Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High was the link movie connecting Road to Perdition and The Game.
Linked through Jennifer Jason Leigh and Sean Penn.
Both Jennifer Jason Leigh and Sean Penn appeared in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
About Fast Times at Ridgemont High
"At Ridgemont High, only the rules get busted!"
A group of Southern-California high school students ignore their studies in favor of indulging in their teenage distractions.
Directed by Amy Heckerling
Written by Cameron Crowe
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Awards
In 2005 Fast Times at Ridgemont High was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released July 30, 1982 by Elektra and peaked at #54 on the Billboard 200; singles included Jackson Browne's Somebody's Baby (reaching #7) and Timothy B. Schmit's So Much in Love (#59). The album features artists like Sammy Hagar, Joe Walsh, Don Henley and Don Felder, plus tracks by Jimmy Buffett and Oingo Boingo. Several prominent songs used in the film, including We Got the Beat (the opening theme), Moving in Stereo and American Girl, were not included on the soundtrack; producer Irving Azoff insisted on including 1970s artists.
Movie trivia
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1
Cameron Crowe spent a year undercover at Clairemont High School researching his 1981 book; the character Mark 'Rat' Ratner was modeled on a student named Andy Rathbone.
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2
Amy Heckerling made her feature directorial debut on the film and urged that the mall setting be emphasized more prominently in the screenplay.
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3
Nicolas Cage made his feature-film debut credited as Nicolas Coppola; he originally auditioned for Brad Hamilton but was not cast because of his age.
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4
Jennifer Jason Leigh prepared for the role of Stacy by rereading her high school diaries and letters and working three weeks at the Sherman Oaks Galleria Perry's Pizza.
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5
Principal photography began on November 2, 1981 and lasted eight weeks; mall scenes were shot after hours at the Sherman Oaks Galleria and school scenes at Van Nuys High School.
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6
The MPAA initially gave the film an X rating over a prolonged sex scene and brief male frontal nudity; the sequence was drastically shortened and re-cropped to secure an R rating, a cut Leigh said removed a sense of awkward hesitancy.
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