Scoop

[MacGuffin]

Woody Allen casts himself, Hugh Jackman in new movie

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Oscar-winning US filmmaker Woody Allen has cast himself and Australian actor Hugh Jackman to star in his new comedy that will begin filming in London next week, the industry press reported.

Legendary director Allen had already cast rising star Scarlett Johansson and veteran British actor Ian McShane in the movie which has not yet been titles and details of which remain under wraps.

The film, which begins shooting on June 27, is the second that the New York filmmaker has chosen to make in Britain instead of the Big Apple following last year's "Match Point," which also starred Johansson.

"It's a treat to be filming in London again," Allen told industry bible Daily Variety. "The weather is overcast and rainy, and so I'm in heaven," he said of the new backdrop to his movies.

"The film is a comedy melodrama that is contemporary and takes place in London," he said, revealing the first details of the project.

"Johansson plays a visiting American student who has a love affair with a British aristocrat. I play a low-grade American entertainer, which is perfect for me because that's what I am."

"X-Men" and Van Helsing" star Jackman will shoot the film before he reprises his role as Wolverine in "X3," the third instalment of the "X-Men" franchise that is due to be shot later this year.

Johansson, 20, shot to international fame as the star of     Sofia Coppola's Oscar-winning 2003 film "Lost in Translation," for which the actress won a Golden Globe nomination.

[modage]

poster for SCOOP here: http://www.blackfilm.com/20060203/features/scoop_p1.shtml

[MacGuffin]

Focus has 'Scoop' on Allen pic
Source: Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK -- "Scoop," the latest Woody Allen comedy starring Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson and the director, has been scooped up by Focus Features. The NBC Universal specialty division nabbed domestic, Australian and New Zea-land rights to the film, which is in postproduction and slated for release this year. Golden Globe winner Ian McShane (HBO's "Deadwood") rounds out the cast. The story centers on a college newspaper journalist (Johansson) who stumbles upon a sensational story while visiting friends in London. Along the way, she develops a romantic entanglement with a British aristocrat (Jackman).

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TRAILER: http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1433691&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300

[Pubrick]

great hair, glasses, truly a credit to her race.

[modage]

Focus Features has set Woody Allen's murder mystery comedy SCOOP for release on the prime summer slot of July 28th.

from the trailer, i'd say it looks like it will be a return to form for woody.  and by form i mean the limp awfulness of his recent work (barring Melinda & Match)!)

[Pubrick]

and by form i mean the limp awfulness of his recent work (barring Melinda & Match)!)

(his two most recent works)!

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thats why this is returning to the previous form. 

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

And God Created Scarlett
And Woody saw that she was good. Their second collaboration, Scoop, is just one highlight in a summer calendar jam-packed with cultural thrills.
By Logan Hill; New York Magazine



It's a classic summer dilemma: Nebbish guy meets beautiful girl—say, on a beach—and struggles to find some way, any way, to impress her. Not having washboard abs or bulging pecs or nonprescription sunglasses, he relies on what he does possess—smarts. Normally this story does not end well. But every once in a while (or so nebbish mythology tells us), the guy strives and strains to impress the girl and she, in turn, inspires him to come up with something extraordinary: a witty joke. Then the woman laughs, the two click, and something quite wonderful starts up between them.

Now, Woody Allen doesn't seem like he spends much time surfside. And Scarlett Johansson's idea of summer in the city is "to get inside as soon as possible," though she will be shuttling out to the Hamptons to film The Nanny Diaries (also why she's gone brunette). Furthermore, their flirtation is strictly professional, played out on London film sets rather than hot sand.

Still, you can't help imagining that Woody has been trying harder than ever to be funny for the sake of a beautiful woman—and it's paid off. His two films with Johansson, Match Point and the forthcoming Scoop (July 28), have been his best in years. Scoop is old-school Allen comedy—a murder mystery solved by an aging magician (guess who) and a naïve young blonde (Johansson)—peppered with vintage-Woody one-liners. On how he maintains his svelte figure, his character responds, "I never gain an ounce. My anxiety acts like aerobics." And then there's his religious biography. "I was born into the Hebrews," he stutters, "but as I got older, I converted to narcissism."

When asked if he wrote those lines to impress Johansson, Woody doesn't disagree—but he offers a caveat: "It's very hard to be extra witty around a sexually overwhelming, beautiful young woman who is wittier than you are. Anytime I say anything amusing, Scarlett tops me."

"It's our shtick," says Johansson, describing their update on the old Billy Wilder–Marilyn Monroe routine, in which Allen plays the mischievous old wiseacre and Johansson sunnily gives as good as she gets. After they hit it off on the set of Match Point, ribbing each other ceaselessly, Johansson told Woody she'd love to act with him onscreen—and Woody drummed up a script in a matter of months.

"He has a giant brain, which he says is due to the fact that he tried to impress the girls when he was younger," she says. "But that's not true. He has a genuine thirst for knowledge. And he's a very passionate person about work and music and all kinds of things—certainly about women."

Scoop is also a romance (with Hugh Jackman as the leading man, and not Woody, in case you were worried), and Johansson says she's been surprised to find that Woody's "actually very sweet and thoughtful and romantic, in his own strange way."

Of course, part of their shtick is that the two compliment each other to the point of absurdity. Allen, film's most famous atheist, has even said Scarlett was "touched by God." So has Scarlett made Woody a believer?

"I can only quote myself from the movie Manhattan," he says. "Scarlett is God's answer to Job. God would say, 'I've created a terrifying and horrible universe, but I can also make one of these, so stop complaining.' "

[Pubrick]

"Scarlett is God's answer to Job. God would say, 'I've created a terrifying and horrible universe, but I can also make one of these, so stop complaining.' "

OUCH for mariel hemingwho.

[MacGuffin]

Could Scarlett Johansson be Woody's next muse?

There's an undercurrent of deja vu coursing through Woody Allen's new comedy "Scoop," starting with its London setting.

But perhaps most significantly, Scarlett Johansson, the leading lady of Allen's last film, "Match Point," once again plays a displaced American woman -- though in "Scoop" she's more damsel in distress than femme fatale.

So is Johansson, 21, poised to become the director's next muse, succeeding Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow?

Allen enthused in a production notes interview that: "She's a total joy. It's like I hit the lottery or something."

He compared her to Keaton, who starred in Allen classics such as "Annie Hall" and "Sleeper."

"There are certain people I've worked with over the years -- Diane Keaton was one -- who were just hit with the talent stick and had it all. And Scarlett has got it all," Allen said. "It's a treat to work with her."

After years of filming nearly all of his pictures in New York City, Allen returned to the British capital, where he shot last year's dark drama "Match Point."

He also revisited the caper territory of "Manhattan Murder Mystery," which the director said was a favorite of his films.

In "Scoop" Johansson plays a student reporter named Sondra Pransky who gets a tip from a dead journalist ("Deadwood's" Ian McShane) who returns from the afterlife to ensure that his big scoop makes it into print.

The scoop is that an English lord's dashing son, played by Hugh Jackman, might be behind the "Tarot Card" serial killings terrorising London.

TRIBUTE OR OLD GROUND

Allen intended "Scoop" as a sort of tribute to "The Thin Man" and Bob Hope murder mysteries, then tweaked the genre by adding mystical elements that marked "The Purple Rose of Cairo" "Alice" and his segment of "New York Stories."

Early reviews have been mixed, with some grumbling about revisiting old ground, but Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as an "amusing if minor work that delivers many of the hallmark Woody Allen pleasures."

Allen, who used to cast himself as the romantic lead to far younger actresses, relegates himself to a comic role as a cut-rate magician Splendini (real name Sid Waterman), who ends up posing as Johansson's father to help find the killer.

The rising actress, known for quirkily diverse projects such as "Lost in Translation," "Girl with the Pearl Earring" and "Ghost World," and the veteran director said they had so much fun on the set of "Match Point" that Allen set about writing another project in which they could co-star.

"She leaves me for dead," Allen said.

Johansson said making "Scoop" was a joy: "It is definitely reflective of the sort of banter that Woody and I have," she told reporters in New York promoting her second Allen film, which opens on July 28.

"It was like going back to summer camp," she said.

Promoting the film, however, was more of a trial.

Her famous whiskey voice went flat when the subject turned to her boyfriend, actor Josh Hartnett, her co-star in the upcoming Brian De Palma thriller "The Black Dahlia."

"I just don't talk about any part of my private life," she said, adding that there were more important topics, such as Iraq, for people to focus on.

"It's nice to have everybody not know your business."

[Chest Rockwell]

I had a chance to catch this the other day. It was a surprisingly packed theater, which made the experience a little more cozy as I was flying solo that night. Anyway, I had been highly anticipating this movie since I thought Match Point was simply amazing (no, not just because of Scarlett Jo), but the trailer didn't really make it seem all that great so my feelings as it was starting were decidedly mixed. However, after walking away from the movie I can only think to myself that was another great Woody Allen movie. Despite the problems at the theater, including darkened portions of the screen for several minutes and clicking noises and finally the movie stopping for a few minutes during the climactic "revelation" (pretty tense few minutes there while we were waiting, both and I and the whole theater were so into the movie. Rarely did a line fall flat and, when the credits started rolling, there was applause. And rarely does that sort of thing happen at my viewings.

For a real "review," I think this and Melinda and Melinda are a signal of a return to form for Woody. I thought Melinda was all-around pleasant, certainly better than his recent slew, and Match Point was just something totally special. This isn't at the same level as Match Point, in my opinion, but it is one of Woody's best comedies in years. Sure, it's not incredibly original especially when compared to his own work, but I didn't see that as a fault, more a fitting end to his acting career (he apparently has said that he wil no longer be acting in his movies) and a warm goodbye. The casting is perfect, however neither McShane or Jackman aren't given a lot of material to work with, and a few of Scarlett's lines aren't delivered well (oddly enough, I thought the trailer showcased most of them) but as a whole her performance is great, and I never had that feeling that I knew it was Scarlett Johansson. She and Woody share some incredibly funny banter, and their chemistry is part of the glue that holds this movie together so well.

I can understand where people might not like the movie, especially for Woody fans who might feel like they've seen it all before, but I was sharing laughs with the audience all the way through and yet was also intrigued by the mystery the two stars are investigating. I recommend it.

PS. Hi guys.

[w/o horse]

A strong start that sort of bevels away into a feeling of more Woody Allen.  And then takes itself too seriously.  If you thought Match Point was a bad step, go see Monster House instead of this one.

[Chest Rockwell]

I didn't see the movie taking itself too seriously, ever. I've seen it three times currently and each time I thought it was simply lightweight disposable cinema. Allen didn't craft it as a murder-mystery: there isn't any sort of morality tale as there was in Match Point and murder is a much lighter subject, there isn't a pervading sense of mystery or tension, and the "twist" isn't even really a twist. I view the film as a comedy with the backdrop of the murder-mystery and we the audience are simply in for the ride, so to say.