Can't Buy Me Love (PG-13)
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Caution: spoilers.

This came out in 1987, and I must have seen it on TV or something (maybe on The Magical World of Disney?), sometime in the late 80s. Before I re-watched it on Hulu in 2022, I was planning on listing it on my "tek's movie nostalgia" page. But there was really nothing nostalgic about it. I didn't remember anything beyond the basic premise, and I didn't end up caring about it at all. It's just ridiculous on so many levels.

This geek named Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) pays the captain of his high school's cheerleader squad, Cindy Mancini, $1000 to pretend to date him for a month. She really needed the money for a reason I won't get into. Ronald believes dating her will make him popular, and he's right. He's quickly accepted by all the popular kids at school, and he neglects his old friends. By the end of the month, Cindy has developed real feelings for him (though I think there's very little reason for that), but he doesn't realize it. So he stages a break-up with her, after which lots of girls start throwing themselves at him. Cindy gets jealous, even though he mostly acts like a jerk. And eventually something happens that causes her, when she's drunk, to reveal the truth to everyone. After that, Ronald becomes a pariah, and even his old friends don't want him back. But later he does something that wins back Cindy's affection, which I personally thought was unrealistic. Oh yeah, and I want to mention that Ronald's obnoxious little brother, Chuck, was played by Seth Green, but he's of no real importance to the plot.

I don't really know what else to tell you. It was all just preposterous from start to finish, and I don't feel the happy ending is deserved.