Fast Times at Rushmore High

OK it's been almost a month since I sent out a tweet asking people to tell me their favorite teen/high school movies and I'm starting to fear that if I don't get this post written, my friend Doyle is going to defriend me on Facebook and cut the brakes on my car. First though let me say I prefer the term defriend over unfriend. I figure if you can befriend someone you should be able to defriend them or should it be disbefriend? Not definitely defriend.

Here's a fact. Sports talk guys universally love three movies The Karate Kid, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Hoosiers. Makes sense, right? All three have at least a slight connection to sports, feature a victorious underdog and/or make you nostalgic for your high school days. It should come as no surprise that listeners, readers or followers of sports talk guys also hold these movies in high regard. What I wondered though was do people really consider these favorite movies or are they easy comic references?

Anyway, while watching a crappy bowl game and flipping over to Teen Wolf, I decided to find out what are our favorite teen movies. Do you really love The Karate Kid or do you really love referencing Daniel's mom's car? Is Fast Times a movie you stop on any time you run across it or do you just love quoting Mike Damone?

I tweeted and posted a question on Facebook asking "What is your favorite teen/high school movies?" The parameters were that the movie had to happen sometime during the school and the characters high school age. My expectations were that Fast Times, The Karate Kid, The Breakfast Club, Footloose and Dazed and Confused would dominate. I wasn't close.

I was right about Fast Times though. It was far and away the leader in votes and that made total sense to me. Fast Times is very well written by Cameron Crowe. The cast is full of actors that would go on to greater stardom like Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nicholas Cage, Eric Stoltz and Phoebe Cates. OK well maybe that one moment was the pinnacle of Phoebe's career. The characters are still easy to relate to. Everyone was or knew a Rat or Brad or a Stacy and Linda. Even though school has changed over the years, Fast Times holds up.

One thing I didn't anticipate was how much women love Sixteen Candles. It came in second without a single male vote. I think I've figured out why women love this movie so much. Every woman wants their boyfriend or husband to be Jake Ryan. They want someone they can push around. Someone they can make throw a party at their house, invite all her friends and get completely blitzed. She knows no matter how bleary eyed she gets, she can count on him to make a half assed effort to get her home safely.

Possibly the biggest surprise was Red Dawn coming in third. I never even considered Red Dawn for the list but I guess since the paratroopers attack during class the movie does qualify. Regardless of it's questionable qualification, Red Dawn was a great movie for its time. It starred the second tier of the brat pack with C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, Lea Thompson and every brat packers older brother Patrick Swayze. The movie came at just the right time during the Reagan era cold war. We all knew the Russians and Cubans were coming and living here in Texas it was our responsibility defend against the invasion. Apparently Hollywood hasn't done enough damage to our childhood memories with terrible remakes of Bad News Bears, The Karate Kid and other favorites from our childhood, they have remakes of Red Dawn, Footloose and Fright Night scheduled to be released this year. Did all the writers in LA die? What's next are you going to completely rape my childhood by destroying Six Pack, The Double McGuffin or Star Wars? Oh wait George Lucas already did that.

The last of the top contenders was Heathers. Oh I'm sure studios are falling all over themselves to remake this starring someone from Disney or Twilight. Well fuck me with a chainsaw if that happens because I may have to burn a studio down in retribution. Heathers was the introduction to dark comedy for a lot of people my age and it doesn't get much darker than murdering your classmates and making look like a suicide epidemic. Christian Slater and Winona Ryder both had personal issues that derailed them from a long career as A-List stars but they both burned white hot in this film. Ryder brought her dark innocence fresh off her stint in Beetlejuice while Slater was just beginning his bad boy era and still mostly known for being the little brother of Helen Slater. The result was possibly the most quotable movie since Fast Times. I can still watch this movie today and find devilish gems that make me laugh.

Other contenders that came up just a little short included personal favorites The Breakfast Club and Napoleon Dynamite as well as a couple of movies I can't stand Varsity Blues and The Girl Next Door, a poor remake of Risky Business in its own right. To my surprise The Karate Kid, Teen Wolf, Footloose, Dazed and Confused, Hoosiers and Back to the Future barely registered.

My personal top 5 would have looked like this in no particular order Fast Times, Heathers, Rushmore, Napoleon Dynamite and Election. I've already covered the first two but here's a quick overview on the other three.

If I had to rank my top 5 Rushmore probably would be my top choice. Max Fischer is one of the truly great characters in any film not just a teen movie. Max is a 45 year old mogul in the body of a 15 year old school boy. He's also a poor kid and habitual liar making his name amongst the trust fund private school crowd. Mostly he's just awesome. Much like Tarantino did for Travolta, Wes Anderson kicked off a new era in Bill Murray's career with Rushmore. Murray had spent the previous five years playing goofball parts, appearing at Cubs games and cutting up at celebrity golf tournaments. Rushmore allowed him to show an understated comic genius he would later parlay into an Oscar nomination in Lost in Translation. When Max meets Murray's Herman Blume and they both fall for the same woman the film really takes off. The conversations between Max and Blume are hilarious and only rivaled by their rivalry and Max's insane theater productions.

Napoleon Dynamite was one of those movies that came out of nowhere to spawn a million catch phrases, t-shirts and if you had skills dance moves. The movie takes place in a world so far removed from what most of us are used to, it's almost as if we're watching an alternate universe. The 80's clothes, 70's cars and Kip rapping with chicks in chat rooms almost makes impossible to place the movie. The characters are terrifically outlandish and vividly memorable. Whether it's Uncle Rico trying to throw a football over a mountain, Kip hooking up with sweet chicks, Pedro running for class president or Napoleon getting some sweet air jumping Pedro's bike. The movie kills.

Anyone who is a fan of Glee owes a great deal of gratitude to Election. Glee takes it irreverent style and production straight from Election right down to the archetypal characters. The producers did a perfect job casting this movie. Chris Klein is the embodiment of a dumb popular kid and Reese Witherspoon was born to play Tracy a high strung, overachieving bitch. Matthew Broderick was still in his transition from Ferris Beuler to Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker so the film catches him at just the right time to play an enthusiastic high school teacher. The movie is full of crude sexual humor and does an tremendous job of finding the humor in teacher/student interaction.

A couple of movies that didn't quite make my list but deserve an honorable mention are Three O'clock High, Brick and Superbad.