Valley Girl

Valley Girl
(1983 American romantic comedy

directed by Martha Coolidge;

starring  Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman,

Frederic Forrest, Lee Purcell, David Ensor, 

Cameron Dye, Michael Bowen;

capitalizing on the Valley Girl fad inspired by 

the Frank Zappa and Moon Unit song)

Royal Cinema, Toronto

August 12, 2016

by Live Music Head

“She’s cool. He’s hot.
She’s from the Valley. He’s not.”


It's Friday night in Toronto,

summer soiree time at The Royal in Little Italy!
And Neon Dreams is presenting 1983’s Valley Girl,
the romantic comedy that was made on 350,000 budget dollars,
but raked in fifty times that,
capitalizing on the Frank Zappa song
released a year before,

on the album
Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch.
Total puke-a-loid!
In a shopping mall food court,
sporting Olivia Newton-John/Let’s Get Physical headbands.
Ha!
Nicolas Cage was first spotted on the beach,
as a shirtless hairy-chested hunk running along the water’s edge,
but back in the girly girl’s suburban bedroom,
I spied David Lee Roth, James Dean, E.T. and Devo.
Yes, Devo.
D-E-V-O!
However, the one that I was waitin' for
was Frederic Forrest.
My hero, also known as Houston Dyer in 1979's The Rose.
Here, he’s Steve Richman wearin’ #37
and Buffalo sandals that he got at Woodstock.
He smokes cigarettes,
and pot,
secretly in the washroom.
He owns a health food store
and he even macrame’s!
Bitchin’.
But that mustache makes him look like a porn star.
For sure!
You've got the Eyes of a Stranger
by The Payolas.
On Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue.
"Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?"
That’s Men at Work
in a San Fernando Valley shower stall.
And Cage is really Randy,
a Hollywood punk
who suddenly reminds me of Ross on Friends 

(1994-2004).
Yes Nick is Randy, but sooooo Ross!
I’m sure!
There’s An Officer and a Gentleman on a marquee
and guess what?
I had the same hairstyle back then as Steve’s daughter Julie,
the perfect San Fernando Valley Girl,
and apple of Randy, the rebel’s eye.
Yes, I wore colourful earrings that matched 

my colourful 80s clothes
just like her,
and pink track pants!
Like
Like
Like
Like, you know, really grotty?
So gross!
Or like, scarf and barf.
I’m so sure!
Modern English?
"I’ll stop the world and Melt With You!"
Valleyspeak is an American sociolect.
And Operation,
the game of physical skill powered by batteries
is mounted on that boy’s wall.
Hey, I had that game!
But I’d rather be with the girl’s
‘cuz they got John Cougar,
and Ruffles potato chips!
So tubular and all.
Look!
There’s an Elizabeth Taylor Warhol,
and a photo booth strip of Randy,
x3.
“in your lips, I see a danger…”
who has a buddy also named Fred,
another Hollywood gum-snappin’ punk
who reminds me of a young Dennis Hopper.
I’d take him any day
over that preppy blonde guy wearing a pink bandana.
Or Tommy,
Julie’s Valley Dude boyfriend
who wears a pink tuxedo to the Valley Junior High School prom.
Totally grotty like that.
Holy pink balloons and pink streamers!
"Johnny,
Are You Queer?" 
asks Josie Cotton,
a cross between Pat Benatar and The Go-Gos,
whose name is painted on the drum.
Don’tcha know Kings and Queens don’t grow on trees,
with hair like Stevie Nicks?
Like from 1967,

it ended just like The Graduate.
But the question remains….
did THIS Mrs. Robinson get what she wanted from Skip?
Fuck off, for sure!

The trailer for Valley Girl...

Valley Girl,

the Frank & Moon Unit Zappa song that inspired the film...