A story you'll get only on...

Watched Scoop the other day. I'm not really a Woody Allen fan, and both Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman are just great to look at, but I haven't overwhelmingly loved any of their movies. I liked this one, though. The basic plot is that college student Scarlett teams up with magician Woody after getting a tip from a ghost that aristocrat Hugh might be a serial killer. It played mind games on its over-thinking audience --is he the murderer? No, it's his dad! No, it's the magician! No, it's the butler!

The film was definitely quirky (the dead are ferried on the River Styx into the afterlife). And there are some plot holes (for instance, how is the dead journalist able to keep coming back with more info for Scarlett and Woody?) It was a different kind of role for Scarlett Johansson, too, and I rather liked her in it; she got to be goofy, and not just sulky and mysterious and pretty like she is in most of her films. It was also kind of funny seeing how the costume people kept putting her in bulky, awkward, unfashionable outfits in an attempt to make her look unbeautiful. (Meanwhile, everything that Hugh wore was droolable.) The only beef I had was that Scarlett's character considers herself a journalist, and she's only in college. Nobody considers themselves a journalist yet if they only write for a small college paper. That was a little ridiculous.

A friend pointed out that it was kind of like the comedy version of Match Point. And it did have similarities. But I liked this one better.