Scarlett Johansson - FILM & TELEVISION REVIEW

Profile: Scarlett Johansson Part 2

_{Scarlett Johansson & Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (2003)}

In 2003 Johansson also appeared in the astonishingly popular Lost in Translation with Bill Murray. An unconsummated Spring/Winter love affair that begins in a hotel bar in Japan is both morose and comforting. Getting the irony of the title leads us to A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004).

**Scarlett Johansson, John Travolta & Gabriel Macht in A Love Song for Bobby Long** **(2004)**

Alcohol is not a medicine for melancholy, as is certainly made clear in this strangely gripping romantic tale of a disillusioned writer and one of his past students as they swelter away in a fog of denial. Pursy (Scarlett Johansson) arrives and brings some sort of sanity to a situation that is cloyingly self destructive as the three bond into a nearly functional family unit.

Like Ghost World, A Love Song for Bobby Long is character driven with actors that demand your attention with finely honed performances. Pursy becomes the center of this universe from the moment she enters the film, gliding around Travolta’s and Macht’s characters with a confidence that is unburdened by expectation.

_{Scarlett Johansson in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2005)}

Some narratives burn, some broil, but under Shainee Gabel’s direction the story simmers like a jambalaya. Gabel’s screenplay, based on the novel by Ronald Everett Capps, takes its time and lets the characters move naturally. There is not a scene or a sentence that is out of place. This is another showcase for Johansson’s talent that pits her opposite actors that she not only keeps up with, but surpasses.

_{LEFT: Scarlett Johansson & John Travolta RIGHT: Gabriel Macht, Scarlett Johansson & John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)}

The Perfect Score (2004) is a misfire with a talented cast. Fortunately, it didn’t hold anyone back. Both Johansson and Chris Evans survived to act another day.

The Island (2005), directed by Michael Bay, stars Johansson as Jordan Two Delta and Ewan McGregor as Lincoln Six Echo in a future that is as sterile as the the script. The leads are the only thing the film has going for it. It is yet another fiery distraction by the director that brought you Bad Boys II.

_{LEFT: Ewan McGregor & Scarlett Johansson RIGHT: Ewan McGregor, Scarlet Johansson & Steve Buscemi in The Island (2005)}

Her next film is the first of three films she would appear in directed by Woody Allen. In Match Point (2005), Johansson is opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Emily Mortimer in what turns out to be a mystery with a strong Dial M for Murder vibe.

_{LEFT: Emily Mortimer & Jonathan Rhys Meyers RIGHT: Scarlett Johansson &} _{Jonathan Rhys Meyers} _{in Match Point (2005)}

In her second film with Allen, she is again drawn into a mystery, but this time Allen stars as a hokey magician who inadvertently gets involved in an investigation instigated by a deceased reporter. The film also features Hugh Jackman. As usual, Allen manages to pull it off with a flourish.

_{Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson & Hugh Jackman in Scoop ( 2006)}

Scoop (2006) succeeds as light comedy that features Johansson as the one doing the investigating and dragging Allen’s character deeper into the fray. Allen wrote the script with Johansson in mind. It was because while working with her on Match Point, he saw a comedic side to her that he wanted explore.

_{Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett & Hilary Swank in The Black Dahlia (2006)}

Brian De Palma, much like Quentin Tarantino sometimes becomes so focused on what he is emulating that he fails to ever reach the heart of the matter. Their so called homages are just quick copies that retain the luridness and violence but reproduce none of the substance. Such is the case with De Palma’s The Black Dahlia (2006); a disappointing criss cross of a film noir that confuses plotting with shuffling cards. Scarlett Johansson is wasted, and even Hilary Swank’s incredible performance can’t save the film.

Speaking of shuffling cards, Christopher Nolan’s dazzling The Prestige (2006), brings the magic back in a big way with a well written and produced story of competing magicians. Johansson turns in another fine performance along with Michael Caine, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Piper Perabo, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, and David Bowie.

**LEFT: Michael Caine & Scarlett Johansson RIGHT: Scarlett Johansson & Hugh Jackman in The Prestige (2006)**

Facts, Rumors & Hearsay

Match Point

Match Point is Woody Allen’s favorite of his own films.

In a nod to Alfred Hitchcock, a playbill showing Woody Allen’s face in deadpan is briefly seen as Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) arrives at the Tate museum to meet Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson).

The painting of a girl with a red balloon on the wall that Chris walks along was done by Banksy, the graffiti artist from Bristol.

Scoop

Sidney Waterman (Allen) foreshadows his own death the evening that he and Sondra Pransky (Johansson) follow Peter Lyman (Jackman), whining that he won’t drive in London because he’s “…afraid he’ll die in a crash.”

The Island

Robert S. Fiveson, director of The Clonus Horror (1979), filed a copyright infringement suit against DreamWorks and Warner Brothers. The lawsuit cited almost one hundred points of similarity between Clonus and this film, and the court ruled that Fiveson made a prima facie case for infringement. DreamWorks settled before the case could go to trial, for an undisclosed seven-figure amount.

The original script was set one hundred years in the future, but they kept bringing it closer to the present for budgetary reasons.

The Prestige

Prestige originally meant a trick, from the Latin praestigium, meaning illusion.

This is one of three 2006 movies to feature magic and magicians as main characters. The other are The Illusionist (2006) and Scoop (2006), which also starred Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman.

NEXT

Frankenstein’s Birth & Dracula’s Shadow: Gothic

Gothic (1986)

Directed by Ken Russell

Screenplay by Stephen Volk

CAST: Gabriel Byrne (Lord Byron), Julian Sands (Percy Shelley), Natasha Richardson (Mary Godwin), Myriam Cyr (Claire Clairemont), Timothy Spall (Dr. Polidori).

Rated R 1h 27min

Ken Russell’s pyrotechnic and more than a little hallucinatory biopic focuses on a night spent at Lord Byron’s Villa Diodati in Switzerland, and the antics of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin, Claire Clairmont, Dr. John Polidori , and their host, the enigmatic, Lord Byron. This was the night that a horror story contest was suggested which in time led to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Polidori’s Vampyre (1819). It is interesting to note that both the Frankenstein monster and the fictional vampire were born of the same night. Out of one night of revel, two horror tales were brought to life.

**Natasha Richardson & Julian Sands in *Gothic* (1986)**

It is a fictionalized telling, but much of it is based on the known facts and speculation about what went on at Villa Diodati on that singular night. The cast is well up to the task of portraying Byron and his guests. Byrne is both ingratiating and sinister; Shelley is nearly mad, and drinking laudanum during the proceedings with spectacular results; Mary is the rational yet jealous wife; Claire is entirely the mad mistress and spurned woman. Dr. Polodori is the very wild card. Certainly, much of it had to be imagined and that is where screenwriter Volk’s and director Russell’s own creative madness takes hold and spins a tale of lust, jealousy, guilt, and regret.

**Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson & Timothy Spall** **in *Gothic* (1986)**

Polidori’s story was the first fictional vampire story; although vampires were mentioned in non-fiction writing as far back as 1718 in the Treaty of Passarowitz, where the local practice in Serbia and Ottenia of exhuming bodies and “killing vampires,” was mentioned. The first appearance of the word vampyre in English would be in 1732 in news reports about epidemics of vampirism in eastern Europe.

_{CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:} _{Julian Sands & Natasha Richardson / Myriam Cyr / Myriam Cyr & Natasha Richardson}_{in in Gothic (1986)}

The next vampire tale to be published would be Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella, Carmilla. It would be part of the influence for the German film, Vampyre (1932) which came out a year after Tod Browning’s, Dracula (1931). Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula was published in 1897 twenty-five years after Carmilla. It is certain that the creator of Dracula was influenced by his predecessors in terror.

**Illustration from *Carmilla* by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)**

Frankenstein is the more famous of the two tales that gestated on that strange evening where a contest for the best horror story powered a kind of chilling paranoia that brought out the worst and the best from all in attendance. All of it is gleefully imagined and brought to life in Gothic.

This is an excellent film for anyone interested in the legend of George Gordon, Lord Byron as well as those curious about the influences that spurned such a young woman to create so imaginatively terrifying a novel in that particular time and place.

Facts, Rumors & Hearsay

Director Cameo: Ken Russell and his family are on the tour boat at the end of the film.

When Shelly comes down from the roof and expresses his obsession with lightning, Byron calls him “Shelly, The Modern Prometheus,” which would become part of the original title for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Lady Caroline Lamb on Lord Byron.

Profile: Scarlett Johansson Part 1

After many delays, Black Widow finally reached theaters and streaming on July 9th! Those of us who have followed Scarlett Johansson’s career were thrilled by the long awaited telling of the Black Widow’s origin. Adding yet another hit to her long line of films as she bids farewell to the Marvel Universe: Johansson is supported by Florence Pugh in a breakout action role that may place her in the lead role of Black Widow in future Marvel projects. Moving forward, Johansson has done the voice of Ash in Sing 2 which is completed and due in December. She is rumored to be cast as Audrey in a remake of Little Shop of Horrors along with Avengers co-star, Chris Evans, and is cast in and is also a producer on Bride (a free standing update of The Bride of Frankenstein from Universal). Both films are in pre-production.

**Scarlett Johansson, Mary Kay Place & Aleksa Palladino**

Looking back, Johansson has had a varied and memorable journey to becoming one of the most visible of Hollywood stars. Beginning her career on the stage at age eight in an off-Broadway production of Sophistry starring Ethan Hawke, she then had small parts in only two films (North 1994 & Just Cause 1995) before receiving her first leading role at the age of eleven in 1996’s Manny & Lo for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She went on to play three more supporting roles before appearing with Robert Redford in her breakout film, The Horse Whisperer in 1998.

Having that success under her belt, she starred in the forgettable My Brother the Pig (1999) with Judge Reinhold before landing a featured role in the Coen Brother’s, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001). Certainly, just being cast in Redford’s and the Coen’s films was a sign of things to come.

Her next film has the distinction of appearing on 140 critic’s ‘top 10 lists’; 2001’s Ghost World, based on the independent comic created by Daniel Clowes, is that rare character driven drama that knows where it’s going and why. Terry Zwigoff’s & Daniel Clowes’ adaptation gives life to characters already realized on the pages of Clowes’ comic. With Zwigoff’s tight direction and a cast that fits, the film moves right to the heart. Johansson & Birch shine as two girls at loose ends who like to entertain themselves by causing chaos in other people’s lives. When they target a lonely man with one of their cruel stunts, it backfires in all directions, changing their lives as well as his. The film also showcases Steve Buscemi giving his best performance since Trees Lounge (1996).

The next two films are problematic: An American Rhapsody (2001) is a sentimental telling of a true story that just doesn’t play, Eight Legged Freaks (2002) a film based on 50’s B Sci-Fi suffers from lack of direction. Neither of these films slowed her down as she moved on to the unforgettable Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003). Johansson is the main reason it is so memorable: she soars as Griet opposite Colin Firth’s Vermeer.

**Scarlett Johansson & Colin Firth in *Girl with the Pearl Earring* (2003)**

The film rides on Johansson’s performance as Griet. It is impossible to take your eyes off of this young peasant girl as she moves through the foreign environment of the artist’s household. Her beauty is accentuated by her honest reactions to all that transpires around her. Although an uneducated girl, Griet shows herself to be wiser than her sophisticated hosts. At 17 she is more observant and adroit than the lady of the house. This tends to bring the woman’s hatred of her out in the open. Without reservation, this remains one of Johansson’s best performances.

Facts, Rumors & Hearsay

GHOST WORLD

Ghost World was the first film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay based on a Graphic Novel or Comic Book.

Ghost World’s main character’s name, Enid Coleslaw, is an anagram of the film and comic book’s author, Daniel Clowes.

Scarlett Johansson submitted an audition tape to the producers of Ghost World and landed the role of Rebecca.

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Out of all the animals used in the various scenes, Scarlett Johansson fell in love with one of the cats and named it ‘Merkin’. The cast & crew went to great lengths to allow her to adopt the cat and have it to be transported from Luxembourg to New York city.

Colin Firth’s nickname on the set was Fabio, due to the wig he wore made him look like the model Fabio.

The painting that Griet (Scarlett Johansson) inspired Vermeer to paint while she is washing the window is called Woman with a Water Jug.

NEXT: A Love Song for Bobby Long

The Horror Chronicles Part One: Here Comes The Bride?

I just read an article in a wonderful publication called Scary Monsters: Castle of Frankenstein 2021 Annual about how Universal never brought The Bride back in any of the many Frankenstein sequels. Further, the writer pointed out that The Bride was never even mentioned in those sequels. He further lamented that since Frankenstein’s Monster was indestructible, shouldn’t The Bride be as well? I’ve idly wondered why The Bride’s tenure was so short myself, but never with the sense of humor and acumen displayed by George Humenik in his article. It got me thinking about the aborted Universal Dark Universe and what a let down it was for fans of the Universal horror films. Then, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man came out to good reviews and box office, and the idea of freestanding reboots could be embraced. Any event that could lead to such a well written and produced film couldn’t be all bad.

Boris Karloff & Elsa Lanchester and Elizabeth Hobson & Colin Clive in *The Bride of Frankenstein*

The thing is, the film that I was most anxious to see was the sequel or reboot or remake or whatever of The Bride of Frankenstein. I’d read that Scarlett Johansson was a possible candidate for The Bride in the Dark Universe. Although I am a fan of hers, she didn’t seem like the right choice. Let me just add that being part of what was planned as the Universal Dark Universe would not have been a good thing for Mrs. Jost or anyone else. The problem now is–is there anyone interested in making a free standing Bride of Frankenstein update? I am aware that it sounds crazy to some, but it is one of those things that is just begging to be resurrected. Just take a moment and consider the possibilities while I tell you what I think would lead to a perfect creation.

I’ve given this a lot of thought (some would say too much), and I think I’ve come up with the ultimate formula for success! First, you would need all the right parts: Producer(s), Writer, Director, and of course actors. Please note that only Producers, and of course actors, are plural. The last thing a project like this needs is to be stitched together by various writers. As far as Directors go, the Duff Brothers would be an exception, but I don’t want to see the Bride stuck in the 80’s. As Producers I’m seeing Blumhouse with James Gunn co-producing, writing, and directing. So far, so good.

**James Gunn (producer/writer/director) & Elizabeth Banks as The Bride**

Now, the cast. That leads me straight to Elizabeth Banks who has worked with Gunn in the past (Slither) and is as quirky as Elsa Lanchester and as talented as well: she will bring the needed lightning to the revived Bride! For the great great great grandson or whatever of Dr. Frankenstein (plug in a Germanic first name as below),

**Bruce Dern as Dr. Henrik Frankenstein V**

I can think of no actor who would do the part more justice than Bruce Dern. His assistant? Steve Buscemi of course! Who else?

**Steve Buscemi as Dr. Willem Pretorious**

Now, you recall that I didn’t think Scarlett Johansson would be the right choice for the Bride, but she would be the perfect choice for the fiance of the Doctor’s son, Dr. Elmore Frankenstein. Elmore, a psychotic psychiatrist is in love with Elizabeth Von Hooten, heiress to the Von Hooten fortune and unknowing funder of the revival of The Bride project.

**Scarlett Johansson as Elizabeth Von Hooten**

Okay Universal, now, it’s up to you to decide what the next updated Universal horror film should be! I’m trying to give you a jump start here; attach those electrodes and get this party started already. Myself, I’m going to see about renting a tux, because this is one, or maybe two, weddings I don’t want to miss.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE!

Oops, looks like I was wrong again! According to IMDB, Universal is planning a film called Bride that is in pre-production and lists Scarlett Johansson in the titular part. Here’s hoping it all comes together, but honestly–just imagine what a wild ride a James Gunn written & directed Bride of Frankenstein would be!

NEXT: A Fish Tale!