Saturday, July 29, 2006

Scoop

We went to see Scoop, Woody Allen's new movie, yesterday. It's light and insubstantial. Very old- fashioned in some ways, almost like a color version of some old b&w comedy/mystery from the '40s. The plot is kind of silly, an amiable shaggy dog story, and any mystery fan is going to be onto it almost instantly. It relies on a non-scary ghost to kick it off, and I can't even begin to tell you the number of flaws in it. We liked it anyway. That's because Woody Allen's humor has always connected with me, and Judy gets it, too. Heck, we're still laughing about lines from Take the Money and Run, which we saw 40 years ago. ("I have a gub.") Hugh Jackman is appealing, and Woody's great at playing the old magician, Splendini, who poses as the father of Scarlett Johansson. His jokes are even older than the ones from Take the Money and Run, but some of them are very funny. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Johansson has finally won me over. She's much more interesting to me as a nerdy college journalism student than when she's tarted up the way she is for The Black Dahlia. I can't recommend Scoop, and I can see why it hasn't gotten great reviews. All I can say is that it made me smile and that I enjoyed it.

2 comments:

mtmorgan said...

I'm a bit of a lapsed Woody fan. I think Crimes and Misdemeanors was the last good film he did before Match Point, which is fantastic. Maybe his best. I'd like to see Scoop on the big screen if it ever comes around here. Which is unlikely. Good to see Woodman 's still in a criminous mood.

Unknown said...

Barely criminous, though.