Day 188: Scoop

51M9FYSPMRLThe time around, Scoop – the 37th movie Woody Allen directed – is a comedy.

But with Scarlett Johansson again.

’nuff said, eh?

Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

Only, I suppose I could add that Scoop, much like Anything Else, is another trifle, a relatively lightweight comedy about (according to its entry on IMDB):

An American journalism student in London [who] scoops a big story, and begins an affair with an aristocrat as the incident unfurls.

A kind of Greek chorus of death appears a few minutes into the film, a ship sailing in the fog captained by Death himself, with the late journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) on board, and trading anecdotes with a woman who tips him off to the scoop of his life – that socialite Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) is the Tarot Card killer.

Enter journalist Sondra Pransky (Johansson) who, through slightly supernatural means (enter Woody Allen as Sid Waterman, a magician named the Great Splendini), gets wind of the scoop – and goes after Peter Lyman.

I wouldn’t say Scarlett Johansson would ever win any acting awards for this movie. Frankly, I don’t think she’s all that good playing a coed cub reporter. But she’s Scarlett Johansson. And that’s good enough for me.