7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.7 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.7 |
A group of Southern California high school students are enjoying their most important subjects: sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.
Starring: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, Brian BackerComedy | 100% |
Coming of age | 72% |
Teen | 64% |
Romance | 41% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Bonus View (PiP)
BD-Live
Mobile features
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There’s a famous adage that if you remember the 1960’s you can’t possibly have been there. That same idea might be applicable to at least some of the characters of a comedy that takes place a couple of decades past the 60’s, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a late 70’s-early 80’s-fest that is fondly remembered by a certain subset of the movie going public who may have been either high school aged or just slightly older when the film first arrived at megaplexes in 1982. The film is a rather fascinating concatenation of now famous names both in acting and behind the scenes roles, having been either the first or one of the first films for a whole slew of current day icons including Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage (then billed as Nicolas Coppola for the one and only time in his career), Forest Whitaker, and Eric Stoltz in front of the camera, and Cameron Crowe (later to win an Academy Award for Almost Famous, a film tonally linked to Fast Times) providing his first screenplay, one culled from a 1981 book he wrote while working for Rolling Stone. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is perhaps more than usual a product of its times, and so may seem hopelessly out of date to a newer generation raised on videogames and other attention deficit disorder producing media, but seeing it now some 30 years after its release (wow!), the film is still surprisingly spry and often very funny, if undeniably somewhat dated.
Whoa! Bad trip, man! Let's be clear right up front: Fast Times at Ridgemont High has never been a gorgeous looking film. It has virtually reeked of its low budget ethos from its theatrical exhibition through its various home video incarnations. But, wow, a lot of folks are probably going to be shocked at how shoddy this VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 looks. The opening scenes in the shopping mall are swarming with on-again off-again digital noise that attacks backgrounds like hordes of tiny locusts. This particular anomaly thankfully improves dramatically after what would have been the first reel or so, but it never completely evaporates. While colors look suitably robust and lifelike throughout this presentation, the overall image is fuzzy, soft and rarely incredibly appealing. There are a couple of notable exceptions, one of them being the brightly lit poolside scene featuring Jason Leigh and Cates, which probably due to its brighter than usual lighting source, finally pops in something at least approaching high definition (and that's obviously good news to a lot of guys who probably have the scene forever imprinted on their libidinous memories). Somewhat surprisingly to this reviewer, the screencaps uploaded to this review actually look at least a little better than the film really does as it plays, something that isn't always the case when extracting a frame here or a frame there. A lot of these issues are no doubt endemic in the source elements, but this is still a pretty sad looking Blu-ray.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track really comes alive in the film's ubiquitous use of rock and pop hits of the day (including a tune by my hometown of Portland's one attempt at producing a 1980's arena rock act, Quarterflash). The music, so important to establishing the time and tone (no pun intended) of the film sounds absolutely fantastic and actually rattles the floorboards a couple of times. While dialogue is certainly clear and crisp, the rest of the film doesn't bristle with surround activity, and indeed is fairly squarely rooted in the front channels, though there are some nice exceptions, as in the opening mall sequence and, later, in some of the establishing shots at the high school, where crowd noise permeates the side and rear channels. Fidelity here is very strong, dynamic range is excellent, and the overall mix is very well handled.
Unlike some other coming of age dramedies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High has aged surprisingly well. Bolstered by some fantastic performances by a coterie of youngsters who would go on to define their generation's acting, and with a very smart and surefooted screenplay by Cameron Crowe, and equally strong direction by Amy Heckerling, this is a film with relatively modest ambitions that nonetheless is surprisingly nuanced and actually rather profound at times. This Blu-ray has a disappointing image quality, at least partially attributable to the film's lo-fi source elements, but the soundtrack is amazing in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Even with reservations about how the film looks, this release is Recommended.
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1982
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