The classic movie Roger Ebert called “a failure of taste, tone, and nerve”
We all have our own opinions on movies, but for some, watching every newly released film and critiquing them is a full-time endeavour. For Roger Ebert, his likes and dislikes – written with plenty of wit and no regard for whether his words might cause offence to the filmmaker – made him famous. He began writing reviews in the late 1960s, continuing until his death in 2013. Ebert’s opinions were shared through written media outlets, television shows and radio, making him one of the world’s most well-known cinema critics.
There were many movies he loved, heaping extensive praise onto them and encouraging readers or listeners to go and watch them. Then there were the ones he couldn’t stand. Unfortunately for some filmmakers, they felt the wrath of Ebert’s pen, which was often incredibly harsh, albeit hilarious.
One film that Ebert found himself incredibly annoyed by was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling, who would later go on to helm Look Who’s Talking and Clueless. While the latter was much more successful, Heckerling’s debut put her on the map. Ebert clearly couldn’t see her potential, rating the Cameron Crowe-penned movie just one star.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is now considered a teen classic, focusing largely on the characters’ sex lives. It isn’t just a sleazy comedy, though; it also deals with many themes that teen movies at the time didn’t tend to explore, such as abortion. The movie features a mixed bag of characters, with audiences finding at least one to relate to. Ebert just couldn’t get on board with it, however, calling it a “scuz-pit of a movie.”
He wrote, “Let me make myself clear. I am not against vulgarity as a subject for a movie comedy,” adding, “But vulgarity is a very tricky thing to handle in a comedy; tone is everything, and the makers of Fast Times at Ridgemont High have an absolute gift for taking potentially funny situations and turning them into general embarrassment. They’re tone-deaf.”
Ebert compared the movie to other teen sex comedies like Porky’s, although he thought Fast Times was much more scandalous. “This movie is so raunchy, however, that the audience can’t quite believe it.” After going to watch a preview of the film hosted by a “rock radio station,” Ebert observed, “During a scene involving some extremely frank talk about certain popular methods of sexual behaviour, even the rock fans were grossed out. There’s a difference between raunchiness and gynaecological detail.”
The reviewer thought that the film took too many wrong turns, setting it up as an excitable sex comedy only to bring everything back down to reality. “Whatever happened to upbeat sex? Whatever happened to love and lust and romance and scenes where good-looking kids had a little joy and excitement in life instead of all this grungy, downbeat humiliation?”
He added, “Why does someone as pretty as [Jennifer Jason] Leigh have to have her nudity exploited in shots where the only point is to show her ill-at-ease?”
Fast Times grossed $50million in the end, with many critics praising the film for its treatment of the less pleasant aspects of coming of age. Still, Ebert was not impressed. “The whole movie is a failure of taste, tone, and nerve,” he surmised.
