Classic Movie Review The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them

The Opposite Sex and How to Live With Them (1993) 

Directed by Matthew Meshakoff 

Written by Noah Stern 

Starring Arye Gross, Kevin Pollak, Courtney Cox, Julie Brown

Release Date March 26th, 1993 

Published June 9th, 2023 

There is a scene in the 1993 'romantic comedy' The Opposite Sex and How to Live With Them that demonstrates the ugly toxicity of the early 1990s. Courtney Cox has gone to the beach with her new boyfriend, played by a sentient loaf of wonder bread named Arye Gross. As he lounges on the beach, Gross's friends grab Cox and drag her away to play some beach game. When she returns, she's nude, save for a towel. His friends have stripped her naked during this 'game' and she was able to limp back to her boyfriend who could not be less interested in her plight. 

Cox's character appears shaken by this. She makes clear that she did not consent to being stripped nude by her boyfriend's friends. And yet, the tone of the scene is clearly comic. We are expected to laugh about this implied sexual assault. We know this because Gross appears to find this situation very funny as he jokingly blames her for letting his friends drag her into their game. Apparently, she should have known better. That scene is par for the course on how ugly, toxic, and misogynistic this movie is, especially through the lens of 30 years later. 

For those thinking I am going to defend this in any way by saying 'it was a different time,' I will not be doing that. What happened in this scene was wrong when it took place as it remains wrong today. This casual attitude toward assault is reflective of a culture at the time that excused far too much awful male behavior with the phrase 'boys will be boys.' That attitude is almost always followed by an admonishment of the victim, blaming the woman for putting herself into this situation. You can think, it's just a movie or it's just this movie, but this movie is a product of the attitudes of the time. It's a reflection of the casual ugliness around it. 

The entirety of The Opposite Sex and How to Live With Them is terrifically awful. Moment one to moment last, this very stupid, mind-numbing 'romantic comedy' is never funny. It's a cringe inducing relic and somehow, it's a mere 30 years ago that this gross movie was released. If you wonder why we are reckoning with toxic masculinity and a culture of sexual harassment to this day, this movie is indicative of where we were just three decades ago. It was a time when were so comfortable with men assaulting an unwilling female victim that we made a joke of the assault in a romantic comedy. Let that sink in for a moment. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Stolen Summer

Stolen Summer (2002) 

Directed by Pete Jones 

Written by Pete Jones 

Starring Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt, Kevin Pollak, Brian Dennehy 

Release Date March 22nd, 2002 

Published November 14th, 2002 

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Project Greenlight attempted to combine the reality TV genre with the art of filmmaking and the result was Pete Jones's childhood drama `` Stolen Summer. But was Project Greenlight a success?

The film stars previously unknown child actor Adiel Stein as Pete O'Malley, a misguided second grader who is concerned that he won't get into heaven. So Pete sets out on a quest and after he finds out that the Jewish people in his neighborhood weren't interested in being saved he sets about trying to convert them. Pete's theory is if he can help Jews get to heaven he can get himself in. So Pete sets up a lemonade stand outside the local synagogue to give away lemonade and talk about heaven. The Rabbi of the synagogue is Rabbi Jacobsen (Kevin Pollak) who finds Pete to be a little curious and after speaking to him takes to the odd little boy. Rather than being upset by the boy or trying in vain to explain the Jewish faith he simply accepts the kid's quest and figures he'll grow out of it.=

Aiden Quinn plays Pete's domineering father Joe who doesn't have time to keep track of what Pete's doing, with his job and seven other children. Pete's mother (Bonnie Hunt) is tolerant of it as long as he doesn't get in trouble. After a fire at the Jacobsen home where Joe saves the Rabbi's son Danny (MIke Weinberg), Pete strikes up a friendship with Danny while Rabbi Jacobsen seeks a way to repay Joe for saving his son. 

We quickly learn there is something wrong with Danny and it's revealed that he has leukemia, for Pete this means he has to find a quick way to get his friend into heaven. Since neither knows anything about religious conversion they agree on a series of athletic events, swimming, running and the like. Meanwhile Rabbi Jacobsen wants to pay back Joe's good deed by awarding Joe's oldest son Patrick (American Pie's Eddie Kaye Thomas) a college scholarship from the synagogue. Joe's pride however will not allow him to accept it to the great dismay of his son and his wife. Does Joe's pigheadedness come from anti-Semitism or just pride, we aren't certain.

So this is it, this is the best material of all the 7500 plus screenplays submitted. This is the one. It's not a bad screenplay, but it's not great either. The film has the feeling of a better than average TV movie. It is certainly not as interesting as the documentary of the film's creation which aired on HBO. The series Project Greenlight had all the best and worst elements of reality TV, short of having people voted off the set. The film Stolen Summer has none of that intrigue or passion. A production so fraught with drama should produce a better film than a movie that could fit easily into the wonderful world of Disney.

I will say this for Pete Jones and his crew, Stolen Summer is a technically solid film. The acting is sharp amongst the older actors, Pollak especially. Hunt and Quinn could do this material in their sleep, and to their credit they stay awake and give strong performances. Watching Aiden Quinn in Stolen Summer does make you long for the jerk he showed himself to be behind the scenes, the bravado, the backstabbing, the "why in the hell am I here?"

In the end the film is swallowed by the TV series and rather than watching Stolen Summer, audience members spend most of the film searching for the cracks in the armor that were obvious in the making of the documentary. We watched the film's one special effects scene to see if it turned out better than it did on TV. We watched the scene with the kids swimming knowing that it took forever to shoot and that the kids were freezing cold. The audience is unable to separate the film and its production and thus the film gets lost.