One Scoop or Two? None - 藝術電影

伍迪愛倫的新片介紹 時代雜誌影評

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1220504,00.html

Monday, Jul. 31, 2006
One Scoop or Two? None
Woody Allen's new comedy-mystery is missing a couple of key ingredients:
comedy and mystery
By RICHARD CORLISS

A 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.

The gentleman under suspicion is Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), a moneyed chap
who is polite to the point of blandness--the white bread of the 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.

To say 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).

That leaves comedy, and here the movie fails utterly. Lately, Allen's gags
have been small, sad efforts, not the gut-grabbing, head-hurting zingers of
his youth. Maybe fate grants any man only a certain number of great jokes,
and Allen, 70, exhausted his allotment long ago. Yet he remains addicted to
the form well after losing the aptitude.

At this late stage in a long career, Allen might consider not trying to make
films like the early, funny ones. Instead he should aim simply to match Match
Point.

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