My dad didn’t feel well last night. He’s fine now… in fact he was fine by the time I woke up. But not well last night was reason enough not to go to New York City. We’ll try again Monday.
That left us with a full day to fill and not much to fill it with. Helaine suggested going to the movies – specifically Scoop, the latest from Woody Allen.
That in and of itself is pretty amazing, because Helaine feels there’s something inherently wrong with patronizing an auteur¹ who sleeps with his former stepdaughter. Point well taken. It’s tough not to find that skeevy.
At one point I was enough of a Woody Allen fan that when I saw Love and Death and didn’t enjoy it, I returned the next night to find out what was wrong with me!
This movie was a somewhat predictable, mainly enjoyable, little film shot in London and the English countryside. A de-glamorized Scarlett Johansson was wickedly sexy.
I had to ask ‘who he’ about Hugh Jackman. Give me an “L” for loser on that.
The story begins with Johansson’s trip to the stage – an audience member called to be magician’s assistant for The Great Splendini (Woody Allen). While ‘inside’ the magic trick she meets the freshly dead newspaper reporter Joe Strombel (Ian McShane).
He’s looking for a reporter, but Scarlett’s a journalism student – close enough. She ends up the recipient of a huge story of murder and money. That’s the scoop in Scoop.
If that was all there was it would have been a cute little movie.
What upset me (and I’m using upset as opposed to bothered, because upset conveys deeper angst) was Allen playing his ‘standard’ character, now an older man… oh hell…now an old man.
I remember him with Janet Margolin in Take the Money and Run and with Diane Keaton in nearly everything else. He was nerdy, dweeby, unattractive, but always got the girl. In this movie, the only way he gets the attention of the ingenue is by assuming the role of her father!
Maybe I’m more concerned for me than Woody? There’s a tendency to use the lives of others as our own benchmarks. Even though he’s a good 15 years older than me, I somehow saw him as a contemporary.
All this aside, it was an afternoon well spent for my wife, mother, father, me and the one other person in the theater for the 3:40 PM showing.
¹ – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The term auteur (French for author) is used to describe film directors (or, more rarely, producers or writers) who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable vision, either because they repeatedly return to the same subject matter, or habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme, or employ a recurring style, or all of the above. In theory, an auteur’s films are identifiable regardless of their genre. The term was first applied in its cinematic sense in Fran
As previously established, this being Christmas, and especially with Steffie in Florida visiting my folks, Helaine and I went to the movies. The chosen flick was “Something’s Gotta Give” starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, with Keanu Reeves and Amanda Peet.