Fast Times at Ridgemont High

This archival screening of an American classic returns us to 1982, when female sexuality was rarely portrayed on screen without exploitation, alarm, or euphemism. Few films have captured the messy, hilarious, and surprisingly honest realities of adolescence as indelibly as Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  In her breakthrough feature, 27-year-old Amy Heckerling quietly rewrote the rules of the teen comedy: sex is frank, awkward, and real, and, most notably, abortion is a matter of fact. With a screenplay by Cameron Crowe, this landmark coming-of-age comedy cemented the careers of an extraordinary generation of talent, including Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and Anthony Edwards. What appears to be a raunchy high school comedy reveals itself, in hindsight, as something sharper: a pivotal cultural moment disguised as a Valley Girl mall movie. Presented in conjunction with Hollywood Does Abortion, this beloved classic reminds us that some of cinema’s most revolutionary moments are also crowd-pleasing entertainment. —Lexi Leban

Amy Heckerling is an American writer, director, and producer whose work helped define modern American comedy. Born in New York City, she studied at New York University and the American Film Institute. Her breakthrough feature, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), became a landmark teen film, followed by National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985) and Look Who’s Talking (1989). She wrote and directed the cultural phenomenon Clueless (1995), a contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, which remains one of the most influential teen films of its era. Her later work includes Loser (2000), I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007), and Vamps (2012). Heckerling is widely recognized for her distinctive comedic voice and her influence on coming-of-age storytelling.