At LACMA on Thursday night, a packed and very excited audience, some dressed in 80's garb, watched a screening of "Valley Girl" as the the museum's Film Independent program celebrated the movie's 30th anniversary. "This film was well-researched and shot in Los Angeles. It is about our cultural history," director Martha Coolidge told the crowd.
Although everyone laughed and applauded every character and Los Angeles landmark, from the Sherman Oaks Galleria to the Mulholland Drive overlook and Grauman's Chinese, no one would argue with Coolidge when she said of the film, "It's serious." Nicolas Cage made his screen debut in the film, at age 18, and Coolidge entertained with stories from the set. She said that despite the backer's demands that breasts be bared for rating's sake, when they saw the whole movie for the first time they said incredulously: "It's a real film. It's about something." Indeed, the screenwriters were determined to make a film that mattered, not just another movie about teens looking for sex. There are threads that go back to Romeo and Juliet, and scenes with the heroine's hippie parents nearly brought down the house while showing the movie's great heart.
After the show, those audience members who dressed up were summoned to the stage for a costume contest. Then everyone headed to the LACMA courtyard for a reception under the watchful eye of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining."
Photos by Iris Schneider. Top, the crowd. Bottom, Coolidge and Elvis Mitchell.