Campus Man

It would be hard to come up with a more innocuous film than this one (unless it were animated!) Inspired (somewhat) by a true story, it concerns Arizona State college student Dye trying to miraculously come up with $10,000 worth of tuition money in 30 days. Fortunately, for him, his roommate and long time friend (Lyon) is chin-on-the-floor attractive and is the star diver, complete with a rippled, sculpted body. He decides to create a pin-up calendar for women, featuring men from all the sports at ASU. However, he faces a few hurdles along the way, not the least of which is placating the mysterious man (O'Keefe) who lent him the start-up money. Meanwhile, magazine editor Fairchild has her eye on Lyon for her own reasons (surprisingly non-sexual ones!) The whole film is accented by a bouncy '80's soundtrack and a parade of atrocious, but fun clothes and hairdo's. Dye (who would later make a splash on "Touched By an Angel") is basically a poor man's Andrew McCarthy throughout, but has a few decent moments. Lyon is breathlessly pretty, but hopelessly bland. He often resembles a pumped-up James Van Der Beek. Wilhoite turns in her standard reliable, quirky performance. Delaney is called upon to do very little except be nice. Fairchild is expectedly campy, but surprisingly less bitchy than she's usually called on to be. She's a whirlwind of huge hair, ugly pastel make-up and monstrous, shoulder-padded get-ups. The film is very trite, pat and simple, but does manage to pull off a surprise or two. Much of the dialogue is rotten, though. The beefcake factor is mostly completed by Lyon who is frequently shown diving in his teensy swimsuit (the front of which is also coyly edited out or cropped out much of the time.) There is a montage of "hunky" (mostly moussed and pretty) models posing hilariously for the calendar and a shower sequence that shows the butts of two men that no one cares about. No one should be offended by anything in this movie, but also not very many people will be glued to the screen. It's very light, very good-natured and eventually, pretty forgettable.

I had passed Campus Man many times in the shop. Let's face it - it does scream 80's. I had picked it up an thought "Well this look cheesey". It wasn't until I took an interest in one of the Actors that I started to look for the movie to watch. And was surprised by what I found.

Ok it is a very 80's movie, the clothes and hair alone dictates that. But from the decade of overspending and businessmen flying by the seat of their pants, I feel that if this movie had been marketed better, or perhaps caught a slightly different wave it could have been up there with the Yuppie success of "Secret of My Success".

It is well acted by all, with most note going to John Dye and Kathleen Wilhoite as Todd and Molly.

Some of the plot points are a little under developed, where did this anamosity between Molly and Todd come from, Brett makes mention of Todd getting him into Diving, but doesn't eleborate.

All in all I enjoyed it. It could have been much worse. Considering Todays fare of Van Wilder; Party Liasion, it stands up rather well.

Todd Headlee, while still an A.S.U. student, created the first beefcake calender and it was a hit. Naturally, such a world shaking event cried out for a big screen epic... and here you are. This badly directed, written and scored little feature is useful only as a time capsule for awful eighties clothing and hair styles. The only other thing you can give this dull little caper is that it consistently avoids all the usual exploitative sleaze of campus comedies. It isn't clever or particularly funny, but it also isn't stripping down the women in the cast (and there are some pretty girls evident throughout) and there's no slobbering fat guy tossed in for comic "relief." No raunch, no swearing, no over-the-top sitcom acting, no crotch-smacking slapstick, no flatulence, no vomiting... it's positively the cleanest campus comedy ever made. Too bad it's also so trivial and innocuous. It does have a standout feature in Miles O'Keeffe as Cactus Jack. He almost lifts the film out of it's general lifelessness. He's so ruggedly handsome that it's almost supernatural and his character is like some amalgam of Clint Eastwood and the Marlboro Man. Otherwise, it's pretty slim stuff based on a pretty slim premise.

Campus Man was a decent late 80s college flick. Todd Barrett, a lick, amateur businessman who, for some reason always tucked his pants into his socks, learns that he is denied a scholarship the day after the loan deadlines. He needs to come up with ten thousand dollars for tuition or risk getting thrown out (the financial counselor said the official term was expulsion...but doesn't that conjure up connotations of wrong-doing outside of defaulting on tuition?).

So, he decides to produce a calendar featuring some of the University's athletes, which he would then sell on campus. In order to do this, of course, he needs twelve thousand dollars as start-up capital. And, being unable to convince formal institutions to do this, a strange pool hall fellow of the name Cactus Jack (who advertises on phone booths of all things) lends him the money. What follows next is a series of misunderstandings and miscalculations that threaten his chances of paying back the rather irritable Cactus Jack, but also potentially ruining the diving career of his close friend, Brett Wilson.

'Campus Man' lacks some of the 80s predictability because it throws more curve balls than may be expected and at least strives for some creativity here and there. Although, the two leads (John Dye and Steve Lyon) sometimes got in these weird silent movies where they looked like they wanted to jump each other. But, there is a pretty steady pace of story, plus and excellent soundtrack (featuring Michael Sembello's "Rock Until You Drop" which some might from 'The Monster Squad').

Recommended for your lazy afternoon 80s viewing pleasure.

considering the talent that was on hand, (John Dye, Morgan Fairchild, Miles O'Keefe, Kim DeLaney, etc ) the director Ron Casden, kinda sorta fell into a comedic hole! This was a local Arizona shot film, which is kind of cool seeing some of the old places, businesses, apartments, resorts restaurants, bars etc, but this story is kind funny but the main character John Dye is a nice, annoying guy.

Don't get me wrong, I like John no doubt, so it's got to be Casden that missed the marks here. Steve Lyons was pretty much a loss as a bad actor on top. Considering that he was a major supporting role in Campus Man. I remember the posters from the theater from 1987, and it cracks me up. Everything about this ' flick' seemed to just kind of go ah-rye. The acting was gone right after the directing and then the story, etc. I laugh, because I own the DVD and I don't intend to sell this one anytime soon. The funniest part of this movie is, that I would rather watch this, over Brosnan in "Die Another Day" (2002). Probably because it's Arizona, back in the great eighties!

I recommend this for college type, sitting around on laundry day type comedy , I rated it a 2, because of the classic old scenery. It's still fun to pass the time with though. In small edition there was a couple great song tracks in the movie by the Robert Cray band, that set off a cool and rude mood, although there was a lack of good scoring through out the whole story. (*)