Valley Girl – Eureka

Director: Martha Coolidge
Screenplay: Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Meyrink, Elizabeth Daily, Cameron Dye and Michael Bowen
Country: United States
Running Time: 99 min
Year: 1980

Everybody has a favourite actor. Somebody who delivers consistently great performances, wows them with their range and ability to work in a variety of roles. For me, that actor is Nicolas Cage. Widely ridiculed for his over-the-top performances and ‘bad acting’, I think Cage is one of the great living performers and while I haven’t seen every film he’s been in, according to Letterboxd, I’ve seen 82 of the 132 features he’s starred in. 

Until viewing it for this review, Valley Girl was one of the big Cage films I still needed to see and it’s an important one in his career, as it was his first leading role. Directed by Martha Coolidge, who went on to direct Real Genius and Rambling Rose, Valley Girl follows Julie Richman (Deborah Foreman), the titular valley girl who’s in a relationship with Tommy, who doesn’t treat her very well. She ends up falling for Randy (Nicolas Cage), a cool punk who immediately catches the attention of Julie. 

What follows is a contemporary take on Shakespere’s classic Romeo & Juliet that’s a fun experience. Fights at parties, montages set to upbeat music and a cute romance at the centre of it all. While it’s nothing groundbreaking and I wasn’t wow’d by the overall narrative, it’s a good time that I can completely see people becoming enamoured with. 

It’s packed with colourful costumes, gorgeous lighting, a new-wave soundtrack including songs from The Psychedelic Furs, Josie Cotton and Modern English as well as a lively energy that feels both nostalgic and comforting. When modern shows depict the 80s in a colourful, glitzy fashion, Valley Girl is the type of film they’re aiming to replicate.

The film was a huge box office success, having a budget of $350,000 and grossing over $17 million by the end of its theatrical run. It’s no surprise that Valley Girl has a considerable cult following and as a resident Cage fan, it was great to see him in one of his early roles. There’s an undeniable charm to it, even if it sticks to the tropes that you’d expect.

While Valley Girl doesn’t reinvent the rom-com, it’s an example of one that’s stood the test of time and I had a pretty good time with it. Cage and Foreman are delightful, it has a killer soundtrack and the restoration on Eureka’s Blu-ray release really brings it to life in a way that will satisfy fans of the film. 

Film:

Valley Girl releases on September 18th in a Limited Edition Blu-ray from Eureka! Entertainment. I checked out the Blu-ray, which contains a 4K restoration that looks great. It’s my first time seeing the film, but I think it’s safe to say that this is the best the film’s appeared on physical media. There’s an English DTS HD MA 5.1 audio track, as well as an English LPCM 2.0 Mono track, which is the track I viewed the film with and it sounded great. English HOH subtitles are included. The following extras are included: 

• Limited Edition Box Set – 3000 Copies
• Limited Edition hardbound slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K scan of the original negatives
• Optional English SDH
• New audio commentary with Maya Montañez Smukler (author of Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema) and Maria San Filippo (editor of After ‘Happily Ever After’: Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age)
• Audio commentary with director Martha Coolidge
• Colleen Camp Talks to Elijah Drenner About Valley Girl
• New interview with Deborah Foreman
• Valley Girl in Conversation – 2018 interview with director Martha Coolidge and actresses E. G. Daily and Heidi Holicker
• Martha Coolidge and Nicolas Cage on Valley Girl
• A huge selection of archival interviews with cast and crew totalling over 3 hours
• 20 Totally Tubular Years Later – 2003 featurette
• The Music of Valley Girl – featurette
• Music Videos
• Storyboard Comparisons
• Original theatrical trailer
• A Limited Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Craig Ian Mann

New audio commentary with Maya Montañez Smukler and Maria San Filippo – Exclusive to this release, this new audio commentary offers an insight into the production of the film, with many production notes, information about the production company and more. It’s a really informative listen and it’s packed full of fascinating information. Highly recommend giving it a listen.

Audio commentary with director Martha Coolidge – An archival audio commentary produced for the DVD release of Valley Girl where Martha Coolidge offers some insight into the film, the music, the production and style of the film. It’s a worthwhile listen and offers a lot of behind-the-scenes knowledge and fun recollections of things that happened on set. A solid audio commentary.

Interview with Deborah Foreman – This brand new 18 minute interview, exclusive for this release, with Deborah Foreman is a good watch. She talks about how she began work as a model and what led to her being an actor. It’s a solid interview that’s worth checking out.

Colleen Camp Talks to Elijah Drenner About Valley Girl – An audio interview which plays over the first 30 minutes of the film as a separate audio track, actor Colleen Camp discusses how she was cast in the film and her time on set. A good listen.

Valley Girl in Conversation – A 2018 interview with director Martha Coolidge and actresses E. G. Daily and Heidi Holicker, discussing the legacy of the film and offering some anecdotes from the production. This was included on the Shout! Factory release from a couple of years ago.

Martha Coolidge and Nicolas Cage on Valley Girl – An archival 20 minute interview between star Nicolas Cage and director Martha Coolidge where they recount their experiences about making Valley Girl. Cage highlights how he and Johnny Depp used to live together early on, which was interesting to learn. It’s a fun interview and the pair have a fun rapport. 

A huge selection of archival interviews with cast and crew totalling over 3 hours – A series of archival interviews with everybody involved in the film, from the actors who played the lead boys, the lead girls, the parents, the band members, to the writers, producers and director. No stone is left unturned here and fans of the film have a treasure trove of material to get through here. I’d highlight the segment with ‘The Boys’ as my favourite, because Nicolas Cage is a pleasure to listen to, as always but there’s some incredible stuff here. It’d take far too long for me to cover all aspects of these interviews as they’re so vast, but it’s an incredible inclusion by Eureka.

20 Totally Tubular Years Later – An archival 2003 retrospective featurette that runs for 24 minutes with interviews from most of the key players. While a lot of the interviews on this disc have a fair amount of overlap given the extensive amount of them, this is one of the best featurettes to check out as it gives you details on how people were cast, how the project came to be in a concise and interesting way.

The Music of Valley Girl – A 15 minute archival featurette that details the music of the film. Director Coolidge says she feels like Valley Girl was partly responsible for the jukebox approach to some comedies that would come after. It’s another solid featurette. 

A selection of music videos are included.

Storyboard Comparisons – An 11 minute featurette showcasing the storyboards created for the film, and how they compare to what ended up in the film. A neat inclusion.  

An original theatrical trailer is included.

The 60 page booklet included is a good read, with a glossary of Valley Girl talk, explaining that ‘awesome’ means great and ‘gag me with a spoon’ means disgusting. It’s a really fun inclusion. Also included are two essays, one by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and another by Craig Ian Mann, viewing notes and credits. Heller-Nicholas’ essay touches on the careers of Cage and Coolidge and as always, it’s a great read. Mann’s essay focuses on the teen movie genre and it’s another interesting read. 

Eureka’s release of Valley Girl is solid. While I think there’s too much overlap in the supplemental content, most of it is archival and I applaud Eureka for putting all of the stops out with this release to create a definitive release of the film. The newly created features for this release are great. It looks and sounds fantastic and will be a treasure trove for fans of the film with how extensive the content is.

Disc/Package:

Where to watch Valley Girl