Johnny Be Good (1988)

Every scrawny high-school geek in America has the same fantasy, and it is not to be, like the title character of Johnny Be Good (1988), the most highly recruited college-football prospect in the country, despite being scrawny and geeky. The enticements held out by unscrupulous boosters from big sports universities might be crassly tempting. And the prospect of campus adulation, along with a lucrative postgraduate career as a pro athlete and future sportscaster, also has its low-minded appeal. That is not the stuff of universal yearning. No, the uniting dream of all schoolyard dorks is to have a girlfriend like Uma Thurman, and her appearance in that role is what makes the idea of being Johnny so good.