Amazon.com Essentials:
Before he became an overrated filmmaker,
Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) was a reporter for Rolling
Stone who was so youthful looking that he could go undercover for
a year at a California high school and write a book about it. He wrote
the script for this film, based on that book, and it launched the
careers of several young actors, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge
Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, and, above all, Sean Penn. The story line is
episodic, dealing with the lives of iconic teen types: one of the
school's cool kids, a nerd, a teen queen, and, most enjoyably, the
class stoner (Penn), who finds himself at odds with a strict history
teacher (a wonderfully spiky Ray Walston). This is not a great movie
but very entertaining and, for a certain age group, a seminal movie
experience. --Marshall Fine
