Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

Gol dernit this was good! I saw it a long time ago now but I would love to see it again! I usually scoff at stories involving amnesia as a literary tool. Amnesia doesn’t usually work in real life the way it works in movies. It’s either a flimsy pretext to make the story a mystery or it’s a deus ex machina for the climax when the character suddenly remembers everything in the third act and suddenly knows how to kick ass. Yeahhhhhh this is not much of an exception to that rule except the main character kind of knows how to kick ass right from the start. Even though she can’t recall her past, her muscle memory takes over in intense situations.

But this was good. Very intense and not super far fetched. I didn’t watch this with my tongue in my cheek and one eyebrow cocked. I didn’t have to suspend much disbelief to enjoy this for what it was. If I had to compare this to the Jason Borne movies (another amnesia mystery) I’d have to put The Long kiss Goodnight higher on the tier list. Jason Bourne seemingly has no one throughout his movies until he meets Franka Potente or Julia Stiles character and even Julia is kind of not trustworthy if memory serves. I think memory serves. Was Franka Potente and Julia Stiles in the Jason Bourne movies? It’s been a while. Oh no! Do I have amnesia!?! What a plot twist!

Gina Davis’ character on the other hand has a family when she comes to and so the stakes are apparently much higher for her. It makes for a more gripping story in my opinion.

Anywho, in the books Jason Bourne has amnesia for all of one chapter so I don’t know if it’s a fair comparison. Thus concludes my non-review of the Jason Bourne movies and books.

The Long Kiss Goodnight didn’t do well at the box office. I don’t remember what everyone was doing on the week of October 11th 1996 but clearly no one was watching this movie. Oh wait! I do remember! My Amnesia is cured!I went and saw That Thing You Do with my girlfriend at the time and her parents because we were freshmen in high school and needed chaperones apparently. That relationship never flourished and I think I can confidently blame it all on the film That Thing You Do. If we had gone to see The Long Kiss Goodnight things might have gone differently. It might have made an extra 20 bucks and been considered a success and Robert Ludlum would be forced to write something besides the Bourne series and That Thing You Do would have fallen into obscurity and no one would know who Steven Tyler’s daughter is and Arwen Evenstar would be played by Gina Davis!

The director pulled the “clearly no dudes want to watch a strong female lead and that’s why the movie did poorly” card but that concept was already proven to be BS by the 80’s with Aliens and so many other examples. The sexist card is always easy to play when your movie flops but it’s a garbage card and it’s just not true. In fact, it’s absurd.

I think the real reason this didn’t do well is because it was titled The Long Kiss Goodnight. Nothing about that title says this is an awesome action flick with a sexy Gina Davis! It says this is a long sleepy movie about kissing before bedtime with a non-sexy Gina Davis. They should have called it The Amnesiac Who Can Only Remember How to Kick Ass. Everyone and their mother would have gone to see that!