Can't Buy Me Love

A high school boy saves up 2000 dollars for a new telescope, but winds up spending it for a girlfriend. She was the most popular girl at school, and needed the money to replace her mother's jacket that she [the girl] had ruined. In return, the girl must date the boy for a month, making him suddenly popular, something he isn't used to at all. Of course, he is found out eventually, and all his new "friends" turn against him. A picture which is well worth seeing.

The geek Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) lives with his parents and his younger brother in the suburb and works hard during his vacation mowing lawn for neighbors to save one-thousand dollars to buy a telescope. Ronald is part of an outcast group of nerds with his friend Kenneth Wurman (Courtney Gains) and has a crush on his neighbor, the popular cheerleader Cindy Mancini (Amanda Peterson). When the expensive coat of Cindy is damaged in a party, she goes to the store to propose a deal to the owner to buy another one. Ronald sees and offer one-thousand dollars to buy the coat for her provided she pretends to be his girlfriend for a month. Cindy accepts the deal and Ronald becomes a popular teenager at school. He changes his personality, leaves his nerd friends but four months later he leans the price he has to pay for his achievement.

"Can't Buy Me Love" is a sweet movie from the 80´s with funny moments and a good moral lesson. Ronald Miller learning how to dance in an African show and then repeating the movements in a party at school is maybe the funniest scene. The criticism to people that change the behavior to be popular is also great as well as those that follows these false leaders no matter how ridiculous they are. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Namorada de Aluguel" ("Girlfriend for Rent")

Sometimes the most important thing eludes us and we don't recognize it. Not everyone has the opportunity to recognize, especially when one lives it, what is really important, what is in fact real; the truth of who we are and who others are. And to recognize that before the others and ourselves. Not everyone has that opportunity. Almost all of us fall in the lies and fictions of who we are, who the others are and the place of all of us in our world, but only few of us - lucky few - manage, in the end, but maybe still in time, to see the truth, the reality. And these ones, may consider themselves very happy.

All it takes is to understand that, and we can be who we want to: our own selves.

If you like '80s teen comedies, this one is not to be missed. I liked this movie and i just wanted to share these thoughts i had after seeing it. Patrick Dempsey is good in it, and Amanda Peterson is absolutely great, loved her. Wish i had met a girl like her when i was in high school. But then again, maybe i did...

7/10 overall, a good movie.

It kind of reminded me of revenge of the nerds. I liked this cute little movie about a geeky boy who pays the hottest highschool cheerleader at his school to pose as his girlfriend. This is a fun movie and one that works surprisingly well. One of the better teen comedies from the 80's. Myabe not as popular as some others but just as good and somehow does not come across as ridiculous as so many similar movies of this time period did. It's a definite must see for anyone who appreciates a movie like "Revenge of the nerds" and hasn't got to see this yet. I really enjoyed it. Obviously the movie's not an Oscar winner or to highly original but it works and as teen movies go, it is toward the top of the heap.

I guess in the case of this movie you could say "you might get what you paid for". The messages in this movie are pretty clear. They are made easy to identify by many simple one dimensional supporting characters and a few scenes devoted to clearly spelling a message out. This movie is extremely stereotypical, but it was made in and about a very stereotypical time, so I don't think they went too far in portraying these characters as their stereotypes and little else. The messages and characters will seem very familiar to those of us who grew up and went to high school in the 80's, but may be be lost on teenagers today. All of that said this is basically a pretty good movie, that I can never turn off when I happen to catch it on cable. The performances are very good by the main characters and reasonably good by some of the supporting characters and the scenes move well without any wasted time. There is very little build up to any of the movies scenes, so there is really something going on all the time.

Not in the same class as The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles, but very watchable and enjoyable.