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While I know that in the past I have made much feminist hay over women doing womeny things in women movies, it turns out that I don't particularly like it when women do manly things either. To wit: In Knight and Day—a flashy, silly, formulaic spy thriller starring Tom "I Swear That I Am Not a Gay Pygmy Shark" Cruise—Cameron Diaz's big face plays a lady with a big face who restores classic cars for a living. Now, I'm sure in the actual universe there are plenty of ladies with faces of all shapes and sizes who lug around knapsacks full of carburetors and deliver lines like "the drivey crank is blocking the wheely parts!" with extremely convincing aplomb. (Clearly, I am not one of those ladies.) But if Cameron Diaz is a capable auto mechanic, THEN I AM A BABY OTTER. And believe me, I am not. I have looked into it. The surgery is decades away.
Films that require suspension of disbelief of this magnitude—such as, to indulge in that ancient overindulged-in example, believing Denise Richards as a smart person (haw haw!)—just feel SO condescending. They smack of tokenism and overcompensation, and they bait people into saying exactly the kind of misogynistic crap that I'm saying right now. Can't Cameron Diaz just be, like, a lawyer with a big face? Or a greengrocer with a big face? Or an underpants model with a big face? Does it have to be an auto mechanic—a role for which she is so awkwardly, preternaturally unsuited? The implication winds up being: "Look at the woman pretending to do real things! Cute! It thinks it's people!"
Stranger Personals
Anyway. Knight and Day is fun enough—something like a toothless Bourne Identity, in which a federal superagent (Cruise) is pursued through the streets of fancy olde Europe for a crime he only sort of committed. Some sort of magic battery is involved, and the FBI is not to be trusted! Diaz plays some lady he picks up along the way who screams a lot. Paul Dano plays a nerd. The dialogue is sometimes funny and sometimes so terrible that you want to punch the screen to death. And the ending is wiiiiide open—practically tattooing into your flesh a reminder to check back in 2011 for Knight and Day 2: Knight at the Museum and then in 2012 for Knight and Day 3: Plagued by the Knight Terrors! and in 2013 for the hotly anticipated Knight and Day 4: Citizens on Patrol. (I ran out of puns, so that last one is a Police Academy reference. You're welcome.)
Above all, watching Knight and Day is a journey of self-discovery. Apparently, as it turns out, I LIKE TOM CRUISE. Ever since he emerged from his wet little pupa stage as a vacant, grinning, 24/7 Scientology commercial, I had completely forgotten this fact: Tom Cruise is a famous movie star because he is very charming and handsome. Who knew? And I don't care how much imaginary alien corpse dust he thinks is clinging to his hair and clogging up his emotions with space evil or whatever. Okay, I kind of care. That shit is ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as Cameron Diaz fixing my goddamn car. Yeesh. 
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Knight and Day 8: He has to prevent pirates from destroying a synagogue. (Knight Temple-Arr.)
Knight and Day 9: He enters a "Best Buns" contest. (Good Knight Moon.)
Obvious fantasy casting; but in Wonderland, Hollywood & Vancouver, they always have the so-called "brains" or "brainiacs" portrayed as far-sighted --- in other words, they always don their eyeglasses for reading and close-in work, when in reality virtually all inventors, geniuses, people who actually and actively create things at a higher mental realm, are nearsighted --- they may wear their glasses or lenses all the time, but they only require them for distance viewing.
THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE -- and it infuriates me.
The point for the movie, #7, is that everything is fantasy, so any farce attempting to portray "real life" which is completely Wonderland-mode today in Wonderland-Fantasy America, where a rightwinger is president and the faux news (Foxtard, NPR, CNN, Airhead America [Stephanie Miller's family involved in privatizing oil & gas in Afghanistanland]) reframes everything ad infinitum and therefore so-called reality movies look infinitely farcical.
Also, I would like to officially proposition Lindy West.
Knight and Day XXXIV: Do The Knight Thing?
Knight and Day CMMXVI: The Knite Runner? (The forced sodomy scene in that one is gonna be something!)
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Knight and Day 49: Knight Moves (Bob Seger does soundtrack)
Knight and Day 71: Deadly Knightshade (all perish)
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Knight and Day 89: Knight at the Roxbury
Knight and Day 90: Knight (they travel in time and join Elie Wiesel in Auschwitz in order to free him! a hilarious buddy comedy)
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Maybe you need to get out more.
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The fact that Tommy is a batshit crazy scientologist, Oprah-kneeling, cradle-robbing closet-case does not negate for a second that he has more screen charisma than 80% of male actors in Hollywood today. There is a reason he was the top banking star for the better part of two decades.
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I grant you that Cameron Diaz can be a pretty unconvincing actress playing anything except a Cameron Diaz, but in general, Lindy, you've got a shit ton of internalized sexism you need to work out.
Funny review, as usual. I want to see this movie for the Ducati Hypermotard. That bike has been on my short list for a while.
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Unfortunately, lazy script writers have kept going back to that dried up well ever since.
I went to see CD's and TC's very attractive faces (no matter how big or little) and watch silly, fluffy, escapist entertainment.
I'm not going to quibble about any of the myriad ridiculous implausible things in it. I'm just going to remember lines like "I've been trained to defuse a bomb armed with only a paper clip and a junior mint," and laugh.
check out the song "Lindy, Really" by Dana Cooper. A gorgeous singer/songwriter thing by a genius guy, and it's got your name all in it!
www.danacoopermusic.com
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Have you analyzed the heck out of the Twilight movies with series after series of melancholy teenie bopper vampires? Those movies are annoyingly unbelievable plus which why would anyone over 21 want to watch teenie vampires?
Tom and Cameron appeal to adults, not kids. Could adults please have a little entertaining fare at the movie theaters once in a while? I for one could not stand watching even 5 minutes of the vampire twilight series. I think Hollywood has vampired intelligent men & women to death with this nonsense.
Anyway, I still find Tom incredibly handsome, sexy and thrilling to watch in any kind of movie he wants to make. I enjoy Cameron because she is a brilliant comedienne. Please, Hollywood, send the kids to vampire nursery school and provide movies for adults.
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