Movies with a twist

Recently, this quotation in a review of Angelina Jolie’s new movie, Salt, caught my attention: “Had a man played the lead role, which was originally written for Tom Cruise, Salt would have come off as dated and predictable. With a woman—with this woman—all the invincible-spy clichés feel fresh and fun again.”  The idea, it seems, is that a hackneyed movie is not hackneyed if it comes with a twist.  Based on this video describing the Bechdel Test (briefly, whether a movie has more than two named female characters, whether they talk to each other, and whether they discuss something other than men), it appears that when Hollywood has completely run out of ideas all they will need to do is change a few main characters from men to women in order to be hailed as innovative.

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