Joy of Sex

If one sat down to watch a movie called "The Joy of Sex", you'd at least think there were some steamy sex sequences therein. Surprisingly, that is the main thing that's missing from the film. Look quick and you may catch one topless girl in a mob running by toward the end of the picture, the film's sole nude sequence. The sex scenes we do see are obscured from view half the time and most of which is left up to imagination. And surprisingly the film still bares an "R" rating, primarily for language and content. But what would be considered as the naughty sexual content in this film is no more risque that what I've seen in other PG and PG-13 rated films currently in the theater and in new release at the video store. Boy the times have changed. Suddenly in the late 90's and the new millennium we can almost get away with just about any innuendos these days.

Not too many highlights in the film. The laughs are few and far between. The film features the attractive Colleen Camp who is squandered in this opportunity. She receives far little film time as an undercover cop masquerading as the new hot girl in class at the high school where the film is based. Robert Prescott ("Bachelor Party" and "Real Genius") has a few humorous moments as a class clown, but not enough. The only real bright spot of the film is Christopher Lloyd as Coach Hindenberg. Lloyd's deadpan delivery never fails to win a laugh or two, but Lloyd can't support what is an unremarkable cast and a less than average teen sex comedy. The film is also known as "National Lampoon's: The Joy of Sex." Save you money and time. Rent "Animal House" instead.

This is the worst film Martha Coolidge has done, as only having seen a few of em. Hey, I like this movie, as it only gets funny in the latter part of movie, with consistency, thanks to two characters, who are classics: a geeky teacher, who's the butt of the student's jokes, the tall one with the glasses, an absolute extroverted world class d..khead. The other is a t.v host gigolo, who doesn't mind making out with young girls. Yes we see a few familiar faces from other around the time Coolidge movies. Cute Meynick, who's very good, is convinced she's gonna die, thanks to this mole she has, as overhearing a conversation with her doctor. Hardly the case. Meanwhile a narc is one of among the students at Lincoln High. Meynick desperately wants to lose her virginity. She's not the only one. And yes, what are the chances these two make out. Joy Of Sex, is a disappointment, as in the fact, it's been adapted from a novel, so you expect to be quite good, but it just joins all the other cheesy 80 sex comedies, which painfully, I knew it would be, as not really being anything special. It's entertaining though, and that's thanks to a lot of good actors wasted in a movie that's dreadful. Christopher Lyodd is a classic, as a highly strung P.E. teacher and Meynick's Dad, while Camp as the narc (god, why did she do this) flashing her goodies is funny and really good. Langois is cute as Meynick's best friend, while exchange student, Abdul, bringing a very familiar Sixteen candles scenario, as the enigmatic stud, was fun. Dye as the student, who's missing out is typecast, and brings a good attracting performance. The short, frizzy haired "all woman", seen in sleazy prison films, was another fun character. On the whole, Joy Of Sex is worth watching, yes, too for 80's fan, a VHS rental, even hard, to acquire at the time, but like I said, it's simply dreadful and wastes so many good actors, some of them we don't see on the screen, anymore, and boy, do we miss em' too. Wipe this one under the carpet, Martha.

This movie pulled out none of the stops. 80s High School movies aren't usually this painful to watch. The story had potential to be a fun High School movie, but fell far short of the mark. If it weren't for the fact that I couldn't sleep and it's the only thing on TV, I wouldn't have seen it -- and right now I wish I could have gone with my first impulse and given those sleeping pills a shot.

Pretty tame and in spite of the random humour of site gags, a few wacky characterisations and the very occasional one-liner, it's also mostly bereft of comedy. What's left is a coming-of-age story concerning high school senior (Meyrink), who mistakenly believing she only has weeks to live, tries to "seal the deal" and lose her virginity. Lisa Langlois plays her bestie, as the two manufacture a series of oddball situations in which the deed can be done.

There's a couple of funny moments (e.g. Paul Tully's self-absorbed anchorman trying to cajole Meyrink into a sleazy motel shag), but mostly the capable cast is just wasted in embarrassing, undignified characterisations. An exception to this is Joanne Baron's bookish school mistress characterisation, humiliated by her adolescent tormentors at every opportunity; sexualised pranks are the order of the day for the ill-disciplined students of this particular school establishment, much to the frustration of hard-line principal Ernie Hudson.

Interesting to see Hudson and Lloyd just ahead of their career-defining moments in "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future" respectively, while I could have sworn it was Jeff Daniels playing the sleaze-bag reporter, alas, it was Paul Tully (no disrespect intended). Hastily concluded the plot holes have been papered over and the film leaves you to presume more than it resolves. It's quirky but ultimately not among the best of its eighties' breed.

Most people would probably say that the "National Lampoon" franchise jumped the shark in later years, but it was bad as early as this time. They just happened to be making better movies featuring the Griswold family. This isn't quite one of the worst comedies I've ever seen. That's probably only because modern bad comedies are worse and constantly use fart and poop jokes. Much of the humor in this film comes from making jokes about animal genitalia. The funniest bit is when the teacher says she wishes she could teach in kindergarten where sex was a word no one understood.

The basic plot is that a girl thinks she's going to die soon and tries to lose her virginity. They use the old out of context eavesdropping trope. The fact that there's a bunch of misbehaving young adults makes it seem like they were trying to cash in on the success of "Animal House". Then again, this was based on a book...loosely apparently. It's weird how this could even be considered a National Lampoon movie if it was based on something else. The story is mostly pointless and the characters are bland. *1/2