VALLEY GIRL (1983)

Twenty-one year old high school student Julie (Deborah Foreman) breaks up with her boyfriend Tommy (Michael Bowen) because he's an arrogant douche.  Later at the beach and then at a party she sees Randy (Nicholas Cage) and falls for him.  He's such a stud muffin!  They start dating, but Julie's friend object loudly to this because he's sooo different than they are.  And by "different" I think it's because he's lower class or something, I don't even know.  It was hard to understand their logic when the filmmakers did such a poor job of showing what the difference was between people from the Valley and people from Hollywood.  Example: in the scene where he enters the party people literally stop dancing and just stare at him like he's a freak from another planet, when, to me, he looked just like everybody else.  He even had a popped collar.

While the Romeo and Juliet story idea is alright, I didn't care for the film because nothing really happens.  Yeah, yeah...Julie and Randy are suppose to be in love...but I never got the sense that they were actually in love.  She seemed pretty happy to get back with Tommy later on.  And Randy came off more like an obsessive stalker than anything else.  Hiding in a busy bathroom to see her?  Check. Dressing up like a server at a food joint to see her?  Yep.  Sleeping in her yard to be near her? Yes.  Dedicating a song to her on the radio?  Yep.

There was also a lot of wasted time on shit that never went anywhere. Julie's parents had multiple scenes that could have been cut.  The side story about one of Julie's friend's stepmom flirting with a younger dude went nowhere.  There was also a thing about Tommy and one of Julie's friends hooking up at a party, but that too just kinda disappeared.

Bland characters, zero tension, the bad guy wasn't bad enough, the good guy wasn't likeable enough, Sherman Oaks Galleria interiors, great soundtrack (the most pleasant surprise was "Sparks - "Eaten By The Monster Of Love" which reminded me of FRIGHT NIGHT), 80's fashions, girl on the poster doesn't even look like Deborah Foreman, Hollywood's version of "punk".  Worth watching for historical curiosity...and Elizabeth Daily topless.