Ultimate Party Collection Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Dazed and Confused

Mike: "First of all Rat, you never let on how much you like a girl. "Oh, Debbie. Hi." Two, you always call the shots. "Kiss me. You won't regret it." Now three, act like wherever you are, that's the place to be. "Isn't this great?" Four, when ordering food, you find out what she wants, then order for the both of you. It's a classy move. "Now, the lady will have the linguini and white clam sauce, and a Coke with no ice." And five, now this is the most important, Rat. When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV. "

WHAT’S IT ABOUT THEN?

A great idea for the ultimate in slacker movies, a double bill - one from the 80's and one from the 90's set in the 70's, complete with groovy retro packaging and a good sense of humour.

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
With a debut script from Cameron Crowe Fast Times At Ridgemont High is one of the best remembered movies of the early 80's, frank, funny and full of big star names before they were big star names (Nicolas Cage made his film debut on Fast Times), Fast Times is a rambling look at school life for a group of teens, most of whom have either sex or drugs on their mind. Key characters include the stoner Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) (surely the film's stand out character), the would be vixen Linda (Phoebe Cates), youngster of the group Stacey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her brother Brad (Judge Rheinhold).

For anyone of a certain age who saw the movie first time out this new DVD release is certainly going to be something of a nostalgia fest, it still stands up well today and knocks the likes of American Pie into a cocked hat.

Extras include a commentary from Cameron Crowe and Amy Heckerling; excellent 40 minute doco called Reliving our Fast Times At Ridegmont High featuring contributions from many of the cast and crew; Hangouts At Ridgemont High is an interactive clip driven map; Music Highlights is another clip driven list of the songs featured in the movie, there are also production notes, cast and crew bios, the theatrical trailer and a bonus bunny in the shape of a set of movie quotes.

DAZED AND CONFUSED

Dazed has become a bit of a cult movie over the years since its release in 1993 and is very similarly themed to Fast Times except the characters are pretty much all slackers, set in the mid 1970's Dazed follows a group of students on the last day of school in May 1976. Jason London plays quarterback Randy "Pink" Floyd whilst Wiley Wiggins is freshman Mitch. Other key characters include the 20 something Matthew McConaughey and the thuggish Ben Affleck and there are also turns from Milla Jovavich, Joey Lauren Adams and Parker Posey.

Not quite as good as Fast Times (although it does have some fine moments especially some of McConaughey's ramblings) but with a much better soundtrack, 70's rock over 80's ecentricity does it every time and like Fast Times, Dazed is also worth checking out for the famous famous in the early years of their careers.

Extras on this a whole batch of deleted scenes, some dodgy public service announcment ads, a Vans ad, production notes and some DVD-Rom materials.

All in all a set well worth picking up.