Nevahhh Seen It! Valley Girl

Hey Friends!

Welcome to another wild ride through the cavernous gaps in my cinema literacy. Today we’re headed deep into or up and over and around and into, like, THE VALLEY. If you’re from LA these directions make sense. Today we’re taking Dad’s car and cruising Van Nuys with 1983’s Valley Girl! Please welcome my special guest and unofficial ambassador to Los Angeles, Michael Estrin! (Check out Michael’s wonderful humor ‘Stack, Situation Normal)

But before we go there, a slight detour:

I started this series as a fun way to pick through movies that I had never seen, but were considered classic, iconic, and therefore baked into the cultural consciousness in some way. As I said in the first installment, “I want to actually get the Simpsons’ reference!” It’s been fun and educational. I still think about Chinatown more than I care to admit. But what I’ve discovered in the short time that I’ve been doing these is that what I really enjoy is getting to talk about movies with other smart, funny, interesting people who are willing to squeeze out some brain juice and get behind what they really think.

My Gen X upbringing included the formulating and EXPRESSING of strong opinions about movies, music, books, TV, pop culture idols, and soft drink allegiance (Coke, if you were wondering. I’ll see you in hell, Pepsi!). We died on a lot of inconsequential hills. But put a Gen Xer who could remake Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” video shot for shot from memory after having watched it 80 billion times on MTV on a debate stage with a post-millennial who has to consult Siri before deciding which brand of yogurt to buy and we’ll see who cries first and who takes home the All Valley Tournament trophy.

My point is that it’s satisfying and energizing to get together with people willing to invest their honest selves, real perspectives, rough and unpolished thoughts/ideas in a conversation (about anything) and not just coast on intellect, expertise, or some kind of institutionally sanctioned canon of knowledge. Can you tell I’m a recovering academic? That’s not a dig at people who know their stuff and have the cred to back it up. Bring that, but also be willing to admit that scene or song is a work of genius and it grabs you by the emotional nards and makes you feel like a damn baby every time; OR be brave enough to admit that you have no idea WHY it’s perfection, but the emotional nards don’t lie.

Writer Dan Sinker recently dropped a blog post about how we seem to be living in the “Who Cares? Era.” We make disposable creative works that are not only okay enough, but they are made to satiate our shallow appetites and appease our increasingly fractured attention. Sinker writes:

In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it. Listen to something with your full attention. Watch something with your phone in the other room. Read an actual paper magazine or a book. Be yourself. Be imperfect. Be human. Care.

And have fun, right? We are allowed to find joy, delight, pleasure in the making and consuming and sharing of creative work, check YES or NO.

This was an overthought and overexplained way to say that I’m retooling this periodic audio series as: Movies with Friends. No expertise required, no stinking badges needed; the only prereq is that you care. We’ll still probably delve into movies that I’ve nevahh seen because, there are A LOT. But I’m also up for the low budget, no budget goodies; fan favorites; forgotten gems; nostalgia picks; or even the “How did this even get made? Change my mind!” category. I just want to hang out with some real Topeka people and have fun dishing about the movies.

And now….

Pop your collar and a can of TAB and enjoy some conversation about this slightly underrated romcom from the early-80s. Michael and I go there on:

• How does one “get” to THE VALLEY?

• Would you, like, RUIN your entire high school existence to date a punk-ish type guy from “Hollyweird?” SUB question: What if that guy was a devastatingly soulful Nicolas Cage whose caramel eyes seemed to look into your very being?

• The delightful, playful film stylings of Martha Coolidge. Can we get her to direct, literally, anything right now?

• What’s harder: changing yourself or BEING yourself? Valley Girl goes surprisingly deep on its non-conformity stance (and you should too!)

• The conspiracy theory that the Fountains of Wayne tune, “Stacy’s Mom” was inspired by one of Valley Girl’s most confounding subplots! (Weigh in!!)

Thanks everyone! See you in the back row soon!