Casual Sex? (1988)

By Wuchak

_**More entertaining for women than men**_ Released in 1988, "Casual Sex?" focuses on two young women, Stacy (Lea Thompson) and Melissa (Victoria Jackson), who go to a health resort to find a "safe" man in the new era of AIDS. Stacy has a promiscuous past while Melissa is a novice when it comes to sex. The former hooks up with a musician (Stephen Shellen) and the latter a nice guy massage therapist (Jerry Levine). Andrew Dice Clay is also on hand. This is a fairly amusing 80's romcom with, thankfully, very little raunch despite the title. Although Thompson is her usual winsome petite self she's physically too thin for my tastes; Jackson is better with her irksome nasally voice, but her character is too bimbo-ish. Still, both are likable enough. Amazingly, it's Dice Clay who stands out as Vinny, a particularly annoying guest at the resort, who has an interesting character arc. The topic of the film -- romance & sex in the 80s -- is told from the woman's point of view and therefore appeals more to women. So the fairer sex will appreciate "Casual Sex?" more than I did, but the movie's still worth catching for men because the three male characters ring true and Dice Clay's performance and his story arc make the movie worthwhile. The film runs 97 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles. GRADE: C+