Movie Review: Woody Allen Puts Together a Hot Foursome in Vicky Christina Barcelona

Another year another movie from the Woodman. Even the prospect of another delightful performance by Scarlett Johansson is hardly enough to fight the built-in ennui at the thought of another Woody Allen flick. Indeed the movie doesn't start promisingly. A narrator (not Allen) immediatly begins sketching in the background of Johansson (delectable as always) as Christina and gawkily pretty Rebecca Hall as Vicky who have just arrived in - you guessed it - Barcelona.

Hall gets stuck with a lot of the most typically Woody neurotic dialogue and at first she seems to struggle with it as many actors have before her. Yet she finds her way through it and builds a charcter of her own, her wide expressive mouth telling you as much about what she's feeling as her eyes.

Then in rolls Anton Chigurrh or rather, Javier Bardem, with sex appeal and charisma to burn. With smoldering eyes he purringly asks the girls to join him for a weekend of living - sex, wine, an airplane ride - and the movie takes off.

You see the engaged Vicky is the proverbial uptight good girl who sees love as security whereas Christina is the wannabe free spirit who is always seeking a transcendant love and never finding it. Bardem is the sexy artist who shakes them and the movie up and then Allen pulls one last trump card - the spectacular Penelope Cruz as Bardem's crazy ex/muse. She very nearly hijacks the rest of the film.

Allen and his cinematographer Javier Aguireesarobe show Spain in it's best light. Just about every Allen movie functions as architecture porn and this one is no different, feasting on fantastic country villas, Gaudi creations, and vintage amusement parks.

In between the lives and complicated loves of the cast seem to be on the verge of unraveling only to bring our two women back to where they started - which I found fascinatingly sad. My wife disagreed, feeling that they had gained some insight into themselves from their summer in Spain but I wasn't so sure.

What I was sure about was how nice it was to see an Allen film that could be such a pleasure and spark such an interesting converstaion at the end of it.

Culture: Still Think Spitzer Overpayed? ScarJo Goes For 40K in Charity Net Auction

Everything is relative. Soon to be former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer is said to have paid around $80,000 over the last ten years in exchange for the company of young women. Compare that to the $40,000 coughed up on E-Bay by an Internet bidder for one night with Scarlett Johannson .

But "Wait", you say, "the auction in question is for charity -- how can you possibly compare benefiting OxFam which helps needy people around the world with the scourge of 'white slavery?'" Easy -- "Client 9" was helping the needy too -- young women getting a start in the big city who need to earn some dough while waiting for their aspiring R & B career to take off.

More to the point -- and from the client point of view -- he really got a lot more er...bang for his buck. In quantity and quite possibly in quality too. Scarlett, or rather her pimp OxFam (awesome pimp name btw) is very specific about this date:

“Two tickets to the world premiere of He’s Just Not That Into You. The premiere location has not yet been determined but will be in either Los Angeles or New York this July.
“Chauffeured car service to the premiere. Hair and makeup for one by Priv?. A meet and greet with Scarlett Johansson at the premiere.”

Charity or no, I simply expect more for my $40,000 -- at the very least some say so in the events. A meet and greet? I don't think so...

Here's Scarlett Johansson selling herself to the highest bidder -- I give her at least five diamonds:

Music News: Scarlett Johansson Unveils Tom Waits Cover Album Tracklist -- Continues To Bedevil Older Men

Oh ScarJo, where will it all end? Not content to wrap Bill Murray and Woody Allen around your perfectly formed little finger you've now managed to entice Tom Waits into giving his blessing to your new album and lured Dame David Bowie into warbling along on a few tracks. Here's the tracklist:

"Fawn" "Town With No Cheer" "Falling Down" "Anywhere I Lay My Head" "Fannin' Street" "Song for Jo" "Green Grass" "I Wish I Was in New Orleans" "I Don't Want To Grow Up" "No One Knows I'm Gone" "Who Are You?"

"Song for Jo" is an original, and the whole shebang is produced by TV on The Radio's Dave Sitek and features guitar work from non other than TVOTR and Yeah Yeah Yeah's axeman Nick Zinner. Bowie sings on "Falling Down" and "Fannin' Street."

New Music: Lucious Thespians Test Their Pipes This Year -- Zooey Deschanel and Scarlett Johansson in Hip Album Battle

Plenty of ink has been spilled already, including here, on older man candy Scarlett Johansson's upcoming Tom Waits cover song opus, which will also include one new song. Now indie pixie Zooey Deschanel is prepping to finally release her collab with M. Ward, Volume 1, under the band name She and Him.

Unlike Scarlett's record, Zooey's songs are mostly originals though she does slip a Beatles and a Smokey Robinson cover in. Ward, who has released several critically acclaimed albums of atmospheric indie roots-folk heard Deschanel's demos and offered to collaborate.

Here's She and Him live doing "Lonesome Town"...Deschanel has a very impressive voice:



Here's Scarlett warbling with the Jesus and Mary Chain last year, the voice is...not as impressive: