blog crack

I just posted a review of Match Point on the KQED arts blog Scene and Unseen. Please check it out and let me know what you think! Here's a tease...

Has Woody Allen finally forsaken Manhattan? In this, his first film to be shot entirely in Britain, he both literally and creatively ventures into new territory (with the same old credits, of course). The last two films of Allen's I saw -- Melinda Melinda and Anything Else -- were physically tortuous. Match Point, thankfully, was not. Although the psychological thriller was so suspenseful at times that I did want to get up and leave the theater.

The two leads, Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, whose collective pouts alone could spark a new trend in cosmetics, are excellent as Nola and Chris, two lovers who enter into an illicit affair; their chemistry is palpable. Chris is an Irish ex-pro tennis player with working class roots who forsakes competition and becomes a tennis instructor at an exclusive club in London. While there he meets Tom Hewitt (Brian Cox) and the two hit it off famously. Tom introduces Chris to his sweet, wide-eyed sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and they begin to date. But not before Chris also meets Nola, Tom's feisty, sexy fiance. She's the kind of woman that can stop traffic with a single glance, wrap a man around her little finger in the manner of seconds and destroy lives with a kiss.

Go here for the rest of the review!