Scoop
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Movie Reviews of Scoop
Movie Review: A Light Hearted Ghostly Murder Mystery
Summary: 4 Stars
4.5 stars
"Orson Welles once said that a great artist does his best work in his 20s and his 70s. He didn't get a chance to prove it, but Woody Allen, who turned 70 in December, has released two films since reaching that milestone, and so far, he's two for two. For some, "Scoop" will be a comedown after "Match Point," which was meticulous in all its particulars, something "Scoop" decidedly is not. But "Scoop" has something "Match Point" didn't, something that none of Allen's films have had to quite this degree in 10 years. It's really, really funny" Mark Lasalle
Scarlett Johannsen and Woody Allen team up in this comedy/mystery and they have chemistry. Woody Allan plays a magic performer from Brooklyn known as the Great Slandini. Scarllett Johannsen is Sondra, a journalism student from New York. While Sondra is in the audience watching Slandini she is picked as a helper for one of his acts. While in a box being "dematerialized" she is visited by a ghost, Ian McShane- He was on a death boat off to his Heaven, when he learns the name of the Tarot Killer. A former journalist himself, he must get the goods on the killer, and he meets Sondra in the box. Wild, stange, yes, but it fits and it is humourous. The story takes off from there- Sondra and Saldini team up to find the killer, and the story is full of twists and turns and lots of water.
Woody Allen has his turn. One of the best has Allen declare he was born to the Jewish persuasion but later converted to Narcissism.
Woody Allen plays his stereotypes to the hilt. Sondra is a ditzy blonde, who immediately falls for the charm of Hugh Jackman, Peter. Sid, Woody Allen, is an old wind-bag, who talks Brooklynese "from the bottom of my heart" and "with all due respect".
"Allen is a good example of how success is defined in the art world: Do something surprising and zeitgeist-y early in your career, then rip yourself off forever. (Allen, who has been around for a very long time, has reached the point where he's also allowed to rip off others.) Whatever fresh cultural nerves his comedy touched 30 years ago have long limped off into the sunset." Carina Chocano
There isn't anything new in this Woody Allen comedy, at least nothing he has not done before. But it works, it is funny and smart and England has been very,very good to Woody. Recommended. prisrob 1-27-07
Movie Review: Underrated
Summary: 4 Stars
Even third rate Allen is a few notches funnier than the best dreck Hollywood offers, and all Allen films get better with successive viewings. This tale- a bit over an hour and a half, uses several key themes in the Allen canon- sex, deceit, lies, murder, and magic, and also has much in common with 1993's underrated Manhattan Murder Mystery, his terrific 1984 film, Broadway Danny Rose- perhaps his best straight comedy, and some of 1989's Oedipus Wrecks- from the New York Stories trilogy film Allen did with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Johansson plays Sondra Pransky, a college student in England who is studying journalism. She is selected out of the audience by the Great Splendini (Allen), whose real name is Sid Waterman. What works well is that Johansson is a very good comedienne, and much more believable in this role than her role as the bitchy siren in Match Point. Unlike many other Woody persona stand-ins of the last twenty years, she handles his humor without aping the Woody persona (see John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway, Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity, or Will Ferrell in Melinda And Melinda), and may be the best Allen comedienne after Diane Keaton.... So, when you read negative reviews of this film, which might compare it to some of his decidedly lighter weight comedies like Small Time Crooks (which was still funnier than a Wayans family film), do not believe it. Scoop is a good movie- a very good movie, and in her second pairing with Allen, Scarlett Johansson proves that while she may never be the sex symbol/screen siren type in the Angelina Jolie/Halle Berry/Catherine Zeta-Jones mold, she can do comedy the way none of them can. And, since few have ever done comedy equal to or better than Allen, I predict an Oscar for her in the very near future- and, for a change, she may be the rare starlet who'll deserve such kudos.
As for Allen? Now with his Woody persona killed, one can only hope that the behind the scenes Allen will concentrate more on screenplays in the Match Point vein, and produce a few latter-day gems to bookend such Golden Era fare as Stardust Memories, Radio Days, and Crimes And Misdemeanors. And if Johansson is in a few, so much the better, for an Annie Hall for a younger generation could never be considered a bad thing.
Movie Review: By William Cuddy - Age 9 - Scoop
Summary: 4 Stars
Scoop
Scoop has comedy in almost every corner, a plot that seems elaborate but is simple for its viewers. I understand why all who watch it seem to get the giggles. It's an amazing film, but then again most of Woody Allen's films are funny and clever. Scoop mixes the suspense of his earlier movie, Match Point, with the current comedy of Scoop. The reality beats that of Casino Royale by far. Scoop's one-liners and physical comedy make it one of his funnier films. Some reviewers of his previous film, Match Point (such as Stylus Magazine), have given Scoop a bad review because they think it is too similar. This is not true, as Scoop follows quite a different story - for example, the appearance of Ghosts. It inflicts no damage on Allen's career. Now, onto the movie itself.
We start off with the death of the celebrity journalist, Joe Strombel, a reporter who is the foundation of the movie, and is the main cause of its beginning and end. We cut to a scene of Joe Strombel, and a group of people on a mangy boat. When we cut to the boat piloted by Death, it seems Strombel has been there almost an hour, and he has met a secretary. This secretary hands the scoop to Joe Strombel, and Strombel jumps off the boat to return to earth as a ghost. Earlier, Sondra Pransky, a journalist in training, had made off with a Film Director, and had now gone to see a Magician called Splendido (Sid in cast, and Woody Allen in life). She is picked to be put in a disappearing box (the kind that makes you disappear), and through that, she meets the deceased Strombel. Strombel tells her he had a giant scoop on his hands, saying that the mysterious Tarot card killer was Peter Limen, Lord Limen's son. But then Strombel mysteriously disappears, and when Sid, (Splendido) opens the box, Sondra had also disappeared; I believe this was a by-product of Strombel's disappearance. Sondra Pransky then drags Sid out to look at Peter Limen, the person who was supposed by Strombel to be the killer. She pretends to drown, and by then has, at that moment, won over his heart. I shall not spoil any more of the movie, for the sake of the pre-viewers. I give the film of which I have reviewed a great big comedic 9/10. I say, a Jolly Good film.
Movie Review: A Midsummer London Murder Sex Mystery or "Love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry":
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw "Scoop" in the theater when it was released and I liked it a lot but I am a Woody's addict, I need to get my fix and I'd be fine until he releases the next movie. I love him, I love his work but my love is not blind. I see that his new film is not original, it is not even secondary. He seems to read and re-read Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" lately and he uses the certain scenes and plot devices of the novel in his London period consistently and constantly. He uses the familiar elements of at least three his own earlier movies (but as he said himself - "if you have to steal, steal from the best") - I will not reveal them - there is a murder mystery after all :). Allen's rather sizable presence in the movie as the magician Sidney Waterman who reluctantly agrees to help an American journalism student Sondra Pransky (Scarlet Johansson) to investigate a big story involving a young and attractive aristocrat Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) who may or may not be a notorious serial killer known as "Tarot Card Serial Killer" could be seen as blessing or the failure. For those of us who love Woody not only behind the camera but in front of it, it is certainly the former. I personally was happy to see Allen playing once again the same role he's be doing so well for many years. I loved his one-liners, his physical comedy which is still good even if he looks his age and does not hide it. My love does not stop me from noticing the holes in plot so big that Woody's cute little "Smart" could've easily fell in one of them or from admitting that getting crucial information pertaining to investigation from a ghost is not the most elegant plot device but as I mentioned in the summary, "love means never having to say you're sorry". I am not sorry that I've seen "Scoop" in the theater with Allen's fans that laughed and had fun all along. For these who are not as hard core admirer as I am - here is a DVD.
Movie Review: A minor but pleasant Woody Allen comedy.
Summary: 4 Stars
Woody Allen's "Scoop" may tread all the director's familiar paths, but for those who like his work it's a pleasant, charming trip down Memory Lane. In "Scoop," the ghost of an ace Fleet Street investigative reporter (Ian McShane) returns from the dead to give a young, aspiring journalist (Scarlett Johansson) and a crackpot magician (Allen) his last scoop: a wealthy, aristocratic playboy (Hugh Jackman) may be the Tarot Card Killer, a maniac currently terrorizing London. There's absolutely nothing surprising about the mystery or the way it plays out; what matters here is the trademark Woody Allen shtick (frankly, Woody had me from the time he made his first bow as The Great Splendini) and how well he works with Johansson. Fortunately, they have great chemistry together, and, even more fortunately, it's a father-daughter kind of relationship. There's no intimation of romance between them, and Allen makes no attempt to hide his age. "What have you been putting in your Metamucil?" Johansson asks him at one point. Meanwhile, Allen has great fun playing the old vaudevillian trying (and failing spectacularly) to mix with high London society. "I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but soon I converted to narcissism," he says at one cocktail party. Allen and Johansson are pretty much the whole show; McShane and Jackman are basically the charming straight men to their antics, as are such stalwart members of British Rep as Charles Dance, Kevin McNally, John Standing, and Fenella Woolgar. "Scoop" is old-style, funny Allen, as opposed to the deadly serious Allen of his previous film, "Match Point." That may explain the unjustifiably savage reviews this admittedly minor but still enjoyable comedy is receiving. Either that, or Mia Farrow has packed the nation's film reviewing positions with her cronies.