Can't Buy Me Love

2/10/2018

RELEASED IN 1987 and directed by Steve Rash, “Can’t Buy Me Love” is a high school dramedy about a geek at an Arizona high school (Patrick Dempsey) who pays the most popular girl in school (Amanda Peterson) $1000 to act like she likes him for a month so he can move up the social strata. Of course, this creates unforeseen problems. Courtney Gains plays his geek friend and Seth Green his little brother. This is better than some 80’s teen flicks (e.g. Molly Ringwald’s movies), but not as good as others (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”). It’s arguably on par with “Just One of the Guys” and “Some Kind of Wonderful.” Unlike those films, however, it has a semi-campy vibe wherein the cast members often exaggerate their lines in an artificial way, which telegraphs that what’s happening isn’t r

1/19/2019

Whatever happens to your popularity, stay yourself, don't change to please others. Can't Buy Me Love is directed by Steve Rash and written by Michael Swerdlick. It stars Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Peterson. Music is by Robert Folk and cinematography by Peter Lyons Collister. Plot has Dempsey as nerdy outcast Ronald Miller, who fed up of not being popular pays Cindy Mancini (Peterson), the most popular girl in school, one thousand dollars to be his girlfriend. The 1980s was awash with films of this ilk, the teen dramedy topped up by a big hearted message and a finale of punch the air worth. What it all comes down to is if the film can hold its head above water, not become too twee, and crucially have you smiling come the finale. As evidenced by its popularity among 80s cineastes o