SCOOP

Director: Woody Allen (You might have heard of him)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen, Hugh Jackman

Match Point and Scoop are the Yin and the Yang of Woody Allen. They are two movies that cover the exact same ground (the English class system) in two radically different ways. Also, one of them happens to be extraordinarily good, and, well, the other one isn't. Match Point was the good one, by the way.

Unfortunately, nearly everything in Scoop feels disposable. I have a feeling that while working on Match Point Johansson and Woody Allen felt so positive about the film that they decided to do another in short order. Allen then hurredly cobbled together a script based on one of his B-grade ideas for the Match Point plot. Voila! We have Scoop.

I feel badly for Mr. Allen after seeing this film. I felt Match Point was one of the best screenplays I'd seen in many moons. His followup Scoop, however, was an atrocious bit of writing. Plot points are hurried, random and often nonsensical. Hugh Jackman's character was, well, nonexistant as a character. He was simply an occasional bit of dialog to keep things moving along. Johansson's character was a double whammy of not-very-well-written and not-very-well-acted. Allen's character existed as pure schtick, usually only borderline funny (although I did laugh out loud a few times). Even the visuals are far poorer in this film.

The plot follows Johansson as college journalism student led by the ghost of an erstwhile great reporter (Ian McShane) to investigate a spate of serial killings. The ghost got the scoop while in the beyond and needed someone, anyone, to check out the possibility that a young English lord (Jackman) may be the killer. Allen's along for the ride as a low-grade traveling magician. Although frankly, I still don't know how Allen got along for the ride in this story. Somehow, he just ended up tagging along and pretending to be Johansson's father during the investigation.

Generally, I found this story to be a cute idea with much potential for hilarity. Like most things, however, the devil is in the details and Scoop was overrun by a thousand little devils. I should note that Allen's classic neurotic Jew character does feel warm and comfortable in this film. He's done it a few dozen times by now, and as I said there were a few laugh-out-loud moments tucked here and there amongst the story. Johansson and Jackman are perfectly talented actors and even though their characters didn't really work, neither actor really let them fail either. There were certainly some bits here and there to enjoy.

Standouts: Nothing stood out, unfortunately.
Blowouts: The script. I'm not sure if any actors could have lifted this script above its high degree of averageness.

Grade: C

WORDPLAY

Director: Patrick Creadon (First major release, TV work including Maxim's Hot 100 ...)
Starring: Documentary including Will Shortz, Bill Clinton, John Stewart, puzzle solvers

Wordplay is a cute little documentary for the nerds among us who love crossword puzzles. Really, that's it. I could stop writing this review right now, and you would absolutely have the gist of the film.

The best documentaries often take a topic and then focus on the struggles of the people who happen to swirl around that topic. Some good ones (like Michael Moore's films) are purely visual editorial, more like journalism than story-making. This one is somewhere in the middle. It's a light-hearted little film that introduces characters to us (the nerds who love crosswords puzzles), but doesn't really tell us about them. It tries to claim that puzzles give a sense of home to dweebs around the country, but I don't know if I can really buy that notion. Mostly it just shows them doing puzzles and talking about why they like puzzles, and it works. I probably should mention I am one of those aforementioned dweebs who likes crossword puzzles. Been doing 'em for years. In ink. Any other way would be morally wrong. I don't know why, but it would.

The first half of this documentary introduces us to Will Shortz, the editor of the New York Times crossword puzzles (the gold-standard of puzzledom). It also details those who actually write the puzzles (called constructors apparently), and intercuts this education into the world of puzzle-making with cute interviews with famous puzzle-solvers, including John Stewart, Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls and Mike Mussina. This is the better half of the film, I think, at least for someone interested in these things. Hearing Clinton relate puzzle-solving to solving social issues once again made me think of how great a president he could have been. If he only could have stayed away from shady financial transactions and kept little Clinton tucked away, I think he certainly would have made the pantheon of notable leaders. I suppose he really would have needed a war or something as well, but I digress.

The second half of the film follows a group of puzzle-solvers in the yearly competition run by Shortz in a Marriott in Connecticut. These people are nuts! And I mean Nuh-Uts! They catalog their puzzle-solving times in huge ledgers, and try as hard as they can to do them faster and faster. Surprisingly, there's even a bit of drama in the competition itself, but I won't spoil that for you.

So anyway, this film doesn't really tell us about the lives of puzzle players, it touches on it. We know they're nerds. We know that these people come to the competition as much for comraderie as for a desire to be the best. In the end we don't know much more than that. Being a puzzle fan I did find the film interesting. I suppose that's enough. This was a cute film, engaging if puzzles seem interesting to you.

Standouts: The puzzles.
Blowouts: The competitor who does the thing that I can't tell you about. A bone-up for the ages. D'oh!

Grade: B+

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Director: Bryan Singer (X-Men I & II, The Usual Suspects)
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey

As a child I was not a comic book fan. I never bought a single pulpy issue. As an adult movie fan, though, there's just no way to avoid the swarm of summer blockbuster superhero flicks. Some I've liked, most I've tolerated, and a few I've found so bad as to be insulting to the audience.

Director Singer's X-Men superhero movies were tolerable to likable enough summer entertainment, although nothing special. His Superman superhero movie lives in the same rather unexceptional place.

Superman Returns follows in the footsteps of the earlier Christopher Reeve films despite the new actors. The plot involves Superman "returning" to Earth after a 5 year hiatus while he searched the cosmos for his missing home world, Krypton. Lex Luther (Spacey) has been released from prison by a rather unbelievable legal point, and is intent on creating a new continent so that he can control the real estate market there. Yes, this follows in the tradition of over-the-top schemes of Lex Luther past, but for whatever reason I simply found this plot dumb, rather than cute and comicly overdone.

Superman saves the day, while continuing to ineptly chase Lois Lane (Bosworth in a wig). This despite Lane becoming a wife and mother while Superman was absent.

In tone and atmosphere this Superman was created to be as close to the Christopher Reeve version as possible while perhaps still being recognizable to the Smallville audience. Brandon Routh seems to have been chosen for his physical resemblance to Reeves, and there's no doubt Routh used him as a template for his role. Truth be told, however, Reeves was the far superior personality. He had a comic wit in his Superman that mostly eludes Routh. Spacey's Lex Luther was probably the biggest difference between the 1978 Superman and this version, however. The humor seems to elude him as well. Gene Hackman's supervillian was a highlight in the earlier film. There was no doubt his character was a silly, silly role and Hackman played it accordingly. This Lex Luther just isn't as well done.

Overall there is a so-so positive vibe about this picture. It tried for the overdone whimsy of the earlier Superman films (which generally worked, but less effectively than before), but couldn't quite keep the overly dramatic "fate-of-the-earth-hangs-in-the-balance" tone out of the film. In the earlier films we all knew Superman was going to save the day. Here they really want to show the weaknesses that he has, and that maybe, he just might not save the day. Frankly, Superman not saving the day would be a travesty of epic proportions. So why bother pretending.

Standouts: Nothing much really stood out, but little was horrible either.
Blowouts: Too long by 20 minutes. Routh and Spacey didn't compare to Reeves and Hackman.

Grade: C+

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

Director: David Frankel (TV work, notably Sex in the City)
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci

I am a guy indoctrinated into Sex and the City by girls, I'll admit it. It took 5 or 10 episodes for the show to sink in, but eventually I got it. Eventually, I even liked it. Sex and the City is (was) a good show.

I note this because the Devil Wears Prada is Sex in the City for teenagers, and I mean precisely. Nearly every detail that contributed to the TV show's success was lifted and only slightly shifted for the teenage audience. These crowd-pleasing bits were then gently folded into a stereotypical teenage plot and voila, we've got a new movie. By teeanage plot, I'm thinking of the hundreds of kids flicks that more or less have the same plot, but just move the setting around from one kid activity to another (Karate Kid - martial arts, Drumline - band geekdom, Airborne - rollerblading, Gleaming the Cube - skateboarding).

In this film the kid (or young adult as it may be) goes to New York (that city that every kid in America just thinks is the coolest place in the world) and makes the big time in her chosen arena (fashion). So, this film is mundane, predictable, cookie-cutter. It should be awful, right? Well, no, it's not. It's actually quite good. Just between you and me, here's why: good acting. Really good acting.

Yes every character in this film was well done, and character is usually what it's all about in the end. Meryl Streep was wonderful as the absurdly arrogant and self-involved fashion magazine boss. Anne Hathaway was wonderful as the little girl struggling through her big dreams. Stanley Tucci was wonderful as the friendly (and talented) gay confidant that takes that girl under his wing. Even Emily Blunt was wonderful as little Anne Hathaway's competition for the big dream job.

The story follows Hathaway as a bright college grad who takes a job as an assistant to Streep's powerful (in the fasion world) magazine boss. She's the fish out of water who eventually learns to thrive in her new environment thanks to some wardrobe advice from Tucci. There are struggles with her boyfriend over her new lifestyle and struggles with her competition in the workplace (Emily Blunt), but in the end she realizes that she's not been true to herself. She learns that as enticing as the fast paced world of international fashion might be, she simply can't bring herself to throw away all she believes in to have fun and look pretty in life. So there you go.

So back to Sex in the City for a moment. I tend to think that that show worked not because it was set in that city of teenage American dreams (New York), or because it focuses on fashion, or because it focuses on sex. Well, at least it didn't work entirely because of these things. I think it worked because it had well-written, well-acted, engaging characters that we cared deeply about. So since this film also had interesting, engaging characters I guess that The Devil Wears Prada really did get the best parts from Sex in the City thing right.

A well-done teenage flick. Meryl Streep is probably the best actor working today.

Standouts: Acting (particularly Streep and Tucci) and cute little kid's story.
Blowouts: Like fashion itself, this story itself is mostly a pretty veneer. It just doesn't delve too deeply below the surface. I.e. It's a kid's flick.

Grade: B+

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Director: Gore Verbinski (Pirates I, The Weatherman, The Mexican)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightely, Stellen Skarsgaard

Argh, me matey, prepare to have thy buckle swashed. Of course, compared to the original Pirates there is fair shake less buckle-swashing in this most sequel-like of sequels. If said swashing is your thing, however, I think there's still enough to please in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

As a fan of the original Pirates, I was at least marginally interested in seeing this film. Oh, I know, sequels almost universally suck - especially those of the summer blockbuster variety. But I don't know how I could ever enjoy movies without a bit of self-delusion going in. If I didn't arrive at every movie thinking that Hollywood wasn't going to treat me like mindless cattle, I'd never have a positive attitude about any film.

Unfortunately, I'm sad to report that uber-producer Mr. Bruckheimer chose to go the craptastic sequel route in Dead Man's chest, at least partly - the most obvious defining characteristics of a craptastic sequel being "bigger", "broader", and "louder". Oh, if we break it down by time, I could say that the majority of this blockbuster sequel was actually not bad. The first 90 minutes or so were perfectly acceptable blockbuster entertainment, if not up to the level of the original. I found the final hour to be a CGI mess, however. Gone was the rip-roaring pirate adventure and in its place was ridiculously overdone (and not in a funny way) computer effects. I'm not talking about cool ghostly pirates here either. I'm talking about giant CGI kraken, exploding ships, slow motion bullets and characters suddenly becoming dumber. You know, bigger monsters, broader characters, louder explosions. Yes, Bruckheimer replaced some of the joy and adventure of the first film with predictable sequel suckiness. Sad. Very, very sad for a fan. Oh well.

I'll add that there's no way a silly summer pirate movie should run 2 1/2 hours. During the final half hour I was almost desperately wishing that I needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately I didn't have to. Dry as a bone. I guess I should have had a $5 coke with my gummi-worms. Yes, I'm embarrassed to say I had gummi-worms. Uh, where was I going with this?

Anyway, in terms of plot Pirates Deux was the tale of Davy Jones (voiced by Bill Nighy as some sort of otherwordly CGI squid-man) chasing Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow. Captain Jack had made a deal with the devil (or Davey Jones in this case) some years before and now it was time to pay up. After a fair amount of zaniness (Depp's escape from becoming dinner for some natives, for instance) and some double-crossing of the other stars by Depp's shady character, the film finishes with the big, broad, and loud action numbers I mentioned previously.

As for the acting, Depp gives fine repeat performance of his erstwhile highly original Jack Sparrow character. Bloom and Knightley are perfectly acceptable, if unmemorable, in their small co-lead roles. Perhaps going against the grain of other reviews, I was actually somewhat disappointed by the bad guys in this episode. I found Geoffrey Rush to be on equal footing with Depp in the first film in terms of performance. His ghostly pirate captain was a great part of that first film's success me thinks. Unfortunately, I found Davey Jones and his crew in this film to be far more weird and ugly than captivating.

So, overall, this was a marginally engaging sequel to a blockbuster. On the Sequel Scale I would say it's better than Ghostbuster's II or Look Who's Talking II, but not quite at Star Trek II.

Standouts: Fun zaniness early on, more excitement from the interesting world of Caribbean Pirates and Disney rides.
Blowouts: Dumb overuse of CGI explosions and monsters. I blame Bruckheimer.

Grade: B-

A GET WELL CARD TO THE EBERT

I grew up watching Siskel and Ebert. Well, at least I have some fond memories of watching their show. They were always shown opposite info-mercials on lazy Sunday afternoons, and were the perfect compliment to the overstuffed sleepy feeling I'd have at that time. We'd visit Grandma, eat far too much, and laze about for a while watching Siskel and Ebert call each other idiots because one or the other liked Top Gun. I seem to recall switching to their show immediately after reruns of The Wild Wild West, another bit of nostalgia I'll wax rhapsodic about some other time.

Anyway, Ebert was the better reviewer (as the Pulitzer he won should attest), but Siskel was probably the more engaging personality. I already miss Mr. Siskel (sorry Roeper, I'm sure you're a fine reviewer, but for me you're simply a placeholder on the show), and I'll miss Mr. Ebert when he's gone.

But I hope I won't have to miss him for some years to come. Get well.

THE MATADOR (DVD)

Director: Richard Shepard (a few low-budget films, TV work)
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis

One of the joys of cinema is surprise. The best surprises are when you see a work that heralds new talent, like seeing Pulp Fiction or Scorsese for the first time. The Matador was a surprise to me, although certainly not in the same way as Pulp Fiction. Knowing that this story was about a hitman and starred Pierce Brosnan, I was half-expecting yet another suave character along the lines of his James Bond, or Thomas Crowne. Even his wonderfully dirty spy in The Tailor of Panama had a sheeny veneer of class. Conversely, from the trailers I'd seen on The Matador I was expecting a comedy. The sad, lonely character that actually lived in this film was partly both, and party neither. It was a surprise to me, and in a good way. This was Brosnan's best performance to date.

The story briefly follows a hitman (Brosnan), lonely and drunk most of the time, as he starts up a friendship with Greg Kinnear's run-of-the-mill salesman traveling on business to Mexico City. Brosnan admits what he is to someone else for the first time, and Kinnear gets the best cocktail party anecdote of his life as he pals around with an assassin for a few days.

Oh, off course they meet again. Soon enough, Brosnan's character completely collapses emotionally, and is unable to continue killing people. In fact he finds himself targeted for death. He runs off to Kinnear, as his only friend, and they try to rectify the situation.

From beginning to end this film had an odd (and in this case I mean unique) tone. It certainly had an aura of standard spy fare, especially with Brosnan playing the lead. The story was never what you'd call "deep", neither in plot, nor even in character. There are a few killings and a fair amount of debauchery. But the sad, lonely, foolish drunk of a character that Brosnan created remains interesting through it all. He may not be deeply written, but he is deeply evoked by the actor. The film is at times quite funny, but most often it seems regretful. Given the choice there's no doubt Brosnan's character would not live the same life again.

This was not a great film. It was a good one, however. Best of all, at no time was this film what I expected, and that surprise is a good thing.

Standouts: Brosnan's character. He was the entirety of the story.
Blowouts: In my opinion the story didn't get the things outside of his character quite right (including Kinnear's and Davis' roles). A lot of things didn't quite ring true to me.
Grade: B