Cars, Cabins and Malls: 'Films of the 1980s'

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ONE DUDE'S TRASH is another dude's treasure. And then sometimes, they are exactly the same thing.

How else to explain a movie like 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," the debut effort from Cameron Crowe? Spotty, nearly plotless and verging on exploitation, it's hardly the pinnacle of the filmmaker's art. And yet it remains endlessly rewatchable, a perfect way for AFI Silver Theatre to kick off "Totally Awesome: Films of the 1980s," which brought Boomers, X-ers and nostalgia buffs to Silver Spring last weekend.

Sean Penn would never again have as much fun as he did playing surfer waste case Jeff Spicoli, staggering into class bare-chested with a bagel sticking out of his jeans. For a throwaway teen romp, "Fast Times" boasts a wealth of future stars: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Forest Whitaker, Judge Reinhold — and let's not get started about the impeccable "acting talents" of Phoebe Cates.

By 1983, blink-and-you'll-miss-him fry guy Nicolas Coppola had emerged as Nicolas Cage, making his entrance in the "Ridgemont" cash-in "Valley Girl" as a slack-jawed Romeo silhouetted against the sky, uttering the era-defining opening line, "Whut?"

It was also the decade when to be young, horny and running around in the woods was a capital offense. Punishment is dished out in the brutally effective "Halloween" rip-off "Friday the 13th" by ... well, let's say no Voorhees family has named a kid "Jason" since.

July ends in a couple of musical disasters — one accidental, one intentional. What's your poison: ejaculating guitar or amp at 11? The only way to find out whether the Prince-starring vanity project "Purple Rain" is still as funny as Rob Reiner's faux documentary "This Is Spinal Tap" is to catch them back-to-back.

Toward mid-August, the series goes art-house with Terry Gilliam's dystopian tale of a dark future, "Brazil," and David Lynch's kinky thriller "Blue Velvet." But the festival wraps on a classic '80s low note — the shower-peeping sex comedy "Porky's."

» AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring; through Sept. 6, $7.50-$9.25; 301-495-6700. (Silver Spring)

Written by Express contributor Glenn Dixon
Photo courtesy AFI