La ragazza di San Diego

The first time I saw Valley Girl, I was bedridden and as sick as a dog, out of junior high school for two weeks with a nasty illness. I watched it on a tiny black and white set with the volume turned down to a whisper so my parents wouldn't hear and make me shut it off. I was mesmerized. It was a revelation. Martha Coolidge's milking of the Romeo and Juliet premise (with Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman filling in as star-crossed lovers in the San Fernando Valley) was smart and convincing. I was amazed by the hot "Val" chicks. I was thrilled by the interesting vocabulary words. I wanted to be like Cage's tough Randy and fall in love with a beautiful girl like Foreman's Julie to the sounds of Eddie Grant, Modern English, and The Plimsouls.