Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Saturday, July 30, 2022

DVD/Movie Review: Just One of the Guys

 



Just One of the Guys is a 1984 comedy starring Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner, William Zabka, Sherilyn Fenn, and Billy Jayne. The movie is partly a cookie-cutter 1980s coming-of-age teen comedy, but it does deviate partly from being completely cookie-cutter. The story does not start as the "typical" teen romantic comedy. It starts with a theme of sexism and misogyny as a journalism student named Terri, played by Joyce Hyser, is not entered into a competition by her teacher that would land her an internship at a newspaper. She decides that it is because she is a girl and decides to enroll at a different school as "Terry" and hopefully get entered into the competition on her journalistic merit. From there, it does get into the cookie-cutter 80s teen comedy with Teri falling for one of her classmates, Rick Morehouse, played by Clayton Rohner, having to fend off a bully, Greg, William Zabka, and being pursued as Terry, by another classmate, Sandy, played by the utterly gorgeous Sherilyn Fenn. Of course, hilarity ensues as she tries to hide being a guy and then, in the end, has to reveal, in spectacular fashion, that she is not a boy.

For those looking to get the movie on disc, there is a Blu-Ray version out there that does have a commentary track with at least some of the cast members included. The DVD version just has the movie itself, no extras. It would be nice if there were a bit of behind-the-scenes material, but given that the movie was not anywhere near as big as some of the other 1980s teen comedies, it is not surprising that the release is pretty bare bones.

Overall, the movie is good. Probably better than it got credit for being at the time. It definitely does require some suspension of disbelief, just like movies like Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead require. The whole scheme is not something that a kid could pull off in real life. But, if you accept it for what it is and do not overanalyze it too much, the movie is enjoyable. The acting is very good, with Billy Jacoby, who plays Terri's little brother, Buddy stealing nearly every scene he is in, and Fenn doing sultry about as well as she did in Twin Peaks. While I would not call it a must-see, if you are into 80s comedies, especially the coming-of-age movies like Fast Times, this is a good one to check out.

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