Word: allenate
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...handsome, charming Brit with a possible corpse or two in his closet: this was the premise of Match Point, Woody Allen's sharpest film in ages and his first to crack $20 million at the domestic box office since Hannah and Her Sisters. Allen must have thought it was worth a replay, with Scarlett Johansson again serving as the love interest. Hence Scoop, which twists Match Point's rogue's-progress plot into a kind of detective story and its tone from scathing social drama into what must officially be labeled comedy...
...English upper crust. Through a device too silly to be mentioned here, he comes to the attention of Sondra Pransky (Johansson), an American college student abroad. She believes Peter may be the infamous Tarot Card Killer who has been murdering prostitutes. Her co-sleuth is Sid Waterman (Allen), a not-so-hot magician who masquerades as her oil-rich father...
...that Allen's new film is pretty lame does not exactly qualify as a, well, scoop. That verdict has become distressingly routine. The new movie recalls older, better ones in its attempts at fantasy and its cameo by Death, but it is deficient as a mystery (it leaves unsolved the premature death that sets the tale in motion) and as a character study (we haven't a clue about what makes Peter tick...
...subsequently falls for—while investigating a string of murders. Most of Allen’s skittishness seems to be rooted in the loss of the mutual understanding he had with New Yorkers, and the need to find something similar in London. A few delightful moments of Woody Allen 101 ensue, as when he explains to a British Lady, “I was born into the Hebrew faith, but I converted to narcissism.” As unexpected culture shock sets in, Allen betrays an apprehension about being culturally accepted by Londoners that never seemed to surface...
...with his other leading roles, Allen’s Sid isn’t so much a character as an extension of Allen himself, a manifestation of the anxiety that ripples through the film’s director. For once, that anxiety might be justified: the end of the film suggests that, while Sondra’s brusque American charm could breathe some welcome life into the London elite, cynical New Yorkers of Allen’s generation might not have a place in European high society...