{"id":149,"date":"2007-07-14T10:48:57","date_gmt":"2007-07-14T17:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=149"},"modified":"2008-09-10T10:50:03","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T17:50:03","slug":"the-opposite-of-sex-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"The Opposite of Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.videoflicks.com\/\">Videoflicks.com<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<strong>The Opposite of Sex<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Jack Sommersby<\/p>\n<p>Starts out OK, but soon grows tiresome with hackeyed situations and an \t\tovereagerness to &#8216;be shocking&#8217;. Screenwriter Don Roos (making his \t\tdirecting debut here) tries too hard to make an impressionable piece: \t\texplicit sex language to goose the viewer into believing they&#8217;re healing \t\t&#8216;real talk&#8217;; a consistent amoral character (Christina Ricci) meant to be \t\talluring because she is the way she is; and sexual situations that are \t\tpresented, without being developed. There are a few laughs to be had, and \t\tRicci manages to rise above the trite material with the same natural \t\tauthority that made her the sole saving grace of Ang Lee&#8217;s failed THE ICE \t\tSTORM; she&#8217;s so jaw-droppingly proficient with her line readings and \t\tinflections that she seems to redefine the term &#8216;natural actress&#8217;. And, \t\tconsidering that her role is basically one-note, it&#8217;s amazing that she \t\tgives a performance of great variety &#8212; she makes a far better teenage \t\tVixen than Drew Barrymore in POISON IVY or Alicia Silverstone in THE \t\tCRUSH. Also, there&#8217;s the talented Martin Donovan (who also gave Jane \t\tCampion&#8217;s THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY its only \t\trooted moments) trying to bring some identifiable sanity to his poorly \t\tconcieved character.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, THE OPPOSITE OF SEX fails for the same reason that marred Larry \t\tClark&#8217;s 1995 KIDS: sensationalism over coherence. And it doesn&#8217;t have the \t\tclever plot twists and buoyantly seedy atmosphere that gave THE LAST \t\tSEDUCTION its kick. Roos brings up way too many plot developments, and \t\tthen leaves them hanging; they&#8217;re meant to get your attention, and once \t\tthat&#8217;s been done, he moves onto another subplot (and there are many) to \t\tkeep you allured. Yet, with all the half-done segments constantly \t\treplacing each other, the film never establishes a distinctive rythm, and \t\tthe shapeless scenes just go on and on until you lose track of where the \t\tfilm&#8217;s focus really lies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Videoflicks.com The Opposite of Sex By Jack Sommersby Starts out OK, but soon grows tiresome with hackeyed situations and an overeagerness to &#8216;be shocking&#8217;. Screenwriter Don Roos (making his directing debut here) tries too hard to make an impressionable piece: explicit sex language to goose the viewer into believing they&#8217;re healing &#8216;real talk&#8217;; a consistent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}