One of my favorite things about The Criterion Channel is their lack of pretension. Yes, you read that correctly. While you can definitely get your fill of Godard and Rohmer and other proudly pretentious capital-A Auteurs there, the channel also consistently features largely unheralded selections like 1983’s Valley Girl, movies that are ripe for critical reassessment and/or reclamation. Viewed through the lens of 2022, Martha Coolidge’s 1983 comedy feels like time traveling: you cruise the Sunset Strip while it was still edgy (and not yet the capitol of hair metal cheese), you hang in a food court, you get your New Wave on, you revel in the vernacular that would come to define the ’80s (“ferrr shhhurrrrre!”). You also get to spend some QT with Elizabeth “E.G.” Daily, a bouncy, ultra-adorable presence who walked so Miss Flo could one day run.
Photo: Criterion Channel
