Thursday, July 1, 2010

just one of the guys:...and back to stuff that's not in theaters

Just One of the Guys: '85 movie starring joyce hyser pretending to be a guy

there are three reasons i want to go back to high school. they are, in order, least to greatest: 1., i want to walk down the hall, for once, secure in myself and my body. i don't have to talk to anyone, and no one has to talk to me. i just want to walk down the hall. 2., i want to hit on mr. thompson--is that so wrong? and 3., i want to wear a tux to prom. like joyce hyser. in just one of the guys. ah yes, it was a lead-in all along.

the main reason to watch just one of the guys, aside from the stereotypical-yet-hilarious brother, is that joyce hyser is hot hot hot in her man's clothes. she's faaaacking smoking. she's hot in the girl's clothes, too--she's just plain hot--but, yeah, get her in drag, and she's grrr-rah. she turns the words of red-blooded bi women to jelly in their mouths and on their blogs. joyce hyser crosses the divide with aplomb. it's not every actress that looks as good as a guy as she does as a girl--joyce does do so. she is blllablllahyum.

nothing, mom, nothing! just blogging on the interweb!

there are other reasons to watch just one of the guys, too. the beginning kind of sucks--it's too slow, and all the characters start out annoying, especially hyser as the unsympathetically good-looking girl whose real-world problem with not being taken seriously by misogynists doesn't read big enough for a movie. her acting seems stale and her eyes seem mean, and the sex-obsessed brother, douchebag boyfriend, and self-pitying best friend don't make the film more watchable. but when she starts being a boy, things heat up, and not just because she looks so good...and not just because i have a thing for cesarios (not just). her reactions get more human, and though her boy-acting remains pretty painful to watch, you can see her also starting to become a different version of herself in the character of the guy she's pretending to be, so that while her swaggering and stuff is annoying, her actual character starts to become really engaging--and at the end, which i think is the hallmark of a successful crossdressing movie, she doesn't seem as much like a guy or a girl as like a person--and she and love-interest-man actually seem to have chemistry when she's a girl, which is kind of rare. which makes the film fun to watch, even if certain aspects of it are irritating. and the brother and best friend, as well as the love interest, also all get progressively more interesting as the film goes on. one couldn't exactly say how they do, but they do.

i mean, i really like stupid crossdressing movies. she's the man, for instance, because of amanda bynes, and channing tatum, especially his speech at the end: "it's just like what coach says before every game: be not afraid of greatness, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them," which is staggering genius because it's so damn wrong and amazing. just one of the guys is definitely a stupid crossdressing movie, but it's fun. after the first fifteen minutes.

as a sidebar, joyce hyser's character appears to live in the same house as geena davis did in earth girls are easy. i'm assuming it's because there was one house in the '80's, but i might be wrong.

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