don't know. I think the sense that because there's a couple indicators that Julie and her friends at least, maybe Randy and Fred are Maybe they're seniors. I don't know. But I think Julie and her crew are probably sophomores because they're all learning to get their driver's license, which you'd be about 15, 16 years old. And then also they're going to junior prom.

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Yeah. A lot of issues then with the nudity in the film, I guess, but whatever.

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We'll get to that. So 1983, like you mentioned, and we have two writers for this one. They did collaborate on a couple other projects, but I don't think that they were necessarily writing partners. So the first person, Andrew Lane, for both of these gentlemen, I have filmed some of his other credits include Tomcats, Lonely Hearts, Bad Girls from Valley High. Oh,

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really? It wasn't a sequel? There was no... What

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is it? What's the word I'm looking for? Not undocumented, but like... A spiritual sequel. Yeah. A

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spiritual sequel.

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I don't know. South of Hell. And then because... Oh,

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that's Tucson, just in case. Yeah.

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Because there was a remake

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of this

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film.

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We watched... We didn't even watch all the trailer.

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No, it was that bad.

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Yeah.

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From 2020, there's another Valley Girl. And so Andrew Lane and his... writing partner on this one both have credits because of

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it i think it was the um the person from happy death day who i thought

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was great too i think that was her

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yeah she was great in that

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i mean i think that might be the first time we just switched it off a trailer because it

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parts of it looked like great it it gave me like mean girl remake musical vibes from the trailer

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yeah i just

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i

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Very rarely do I feel like something needs to get a remake, reboot, whatever. What about

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Poltergeist?

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Yeah, I mean, we actually haven't brought that one up in a while. I know, I know. I'm

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glad I was able to. So

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the other writer on this one, Wayne Crawford, he has passed. He passed in 2016. He also, so he collaborated with Lane again on the film Tomcats. He wrote the film Barracuda.

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Not the song.

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Not the song. Actually, I have one TV credit for him. A TV series called Okavango?

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Sure.

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Colon The Wild Frontier. I

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wasn't ready for the colon.

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Okavango is probably enough. Snake Island. And then as mentioned, he has a credit as well for the 2020 Valley Girl. Just for like the

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story.

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Yeah, I'm not sure. Again, we did not give it much due diligence, but I don't know if it's like the Alicia Silverstone character, if like that is Julie and her younger counterpart.

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Yeah, that's what it looked like was that she was... Like talking through her days in the 80s

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as

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a Wild Valley girl.

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Okay, moving on to the director who we have brought up before, but we haven't brought her up since season one. Oh, shit. Martha Coolidge. Okay. Love having a female director to talk about. The first time we brought her up was all the way back when we covered Real Genius. That's

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wild. And it's also wild that you identified another Real Genius connection.

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She was almost... I mean, it was crazy that I just didn't clock her until I mean, I've seen this movie a million times and I did not clock that the character who plays or the character of Susie.

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Yeah.

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The actress who plays her is Jordan from Real Genius. And

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she has like a different look in Real Genius, but it's also just like how fucking manic her character is. And she's not that in Valley Girl. No. Yeah. Yeah. Bravo. Bravo! Well done. Yeah, we'll

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go over specifically her filmography in a minute. But Coolidge, you know, one thing I was thinking about last night when we were watching this for the podcast specifically, it's so interesting to me. I mean, look, I just made kind of a fuss about the fact that, like, we finally get to cover a female director again. We don't get to do that a lot. So... Yes. And... they both have remained significant in film history, just in general, but also specifically for like the teen genre. And I just find it really fascinating that both were directed by women.

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That is interesting. Yeah.

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That's a good

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point.

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Anyway, but Coolidge, I mean, she is still very much working to this day. It's, you know, between this film and Real Genius, I do think those are both I mean, this movie in particular, though, Valley Girl had a

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pretty... small budget and did very well and i'm there's like very little doubt in my mind that that's what led to real genius just a couple years later like yeah

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but then you know i kind of just wish she look she has been busy so i'm not saying that her career by any means like fell off a cliff i just wish she maybe had had more opportunity to do other bigger mainstream films but That aside, let's go through her filmography because it has been a while. So she had a film. I think the only reason I read that, I think the only reason why it got released is because Valley Girl performed so well. It's a different film called The City Girl. Okay. So there's that. She did Joy of Sex. As mentioned, real genius. Go check that episode out. Although that is so early in our podcast.

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Yeah. I don't

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know. If you want to. It's probably a little rough around the edges. Who knows?

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Which is saying something because... I don't know if it's the most polished under the best of circumstances. Don't

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put ourselves down.

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We do our best.

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She directed a couple episodes of the TV series The Twilight Zone. She did do a number of other mainstream films. She directed Rambling Rose, Lost in Yonkers, Angie. That's the one with Geena Davis in the leading role, I believe. Out to Sea. But then... A little bit later in her career, she has pivoted much more towards television. So I put this down. It is a TV movie. I don't usually list them, but I remember this being a pretty big deal for Holly Berry in terms of moving her career forward. Coolidge directed Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. And then she also has directed a number of episodes for The These shows always have such redundancies. CSI colon crime scene investigation. So it's just like you're saying CSI, CSI. Yeah,

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there are a lot of... We fucking get it. There's a lot of divisions within CSI. She also directed...

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But CSI is just the acronym for crime scene investigation.

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Yeah.

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It's

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all the same. But it's a guy that comes into that office, but then he goes into the annex and he has a very specific job.

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Okay. So she also directed I'll Find You. And she also, again, over the course of her career, she's done a lot more TV work, but directors and television don't often stay with the show. There's a lot of like rotation. of different directors. So there's a lot of one-offs and two-offs that she's done over the course of her career.

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Including one episode of that hilarious cop comedy from the 80s where the guy basically just fetishized his pistol sledgehammer. Oh, okay. Yeah, that show was insane. I think it had a cliffhanger, maybe the series cliffhanger, involving a nuclear bomb exploding in Los Angeles. It was hilarious.

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Wow, okay. Moving on to cinematography, we have not yet brought this gentleman up. Holy

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cow.

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Oh, the fact that we have a movie? Yeah. Frederick Elms. So there are other opportunities for us to talk about him in the future, but... Yeah, he was the DP on this, and he has had a great career, a lot of big names and clearly some collaborations. So specifically with David Lynch, he shot Eraserhead. I'm going to kind of bounce around between other films, but he also– was the DP on Blue Velvet. He also was the DP on Wild at Heart. So all Lynch films. He also shot River's Edge. I feel like we've brought up this title before, Alan Quartermain in The Lost City of Gold.

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We have. Yeah, that's... That's okay. That one's, you know, there were... Oh, you've seen it. I have seen, like, there are all these movies that were kind of trying to be

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like... Indiana Jones? Yes. Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's what it kind of feels like.

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Just the name.

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Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't think Indiana Jones is quite... Or Alan Quartermain isn't quite as catchy as Indiana Jones.

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No, it's like a Best Value or Kirkland version of the title. Where it's like, we're going to have a title and we're going to have a thing. So Indiana Jones and Raiders of the... Or Alan Quartermain and this other cool thing.

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Yeah, that's exactly what it is. So Elms, he also shot Night on Earth, The Ice Storm, Hulk.

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Which one? The one with

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Banna? Yes. Probably. Probably.

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Yeah,

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probably. Whichever one's just called Hulk. Kinsey, Broken Flowers. Okay, I always have to prepare myself to say the title of this movie. Synecdoche. I did it. I did it. You're laughing over it. Yes.

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Do it again.

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Synecdoche,

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New York. Amazing. Is that a real place?

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Yeah. He has done some TV work. He shot the miniseries Olive Kittredge. We've brought this up before. Unfortunately, it's not a film that I will speak on your behalf. I don't think either one of us really took to this film, The Dead Don't Die. It

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was not an overall good movie, but it looked good. So well done.

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Great cast and honestly, great director. Jarmusch is obviously a fantastic director, but just didn't. Didn't take to that film.

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It felt like, what if Wes Anderson made a zombie movie? Yeah. Style-wise.

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And then lastly so far, I Know Catherine, The Log Lady. Oh, okay. Crazy title. Okay, music. So we have two people to talk about for the composing credit. The first person, Mark Leventhal, just for composing credits. Okay. Neither one of these guys has an extensive filmography. All right. So for Leventhal, he also composed on that other Coolidge film, The City Girl. And then I have a short for him, Clown Town. So that's about it. All right. And then the other gentleman, Scott Wilk. So, again, I don't think that they were really what you can consider composing characters. partners but he too composed on the city girl and then a couple of his other credits a film called plain clothes a tv series called duck man colon private dick backslash family man yeah

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duck man was amazing you know it i know of it

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okay and then a film called the mix

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okay

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that's it That's all I got for those guys.

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I mean, most of the music was just like it's one of those movies where there's more of a soundtrack than

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it is. Yeah, it's very much. And honestly, some like pretty well-known songs.

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So, yeah, there is like a fun fact that for as much as it was about like Fred and Randy being these like punk rockers, there really wasn't a whole lot of like, so

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to speak. No, like new age. Yes.

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I mean,

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I find that and I was thinking about that last night, too, when we were watching the film. just the incredible soundtrack for this film and I think in some circles John Hughes gets a lot of credit for bringing popular mainstream music into this decade of filmmaking and specifically the genre of teen films but clearly he wasn't the person who you know originated this because this film precedes any of his teen films yeah fast times also has an incredible soundtrack also precedes any of the john hughes teen films so as much as i love him he's not really the person to say oh because of what he did maybe he normalized it a little bit more but this was happening before him

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fair

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anyway

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yeah okay after hours had more punk in it

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Yeah, it did. Just with

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the inclusion of bad brains. That

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was awesome. Okay, film editing, Eva Gardos. And she has a couple good credits. I have all films for her. Under the Cherry Moon. Barfly.

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Okay.

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I don't think we'll ever cover that

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one. Probably not.

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Hear No Evil. Oh,

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is that the one with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor? Yes. No, that's See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Hear No Evil, just Hear No Evil, totally different movie.

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Isn't that crazy?

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Yeah.

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I thought that the other one had a longer title.

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Yeah.

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The Informant, Agnes Brown, and I just like the name of this title. Whatever Happened to Timmy? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Okay, we're at the stars of this film, and we are going to start with... for the first time billed as Nicolas Cage. That's right, yeah. Randy. Which is funny, because he actually was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And in that film, he was Nicolas Coppola. So... He didn't have as

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much to do. He wasn't.

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No. And I think he got some scenes cut.

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Yeah.

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So I don't even know. Does he have a speaking line in that film? I don't

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remember. Yeah.

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We brought him up a lot. We sure have. We have. I mean, most recently, I think I just called out the cameo in Fast Times. Yeah. But he's come up a lot on this podcast. Peggy Sue got married. Yeah. I mean, the films that we've already covered with him. The first was probably Raising Arizona. Yeah,

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I think so.

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Then Moonstruck. And then. I think the first episode of last season was Peggy Sue Got Married. So, yeah. And I guess potentially there's maybe a couple more films, but I don't know if we'd get to them anytime soon. Because after Fast Times, he did Rumble Fish, Cotton Club. We just mentioned the ones that we did. It's 1, 2, 3. Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck. And that really was, I think, that solidified him. You know, he had...

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Yeah,

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a couple hits right in a row, especially Raising Arizona and Moonstruck. And then, you know, he's off to the races. So he does Honeymoon in Vegas, Guardian Tess. He is an Oscar winning actor. He won off of his first nomination. It was Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas.

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Is that the sequel to Honeymoon in Vegas? That

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is kind of funny. Absolutely not. It's a super... I've seen it. It's like one of those films where I'm like, okay, good film, never going to see it again. It's super depressing. And then Elizabeth Shue got a nomination off of it, but she didn't win. And then he starts doing a ton of... It's like he got his Oscar. I mean, look... You do you, Nicolas Cage. But he gets his Oscar, and then he's like, I'm going to go for these blockbusters. So all of a sudden, he's doing The Rock, Con Air, Face Off, Gone in 60 Seconds. So he does all of these films. He has a lot of range. I do like The Family Man. I actually like a lot of the ones that are all The Man. The Family Man, The Weather Man, The Wicker Man.

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I don't know about The Wicker Man, but The Family Man is actually... Family Mountain's really good. I just saw that for the first time last year, I think.

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He gets another nomination. He is absurdly good in adaptation. I don't know who won that year. I'm sure it was deserved. I mean, he's playing two characters in the film, and he is insanely good in that movie. He goes back to doing some big-time... blockbuster flicks he does national treasure he comes back for the sequel national treasure book of secrets i just mentioned the weatherman the wicker man uh and now to some degree he starts going into his kind of like i don't even know what you would say like he starts picking really niche kind of unusual roles uh he does ghostwriter and And he comes back for that Ghostwriter Spirit of Vengeance.

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Yeah. I mean, technically a Marvel comic hero.

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Sure. But I mean, it's not...

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That was before the MCU

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was like a thing. Exactly.

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Yeah.

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He's in Kick-Ass.

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Yes. What is he, like Big

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Daddy or something? He's the dad. Yeah. He's done some voice work. So he's part of the Croods franchise. So he did the Croods, the Croods, A New Age. And he has just been working, working, working. I mean... I've mentioned before, it's insane the work ethic that he has had, probably over the entire course of his career. But in 2016, he busts out five movies. In 2017, he does six movies. He does another six movies in 2018. He does another six movies in 2019. It's just work, work, work. I think his love of comics is known, so I think that's why he keeps coming back to some of these. He has... He's done voice work in Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. We watched this last year and it is a fascinating film. Willy's Wonderland. He doesn't

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say more than like two things in the entire movie, I think.

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Correct.

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But it is a wild indie kind of take on a Five Nights at Freddy's type of movie.

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Yes. And I think that this also... I'm not going to say it's his introduction, but he's also veered a lot into kind of like horror or horror adjacent.

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Mandy is one that like I've like it looks like it is at a minimum horror adjacent. It looks like that from the trail. It looks crazy. I mean, that came out a few years before even Willy's Wonderland.

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I didn't list that. I'm sorry. But he also this is another one. Pig.

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Yeah.

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So he does that. Renfield, which is like horror comedy. Yes. And then more recently, Long Legs, which is, I believe, another horror. And I want to say that was directed by Norman Bates' kid. The actor who played Norman Bates. Oh, okay. His kid.

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Don't know.

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So there you go. Okay, moving on to the love interest, who arguably is the star of the film. It's called Valley Girl.

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Yeah.

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And Valley Girl, if you will, is played by Deborah Foreman as the character of Julie. So... You know, I don't know if I'd say it's a meet-cute. I guess it qualifies. They see each other at the beach initially, but she doesn't realize that that was him when she sees him again at the party. He did, but she did not. He did, yeah. And I want to say that probably most people listening to this are probably familiar with the film. Like you mentioned at the open of the episode, it's a pretty simple story. It's a high school romance, but,

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you

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know... He comes from his side of town. She comes from her side of town. His friend doesn't care at all. But her girlfriends have thoughts about who Randy is and where he comes from and what a bad look it would be for Julie to be with him. And that has an effect on her.

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That totally sways her. Yeah. She's just like her dad. Like she has this great conversation with her with her dad, who is like kind of an interesting character. And she's like, who are you happy with? And exactly like I'm guessing a teenager would do. She completely disregarded that that advice. Right. And just completely caved into peer pressure and just ghosted him. That was like the 1980s version of ghosting someone where like. When he showed up, she just acted like, oh, didn't you know we were broken up?

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So apparently they were more than just co-stars on the film. I don't know to what degree they... I mean, I think Cage has said he had a crush on her. Yes,

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he did.

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It sounds like maybe there was something going on. So I guess that scene was particularly hard for them because they're... She she's being cold towards him. He starts yelling at her. And I guess, you know, at that time of filming, they were like kind of into each other. So at the very least. So that was like a particularly difficult scene for them to film. But yeah, I mean, look, I do like Julie. I like that she a little bit more than her friends is more of an independent thinker, but obviously not enough because she's While her friends make it clear that they don't like Randy, I thought it was interesting because we've seen other types of teen films where you do get literally iced out. That happens in Some Kind of Wonderful.

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Yes.

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When Leah Thompson agrees to go on a date with Keith... Her friends literally go like they don't ghost her. They just don't even act like she's there. Like at one point in the film, she's iced out. She sits down with them and they just don't acknowledge her presence. Yeah, that's extreme. They don't do this in that film. Like her friends are still talking to her. She

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caved in to the weakest peer

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pressure. Exactly. Exactly. Oh,

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but you really shouldn't. It's a good point. I think I'll

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break up with them. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird because like it's a little ambiguous how much time passes. They have a pretty extensive montage of Julie and Rand Going out on dates and having fun. They had a

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what?

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Going out on dates.

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What was it, though? Like a bunch of scenes strung together with some music? What would you call that?

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Oh, montage. Yes. Montage. 80s movie montage. So they have a pretty extended sequence, but I don't really know how much time has passed. I think it had just been a couple months. If even that. Yeah. Because it's like, OK, well, Julie had enough wherewithal to keep going on these dates. I'm assuming her friends were aware of that. But then all of a sudden something changes. And I don't know if it's the proximity to prom. I think it 100 percent is. Was that? Yeah. So, yeah. In any case, if you're not familiar with the story.

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There's like this whole confrontation where he talks to her about how they feel about each other should matter more than what her friends think. And it's like a whole thing. They talk. No, I'm just kidding. He just kicks the shit out of Tommy and then they leave. That's it. That's how he wins her back because he just kicks the crap out of Tommy.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

So there are a couple of montages in this film because... There's the initial of the two of them having fun. It's like the honeymoon period, so to speak. After they break up or she dumps him, there's another montage of him doing all these little things to try to have her attention, get her back. He somehow shows up at all the places that her and Tommy are going out on dates, either as the server or the ticket taker at the movie theater or all these different things. And she's kind of amused by it, but... It doesn't really move the needle. And at one point, I mean, it gets, if I may say, a little creepy because he's like sleeping outside on her lawn. Like some of those things are like not OK. It's a whole movie thing where that's supposed to be looked at as romantic.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

It's all the things that I thought I was going to see happening in Say Anything. But then that didn't really happen there. So thank goodness it happened here.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

So, you know, I don't know where the line should be drawn as far as like if she says no, she says no. Yeah. Whether or not it's for like a stupid reason, like her friends, you know, putting applying the peer pressure. She said no. Yeah. But you're right. He decides to have like one last grand gesture.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Which was kicking the shit out of Tommy.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah. Which was like crashing her prom. and i mean tommy was ready though like he had like the karate kick oh ready to go like he was fucking

SPEAKER_02 29:30

chuck norris moves going on he was ready and he only lost the fight because he was distracted or looked away and then uh randy

SPEAKER_01 29:39

went he would have definitely gotten the one up on randy but yeah in a

SPEAKER_02 29:43

fair fight i'm taking tommy that's all

SPEAKER_01 29:45

i'm saying yeah exactly but apparently that was like enough for her to finally realize that yes she truly wants to be with randy And they drive off together.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Well, you know, you eliminate the other threat like he's just out of the picture now. I guess it's Randy.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah. I mean, I guess the only thing I can say is like because she's not a senior. Sometimes I think it's a weak. Stake. Because in films where they're seniors, it's like, well, you're all going off to college anyway. Who cares? But she is just... I don't think she's graduating. Yeah, that's a good point. So it's like she will have to deal with consequences. They have a

SPEAKER_02 30:19

couple years. I just... I thought that most of the rest of the story was actually really good. And that's why the ending kind of like stuck out as like... Wow, they just needed to wrap this up, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, I mean, who knows if it was a budgetary thing. Might have been. We

SPEAKER_02 30:37

get that sweet glamour shot of the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Shout out.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Was it the Galleria? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

But yeah, so on both their ends, it's like... think you could get swept away in kind of just like the movie romance part of it but they both have things where it's like okay so Julie's kind of just she's very susceptible to the influence of her friends that's not cool she doesn't treat Randy great on Randy's side like she told you no even if you think it's bullshit and you think you should be together she said no you keep you know kind of chasing her and at the end it's like yeah that kind

SPEAKER_02 31:17

of stuff will get you a uh restraining order.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, and he essentially just wins her in a duel at the end. So that's kind of how it all

SPEAKER_02 31:25

plays out. That's exactly what happened. He won her in a duel.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Won her in a duel. Deborah Foreman, not the first time that we've brought her up. No,

SPEAKER_02 31:34

same damn movie again, isn't

SPEAKER_01 31:36

it? Yes, I mean, there are a couple actually. So earlier in her career, and I think she maybe has taken a step away from acting, but She did a film called I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, which I'm pretty sure I've brought up before. She was on a TV series. I don't know the show, but it's called Romance Theater. She was in Real Genius, so she re-teams with Coolidge. Much smaller part. I think she was like... She was the daughter of

SPEAKER_02 32:07

the general. Either the general or the... Like the... school guy the guy from oh

SPEAKER_01 32:15

i always just think of him as like military because he's like the military father and um girls just want to have

SPEAKER_02 32:20

fun that might have been that she might have been his daughter i'm not sure she was someone's she

SPEAKER_01 32:26

was someone's daughter his daughter oh but i don't know what his specific role was but he always strikes me as like a military type character

SPEAKER_02 32:33

yeah he was probably senior commander admiral

SPEAKER_01 32:36

and she's like flirty with val kilmer

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Briefly.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

So, yeah. She doesn't have a huge role in that. She did not. She was in My Chauffeur. So we covered her more recently. Yeah. Last season in April Fool's Day. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

She's like what Buffy and Muffy. She plays two characters as well. And it's fun. It's like a kind of a fun turn for her to be in. It's you know, we have that conversation about is this horror because the whole thing was a joke. But get it. April Fool's Day. But she's good in it. She's fun. It's campy. Yeah, I liked it. And it is. She was in Destroyer Lobster Man from Mars. We're definitely going to cover that. Friends, lovers, and lunatics. Also, lunatics, a love story. So she's in two films that mention lunatics. And then this remake that we talked about, she has a little cameo. So there's a cameo in Valley Girl 2020. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. As does Elizabeth Daly. So moving on to the next actress. So she plays Lauren. Lauren is... So, okay, so Julie has this crew of three friends. Lauren is the one that probably has the most depth of any of the characters, like the friends.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah. I mean, yeah, she... kind of like uh hooks up with tommy pretty immediately after they

SPEAKER_01 34:05

that was a tough scene for me because i actually really sympathize with what was going on in that moment the way that i interpreted it because look if you want to look at like what is presumed to be the reality of the film like they're high school students yeah and tommy even though it's the other friend um What's her name? Not Susie. Nancy, maybe? Stacey. Oh, yeah. Stacey, I think, has like a covert crush on Tommy because she keeps talking about how hot he is. Oh, my

SPEAKER_02 34:37

God. She is constantly telling us all how hot she thinks Tommy is.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yeah. So at least we're supposed to believe, and he is prom king, so we're supposed to believe that he's like super popular, the most popular guy in school. Everybody thinks he's hot, da-da-da-da-da. So... You know, for him to show interest in Lauren, probably, even though I think she kind of knows it's probably bullshit, but...

SPEAKER_02 35:02

She still, you know, was at a party and hooked up with a dude she thought was hot.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah, and it's clear that she feels a lot of shame when... You know, there he gets to second base. Yes. Yes. And she's like, OK, so does this mean we're going out?

SPEAKER_02 35:22

He he hit a stand up double, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

And he immediately shuts it down. And then he shames her because he knows that that won't go over well. If Julie and the rest of her friends know what happened. So he's like, I won't tell anybody if you don't. But he's kind of hanging that over her because like probably his reputation would stay intact if that information came out. Hers would not. The hypocrisy of it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And she, you can tell, feels she shouldn't. I mean, he's just as like, I mean, like, look, neither of them, if Julie means anything to you. probably shouldn't be doing that. I mean maybe

SPEAKER_02 36:03

she felt kind of bad but she didn't look like she was real broken up at any point of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Well when he leaves the room you can tell that she's Mildly sad. Not okay with how she feels in that moment. And there is a scene later on where she attempts to tell Julie. I think that's what the intention is because she's like, this is really hard for me to say this. But Julie cuts her off because she's so preoccupied with Tommy or Randy. And so at least as far as what we see, they don't have a conversation about what had happened. But I think Lauren made the attempt. So I don't think she's a bad person. I think she's just a teenager who is susceptible to that kind of stuff. But Elizabeth Daly, holy mother. fucking shit. She has had quite a career. She has over 240 acting credits so far. A lot of voice work. So much voice work and very memorable roles for that voice work. So when she was still younger in her career, she did a ton of on-screen work. So she was on a TV series called The Righteous Apples. Not The Gemstones, but The Righteous Apples. She is probably known to a lot of people who love peewee for peewee's big adventure i

SPEAKER_02 37:19

that's what i immediately recognized her from uh she's dotty from peewee's big adventure yeah

SPEAKER_01 37:23

yeah she has just the most minor of roles in better off dead if i'm remembering correctly she's like a singer um and actually that reminds me because she does have like a one-off i didn't even list it but she does have a one-off in friends she's the one that steals smelly cat oh okay well to be fair her and phoebe are composed that song together and Phoebe was like you know you can have the song but then we're not friends anymore and basically she's like okay and she like sells it to a kitty litter company and probably makes a fortune off of it but and yeah I think she actually has like singing chops so that's her in that movie she was in Dutch and And now she starts this extensive part of her career as a voice actor. So, so many TV shows, Problem Child, Quack Pack, a lot of kids shows. Duckman, again, Private Dick, Backslash, Family Man. Perhaps most famously, she is Tommy Pickles in Rugrats.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Yeah, that's super cool.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Maybe second famously, she is Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls. Oh, okay. I guess they kind of sort of rebooted Rugrats because she's Tommy Pickles again, but in a show called All Grown Up. So there's that. She's done voice. I mean, so much. I am just barely scratching on this part of her career. She did voice work for Pound Puppies. She also has a cameo in the 2020 Valley Girl. And then more recently, Curious George. Oh, really? And I mean, just like so much voice work. I mean, she is working, working, working.

UNKNOWN 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Anything else you wanted to bring up?

SPEAKER_02 39:13

No. There's so much. Right? It's crazy. Yeah. If I was going to just start naming random animated shows or games even that she's done voice work for, it would take way too long. Good for her. Yeah. You

SPEAKER_01 39:25

know? Okay. Moving on to the asshole boyfriend, Tommy, played by Michael Bowen. You brought up a role that he had where I'm like, oh, man, could this have been Tommy later in his life? Maybe. Kill Bill.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Who? Oh, wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Because you said he's the rapist nurse.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Yes, I think he's Buck.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, I don't know those movies that

SPEAKER_02 39:49

well. Yeah, it was Buck from

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Kill Bill. But who Tommy could have grown up to be. So the

SPEAKER_02 39:54

same... My

SPEAKER_01 39:54

headcanon.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

But he has been... Same

SPEAKER_02 39:59

universe.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah, look, I'll be really honest. I know him most from this particular role. But he has very consistently been working up till this day.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

So I recognize him from Breaking Bad.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

You mentioned that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So earlier in his career, I have a ton of film work. Night of the Comet, Private Resort, Iron Eagle, Less Than Zero, Beverly Hills Cop 3. So it's clear that he has some kind of relationship there. friendship maybe with Tarantino because he not only was in both Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 he was in Jackie Brown and he also was in Django Unchained

SPEAKER_02 40:39

well Tarantino really liked Valley Girl so

SPEAKER_01 40:43

yeah that's right maybe that there you go yeah I think you're absolutely right he also was in the film Magnolia Last House on the Left House by the Lake so a little bit of horror work again he has done To your point, TV work, you mentioned Breaking Bad already. He was on the series Lost as well. Huh.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

I don't remember him from that, but there's just like a lot. There's a lot of Lost to have to consider.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Correct. And more recently, he was on the TV series Animal Kingdom. So I think with him, was he the one that was going through his filmography? Because like I said, for a lot of these actors, There are just so many instances of them having like a guest role, like a one-off or two, maybe an arc of two episodes. But I think that that's also a lot of what his career has encompassed. But he's been just steadily working all this time. Okay, moving on to the other dude who's not Randy or Tommy, Fred. Fred. Fred is Randy's best friend. He's kind of comic relief in this

SPEAKER_02 41:55

film. He very much is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Played by Cameron Dye. And... I mean, yeah, he's kind of a goofball. I don't know how to feel about him. How

SPEAKER_02 42:05

do we have Randy and Julie make out in the car? Let's just have Fred chase Stacey for like three hours.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Right. And that's exactly what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

I don't think Fred's a bad dude, but, you know, like, look, looking through this through 20, 25 eyes, not great. Yeah. that he, I mean, he kind of, I guess, wears her down at one point. And because I think he does kiss her.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah. I mean, it feels like that's a little bit of a common theme throughout the movie is that just

SPEAKER_01 42:37

find someone wearing women down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Find someone that you think is hot that you're infatuated with and wear them down. Yeah. They'll be yours. I

SPEAKER_01 42:46

mean, at the end of the film, there's like basically a food fight after the fight fight.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

There is.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

And Cameron stays for the like, you know, Randy and Julie, they run off. But Cameron stay or sorry, I'm using the actor's name. Fred stays. And there is like a quick shot of Stacey just like covered in food. And he's laughing. I don't think she's laughing in the moment. But I think maybe that's supposed to also signal that there's like still something going on between them. I don't know. But yeah. As far as Dai is concerned, I mean, he's done some work. I don't have an extensive filmography for him. He was in The Last Starfighter. He also– because, wait, this was a Coolidge film. Yeah. He's done a lot of TV

SPEAKER_02 43:32

work.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah. He also was in Joy of Sex, so reteams with Coolidge for that. He was in Men at Work, a TV series called The Gringo Hunters.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

And then, to your point, a lot of TV appearances. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Indeed. Including some Quantum Leap, which, you know, the original.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

It's got Bacula. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Okay. So moving on to the friend that we said, she's probably my least favorite of any of the friends, Stacy.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Yeah. She really like convinced Julie to break things off.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

I think Lauren and Susie probably would have been fine. Especially Lauren, because it's clear she's not a fan of Tommy's after their little encounter. But Stacey is the most persistent. Insufferable. Yeah. And telling Julie, like, break up with Randy. And played by Heidi Holliker. Yeah. And again, not an extensive career. In fact, there's a 30-year gap between two of her credits. She was in a film called Pink Motel. She also reteams with Coolidge for Joy of Sex. She was in a 1989 film called Rush Week. And then she doesn't have another credit until 2020's Valley Girl.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

So there you go. Lastly, we brought her up a couple minutes ago, Michelle Myrink. So she plays Susie. She has her own interesting little storyline in this film.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Yeah, I thought that was going to go somewhere, but it really was just like a side story between her, Brett? Chip? Chip. Chip? Was it really Chip? Yeah, Chip. And her stepmom, who seemed like she was like not a significant... A very Mrs. Robinson type character. Yeah, she wasn't a lot... older than than

SPEAKER_01 45:33

her no daughter and it was a really weird dynamic you get kind of bits and pieces but like when suzy throws a party at her house her mom who's really her stepmom says in passing to somebody you know i'm only her stepmom and ever since i think joe died so it sounds like suzy's biological father passed away and now her stepmom is raising her yeah So very odd, a very weird dynamic. Yeah. And yeah, so her stepmom also seems... It's weird because it kind of walks the line between her looking like she's trying to help Susie cultivate this relationship with Chip, but also kind of competing with her. Yes. And there's this very... interesting exchange between the stepmom and Chip when he's dropping off groceries and it's like... Oh, you know what? It was Skip. Oh, Skip. Oh, and Chip, Skip. It's all the same. But thank you for clarifying that. And yeah, so Susie, and you can tell she feels... She kind of picks up on it. Like at the party, she watches her stepmom engage with Skip and looks a certain way about it. So...

SPEAKER_02 46:56

And then there's this moment where Skip invents Instacart and is delivering a bunch of groceries and doesn't really know. He's out of his depth.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

And so then he comes back. I don't know how much time had passed. We're not really sure what's going on, but he is riding his bike and kind of There's this internal struggle. Is he going to go to their house or not? And he does. And he just walks in because that's just what people did in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Do you think he was looking for Susie or her stepmom?

SPEAKER_02 47:34

That's the... That's the million dollar question because-

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Would he have done the same thing if it was the stepmom in the shower?

SPEAKER_02 47:39

Yeah, I think he might have. I think he was just looking for a naked woman in a shower in this house and he was ready to make a move.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

It's a really interesting part of the movie because it's left very ambiguous. And

SPEAKER_02 47:50

you don't know, you see that he's saying that he has Susie's book and then he walks up, you see someone in the shower. It's appropriately frosted so you can't see- too much. And then you don't see him again until someone's coming home. someone else is coming to the house. And the first thing I thought is like, oh, it's going to be Susie finding this guy with her mom. And of course, it was the mom coming

SPEAKER_01 48:16

home. It was the flip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Yeah. And then that story was so interesting that it never went anywhere the rest of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Kind of. I mean, at the very end at the prom, you know, everybody keeps complaining there's no cups. I don't know why they would leave it to the students to bring cups for prom. Bring your own cups. But apparently Skip and Susie were responsible for the cups.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

And because they were late you hear lauren said you know where were you guys and then she's like oh suzy were you getting laid so suzy and so the

SPEAKER_02 48:45

big payoff is that they had sex again

SPEAKER_01 48:47

yeah okay i guess they're a couple now and but it is it is a fascinating little side story that i still don't know if i understand completely that

SPEAKER_02 48:57

could be like its whole own movie

SPEAKER_01 48:59

yes

SPEAKER_02 49:00

honestly and

SPEAKER_01 49:01

it it does it And honestly, I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn here, but when the stepmom says to Skip, like, I have one word for you, plastics, I think that is from The Graduate. But I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

It could be.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

So I think at the very least, they are heavily implying that she's like a Mrs. Robinson character.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

So anyway, though, Susie, so Michelle Myrink... You know, really interesting career because she had a really strong 80s and then I guess just decided that acting was not the thing that she wanted to do anymore because she was in The Outsiders, which interesting was directed by Nicholas Coppola's uncle, Francis Ford Coppola. So she's in that. Revenge of the Nerds. She also... Reteams with Coolidge for Joy of Sex. As mentioned, she is Jordan in Real Genius. She's in a film called Nice Girls Don't Explode. Okay. And then her last credit was in 1988, a film called Permanent Record.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Nice. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

She did not return like everyone else did. Okay. No.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Film synopsis. Julie, a girl from the Valley, meets Randy. Okay. a punk from the city. They are from different worlds and find love. Somehow, they need to stay together in spite of her trendy, shallow friends.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Look, Randy's no dummy. He figured it out right away when they broke up. He's like, it's because you're friends.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Yeah, so... So

SPEAKER_02 50:43

that... I'm fine with that.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

It's fine. I mean, it's... Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. It's a little... They need to shorten it up a bit. But... What? But, I mean, I don't really know why I love this movie so much. I mean, I loved this movie before ever knowing anything about California or the Valley or living here. Maybe that makes it a little bit more fun, you know, watching it and seeing these, like, familiar things. But it's, I mean, in contrast, I brought up Amy Heckerling earlier. Obviously, Fast Times is this huge ensemble cast. Yeah. And all of these different stories going on at the same time. I kind of prefer Valley Girl for its simplicity.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Yeah. No, I was going to say, this was the first time I've watched this. So now I think I have covered every one of the 80s movies referenced in the Bouncing Souls quotes list. These are my favorite quotes from the, yeah. Whatever that song is, we've never covered all of them. And I definitely had more fun watching this than Fast Times.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Yeah. I think Fast Times... doesn't have any kind of veneer i don't i don't have anything i don't knock the film for the fact that there's like an abortion story because like hey that happened you know it always has i respect that

SPEAKER_02 52:03

that's part of the story and i respect the way that they covered it and her brother's character all that like was done very well but if i'm just sitting down to casually watch a movie i'd probably go to valley girl yeah first just because i can just kind of like relax it's just like a fun it's a fun movie you just let it wash over you you look at all the valley landmarks go by they never actually go to any of them but they have them in some

SPEAKER_01 52:32

of the and I love that they I mean I don't know why Southern California is such a lightning rod for these types of films where there's just like this really specific teen culture that is happening because you know You have Fast Times. You have Valley Girl. Move it up a decade. You have Clueless. And it's all of them Southern California. But it is really... And again, another Heckerling film, Clueless. But it is really interesting, I think, that these films got made. Where, especially this film, it is so low budget. And... I don't know. I just find it really interesting to like this little microcosm of so much specificity in the time, in the location. Yeah. You're not

SPEAKER_02 53:26

going to see a movie quite like this now for a lot of the reasons that we already went through in terms of

SPEAKER_01 53:33

like how- I mean, I

SPEAKER_02 53:35

guess they tried. They can try, but- A lot of the ways in which the characters just interacted, I don't think it would even be as successful or viewed the same way now

SPEAKER_01 53:46

for some of what we talked about. They probably cast Silverstone because of her association with Clueless.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

For sure. Like, totally. And that is one funny thing about the film is that, like, obviously there's, like, a lingo that persists throughout the entirety of the film. They

SPEAKER_02 54:02

push it a little

SPEAKER_01 54:03

hard. They push it real hard at first.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

Right to the envelope.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Yeah. But, yeah, I just... I really enjoyed it. So... It sounds like you enjoyed it, too.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

I did, yeah. I mean, I know that the specific type of music they had in it, I got what they were going for. I guess they did try to get the punk band X to be in it, and they didn't want to after they read the script. I'm like, oh, well, okay. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It is, like you said, a really simple... teenage love story, basically, like a star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet

SPEAKER_01 54:39

kind of thing. Yeah, and sometimes they lay it down a little thick. Like there's, in that montage, there literally is a scene where they're kissing in front of a marquee for Romeo and Juliet. So it's like very on the nose what the

SPEAKER_02 54:51

theme is. It's true. I think the unsung heroes for me were Frederick Forrest and Colleen Camp as Steve and Sarah Richman, Julie's parents.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

That was another real, like that's why I think this movie sticks with me because there's all these like Like the main story, the main plot is pretty straightforward. Yeah. But they included all these really interesting side plots and characters.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

Well, the hippie parents that just let her do basically whatever, I think was... very intentional so that they didn't have to like, Hey, how do we like have her do this stuff? And there's not, we don't really want a bunch of conflict or drama with the parents. Okay. They're just going to be super chill and they're not going to care about any of it. They'll offer pretty good advice. She will not take it. And then we'll just move on.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

It's really fascinating. Even just little things like that. They own like a natural food store and restaurant. And like, that's part of the story. And, um, maybe one of my favorite moments of the whole movie is when they're taking pictures of Julie and Tommy for prom. And the dad says, Oh, we still have photos left on here from the wedding. And Tommy's like wedding. She's like, yeah, they got married last fall. Like the fact that they didn't even get married until their daughter was like, you know, well into her teens. Like that's such an interesting little detail. Yeah. So

SPEAKER_02 56:12

there's a lot, there's a lot of like little things to pick up on. Yeah. Which, which makes again, the ending. I'm like, You guys just spend like five minutes on that.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

And of course, obviously the attire is so fun. That's one thing that I thought was really interesting because the way that they obscure the fact that. Yeah. Yeah. Very noticeably, they look nothing like the rest. And it's not even because they have like crazy hair or piercings or whatever. It's because they're not wearing pastels. They're not wearing polo shirts. They're dressed in black and red. And that alone makes everybody turn to them. And it's very clear that they are outsiders. And I just find that all really interesting.

UNKNOWN 57:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

oh we finally did it we did it we finally so i think you already answered this question because you're like yeah you could just sit down and let this yeah i'd watch this again okay yeah i it's on for me almost weekly so it's on in the background a lot yeah it's on in the background a lot call by action

SPEAKER_02 57:43

what do you

SPEAKER_01 57:46

got I mean, as much as I hate to ask, I'm curious if anybody has seen the remake because I'm not going to. Tell us about the remake. Yeah, I kind of want to know if there's any substance to it. I mean, obviously, I have strong prejudices against all these remakes, so that's coming across pretty clearly. I'll

SPEAKER_02 58:05

say if the remakes draw more attention to the original, then that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

That's a good point. That's a nice way of looking at it. If you want to get in touch with us, We'd love to hear from you. You can reach out through Facebook, Blue Sky, or Instagram. It's the same handle for all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod and 80s is 80S. Mm-hmm. Sneak peek.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

What do we got?

SPEAKER_01 58:30

I can't believe we're finally at this point in the season. We're not totally at the Halloween series. However, we are going to do like kind of a bridge episode between...

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Yeah, I think, you know, the challenge in that is finding a movie that may have a horror element or at least maybe a character that draws from classic horror types of monsters, perhaps. But I don't know, maybe if it was done in like a comic way, maybe if there was some basketball included, maybe some surfing on top of a van driving through the neighborhood. I don't know. All those things. Look, and you know what?

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Let's do another teen film.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

You can find all of those things, and it's another teen film, and that's in the title. And, of course, it's Teen Wolf.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Teen Wolf! This is another one. Finally, we're knocking out some of these films that we've been

SPEAKER_02 59:32

wanting to do for a really long time. Finally. Do you know how long everyone's been waiting for someone to use their werewolf powers to get a keg of beer? But you won't have to wait much longer.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

I'm so excited to cover this one. I love this movie so much. Obviously problematic elements, just like every other film we cover. But all

SPEAKER_02 59:53

of them have elements where like, oh, that joke wouldn't go over today. And here's all the reasons why.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Or some of the slur language, like even in Valley Girl. The whole song. Yes. And Randy uses a slur against Tommy. Yeah. And that happens in Teen Wolf as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

But the interesting thing is that Amidst all these jokes that are very out of place by today's standards, you find generally wholesome enough. The underlying story isn't what's...

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Problematic.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:30

It's not a problematic start to finish, although with Valley Girl, him just harassing and then beating up someone to get the girl, maybe. I don't know. But yeah, there's always going to be something in these because...

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Yeah, I'm just really excited to finally cover this movie. I'm excited that it is going to be like our soft launch into our annual Halloween series. Yeah. My favorite time of year. And yeah, so that's what's next up on deck. And in the meantime, just thank you to everybody for choosing us for your podcasting needs. And we will talk to you again in two weeks time.