Just One of the Guys

This amusing 1985 gender bender is a reminder of Victor/Victoria, but only as a comedy not a musical. Terry played by Joyce Hyser, believes her teachers don't take her very serious because she's a pretty girl. She fails to win a journalism contest and decides to switch schools - and gender. She does make a very handsome guy, and plays her role so well and is accepted as one of the guys. She can be very tough also. Even the guy Rick, played by Clayton Rohner, is fooled by her. It's not until the last reel that he realizes that she loves him. I had never seen this before until today on The Comedy Channel, and although I did not know any of the stars, it's such an amusing tale of high school graduates, that it held my interest. Good for some laughs!

Great comedy 1980s High School movie. (OK, it won't win an Oscar - often a good thing.)It is funniest for guys, I think. Billy Jacoby steals the movie as a hyper-horny adolescent schoolboy. He has too many hilarious scenes and good lines to go into. Don't miss it if you like 1980s (any era?) high school comedies from a guy's perspective. The star, Joyce Hyser is also a bonus treat.

*Some mild spoilers, viewer discretion is advised* I remember watching this on HBO seemingly every day of every summer of my teenage years. Joyce Hyser is flawless. I can't imagine anyone else playing the role of Terry. I think it's her voice and her sense of humor. She expresses a lot in her voice and has one of the best senses of humor that I have ever seen in a female. I talk about Joyce Hyser so much, because this may be the only movie that she has a lead in EVER. The movie, which may not fully do her justice, is made better whenever she is on screen. Also she actually passes for the opposite sex(sorry Mr. Curtis and Mr. Lemmon). Joining Joyce is a fine cast including Clayton Rohner(dork), William Zabka(villain,duh), Sherilyn Fenn(love interest), and Arye Gross(House II!, another dork). Terry's boyfriend and best friend do well in their roles, but don't deserve to be named for they are not quasi-famous to me. As for Billy Jayne, I go back forth in liking him and not. He accurately depicts someone obsessed with sex. If you have any interest in the above actors, I don't think you will be disappointed. There is nothing visually stunning. The script is o.k., Buddy gets the best lines. The soundtrack is pure eighties which is always an adventure. All in all, a pleasant distraction with good actors that makes today's teen movies seem dull which of course isn't hard. And one of my favorite topless scenes which is actually essential to the plot in my opinion. **Rick: Where do you get off having t**s! Terry: Sorry.**

Ahhh, the 80s. Full-frontal female nudity and a ton of male butts, under aged drinking, raging homophobia, product placed Coke cans alongside blank cans with only the word "BEER" on them and practically everyone from teachers to college students as pedophiles. All this nicely wrapped with a PG-13 rating. But, I will give it this: at over three decades old, it was way ahead of its time in regards to "transgenders" and bathrooms. Okay, okay, the character's not transgender. Just trying to make it fit the topics of today since everything else about acceptance back then was just terrible. Dark ages, almost. I digress. I'd like to say Just One of the Guys had its heart in the right place, but there was no clear message here. Just a bunch of jerks this girl had surrounding her and she's trying to win a writing competition. She never really wants to better herself, though she does somehow manage to do so. High school student Terry loses her big break at a competition and a summer internship and equates her loss to sexism. She'll show them by proving herself as a boy…in another school to "win" there. In the interim, she befriends a boy who wildly thinks "he's" weird, attracts other girls and spends a lot of time in the boy's locker room and bathrooms. The final "Tootsie" (and years later, "Mrs. Doubtfire") moment comes to a head at the prom. I'd say the movie's harmless and it's "just the 80s," but it's kinda hard to watch in 2016. The music isn't great, the messages are misfires with all the blatant sexism, homophobia and pedophilia and the acting and sets make me wonder how this high school production made it to theatres. Since, mercifully, we've come a long way from this, it's not really the nostalgia I'd like to remember. In fact, I'd rather just watch a movie about the 80s that didn't even come out in the 80s: Romy & Michele's High School Reunion. *** Final thoughts: That all said, I thoroughly remember this movie well. Check that. Just a few key scenes, i.e. in the locker room. See, I saw this as the same age as these actors are portraying and it was long before internet. So, this is pretty much what I could get my hands on, so to speak. In fact, I barely remember many of the other scenes in the movie, aside from the male/"male" crush reveal at the end. Sadly, with all the homophobia, it was a wonder I walked away with the longing as I had back then (in the Dark Aged 80s where neither I nor many other folk were out) for two males to express their interest in each other and how one would sincerely react. Granted, it turns out one was a female, but it was the closest I had to seeing what it would be like for high schooler guys liking each other. I'm rambling, but suffice to say, negative messages in the movie aside, it did have a positive effect on me back then, even though it's hard to watch nowadays.

The 1980s were full of role-reversal comedies where black became white, father became son, rich became poor, old became young, male became female. "Just One Of The Guys" expands on the latter theme, suggesting the best way to battle rampant sex discrimination is to switch sides. "Valley Girl" and "Spinal Tap" veteran Joyce Hyser was already pushing 30 when she starred as teenager "Terry/Terri," whose rapturous beauty made her a reject in the beauty-hating world of high school journalism, but somehow didn't keep her from passing as a guy who looks eerily like Ralph Macchio. The expected "Three's Company"-esquire comic misunderstandings arise, where "Terry" has to hide being in love with "his" new best friend Rick, but must also constantly avoid boy-crazy stalker Sherilyn Fenn. The film takes such tortured pains to avoid the merest hint of homosexuality that the results are sometimes a little painful to watch. The film has funny moments, though, and through its extensive location shooting at Coronado and Scottsdale High Schools in Scottsdale, Arizona, it perhaps inadvertently captures a genuine slice of teenage life, 1985-style. (Not that at age 16 I was an uncredited extra in this movie or anything like that.) For sheer 80s teen movie nostalgia, give "Just One Of The Guys" a chance, if you come across it on TV. It's not Shakespeare, but it's better than watching C. Thomas Howell as a black man.

Tootsie was very funny in it's time. But this that is sort of like Tootsie in reverse, was not as funny. And listening to some of the jokes make me wonder why was this movie not rated R, I mean some of the jokes make the American Pie movies seem Nc-17. It was not all that funny, through most of the movie, I laughed for putting in the effort for trying. The story begins with Terry(Joyce Hauser) is very upset when she does not win a Journalist contest. Feels she is not taking seriously because she is a pretty female. And is pretty annoyed that her brother Buddy(Billy Jacoby--William Jayne now) has pined up several naked women in his room. So she pretends to be a guy, and changes schools, in hopes to get some respect. During that time she befriends Rick Morehouse(Clayton Rohner, you remember him from G vs E), keeps getting crossing unpleasant paths with the School Bully(The Karate Kids, William Zabka), and his pursued by Sandy(Then unknown Sherilyn Finn). It was not totally bad, Billy Jacoby seems to steal most of the movie has Terrys sex crazed brother. It was an alright 80's flick, but not a classic.

This is a movie which concentrates more on getting laughs than getting preachy. When it does get preachy, it tells both sides of the story (although some male characters are annoying sterotypes.) It also contains two of the all time classic lines in movie history. While Denise enjoys herself at Terri's prom, she rejoices, "I'm having such a good time, no one here knows I used to be fat." When Buddy is told by an attractive female classmate that he's a nice guy, Buddy retorts, "Not a nice guy, that's the kiss of death."

This is one of the lower-tier teen comedies from the 1980s, and it's not as well known as movies like "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink" or other films about high-school angst, but it's one of my favorites. Terry Griffith, aspiring journalist, gets an early taste of sexism when an article she writes for an internship contest is passed over for an obviously inferior article written by boys, so she poses as Ralph Macchio and signs up at a rival high school, hoping to submit her article there and get it accepted. Things get complicated, as such things do, when she falls for a nerd who's actually kind of cool when you get to know him, and she becomes the target for the high school bully, played by William Zabka, who created a cottage industry out of playing the blonde jock high school bully in teen movies from the 80s, and who coincidentally also tormented Ralph Macchio in "The Karate Kid." Terry doesn't know much about being a boy, but never fear -- her little brother, who names his * Spike, does, and he teaches her all the basics, like how to scratch her balls. Grade: A

Just One Of The Guys is a film that had I seen it when it first came out I might have dismissed it as an innocuous teen sex comedy. Jane Hyser an aspiring journalism student whose teacher Kenneth Tigar can't quite take her seriously. No one with that much beauty could possibly have a brain in her head. So she goes undercover as a guy to prove her point. Not even her college boyfriend Leigh McCloskey knows, the only one who does know is her perpetually horny brother Billy Jayne. In the end things work pretty much as they do for characters in films like this. But if you've seen a film like Boys Don't Cry with the gut wrenching performance that got Hillary Swank her first Oscar as the transgender Brandon Teena her life was anything but amusing. What Jane Hyser does as an experiment was the life lived by Hillary Swank in her film. It wasn't bets, proms, and parties. When the climax comes in fact at a prom I don't think there would be that many laughs in real life. We guard our gender roles and prerogatives most jealously in this society. You can still get a few laughs from Just One Of The Guys. But I bet the amount of next month's rent that your perspective will change if you see this film and Boys Don't Cry. Take up my challenge.