"Saturday Night Live" satirizes Katie Britt and — wow! — it's Scarlett Johansson.

I don't know what the satire is, but the blast of feminine beauty is thrilling:

Katie Britt has become a larger-than-life icon.

Anyway. What is the satire here? "Republicans wanted me to appeal to women voters, and women love kitchens." And of course, it's funny to watch an excellent actress playing the role of a bad actress.

AND: What are some other examples of an excellent actor playing the role of a bad actor?

ALSO: I wondered how SNL would do this well since everyone was already reacting to the original as something that seemed like SNL, including me, the morning after the SOTU:

It's the old conundrum: How do you satirize something that is already self-satirizing? Is pre-self-satirizing possibly a good strategy? Could it explain Trump? Does it get at what makes a person choose the demeanor of a clown? Who can mock me when I am already perfectly ridiculous?

"Just days after Scarlett Johansson made headlines for defending Woody Allen... the director... said he still believes he should be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement..."

Hollywood Reporter reports.

"I've worked with hundreds of actresses [and] not one of them has ever complained about me, not a single complaint. I've worked with, employed women in the top capacity, in every capacity, for years and we've always paid them exactly the equal of men,” he said in an interview with France24. “I've done everything that the #MeToo movement would love to achieve.”...

Allen said that the fallout from Farrow's allegations has not affected his work and he doesn't fear being blackballed by Hollywood. “I couldn't care less. I've never worked in Hollywood. I've always worked in New York, and it doesn't matter to me for a second. If tomorrow nobody would finance my films and nobody would finance my theater plays or nobody would publish my books, I'd still get up and write because that's what I do. So I will always work. What happens to it commercially is another matter.... I haven't thought of retiring. I don't have to make movies. If people didn't want to finance my movies I would be very happy working in the theater, or writing books, but I like to get up and write. I don't like to get up and do nothing.”

Here's what Johansson said the other day:

"How do I feel about Woody Allen?... I love Woody... I believe him, and I would work with him anytime.... I see Woody whenever I can, and I have had a lot of conversations with him about it. I have been very direct with him, and he's very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him.... It's hard because it's a time where people are very fired up, and understandably. Things needed to be stirred up, and so people have a lot of passion and a lot of strong feelings and are angry, and rightfully so. It's an intense time."

Scarlett Johansson shrinks from criticism and backs out of playing the role of a transgender man.

She/her people wrote a statement: "In light of recent ethical questions raised surrounding my casting as Dante Tex Gill, I have decided to respectfully withdraw my participation in the project. Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I’ve learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive...."

Etc. etc. Her initial response to critics, what she now needs to represent herself as "realizing" was "insensitive" was: "Tell them they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment." In other words, lots of cisgender actors have not only played transgender characters, they've received high honors — an Oscar for Leto, an Oscar nomination for Huffman, an Emmy for Tambor. It must have seemed to Scarlett that she'd get extra credit for stretching herself into this role.

But that's not where the culture is right now, Scarlett learned. As Hollywood Reporter reports, there are actors who are themselves transgender, and no one seems interested in giving them an opportunity to stretch and show that they can play cisgender characters:

... Transparent actress Trace Lysette, tweet[ed], "I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis roles, but we know that’s not the case. A mess."

The argument seems to be that at least all transgender roles should go to transgender actors. It's an interesting argument and it was effective, but it was only effective in scaring cisgender actors off of any transgender role. What will be the result of that victory? Will the transgender actors get what they want? The big goal is to get access to cisgender roles, to make it seem bigoted to exclude them. Obviously, there's the question what audiences will want to see.

A similar question is whether people have accepted gay actors playing straight characters. I'm looking at "Gay Actors Who Play Straight Characters" and noticing that many of the roles are straight people with characteristics stereotypically assigned to gay people — "Jim Parsons has played several socially awkward heterosexual characters, including Sheldon Cooper on 'The Big Bang Theory'... Jane Lynch on "Glee" (playing a high school coach).

Quite aside from the goal of getting access to cisgender roles, there's the question whether there will be support and enthusiasm for movies about transgender characters if the actor isn't tasked with pretending to be transgender. There's no impressive stunt to perform. Maybe there will be more movies where some characters happen to be transgender without that needing to be the whole story. There could be an argument like what we've seen from black actors for many decades: It's wrong to limit us to stories about black people. Almost any role should be playable by a black actor.

In that light, Scarlett Johansson found herself in a position like that of the last white person cast to play Othello. Yes, there was a long tradition of eminent actors playing Othello, and maybe some day, black actors will get so many roles that it will be fine to have another white actor as Othello, but right now, we're in transition.

"For the first time, Jamie’s getting irrational criticism from her fellow liberals, who think that if you represent anyone associated with the other side, you must be a Republican in hiding."

"Jamie is obviously a liberal Democrat, but this is not a betrayal. Jamie is being patriotic and heroic and consistent with the best traditions of the bar. We have to resist zealotry on both sides."

Said Alan Dershowitz about Jamie Gorelick, quoted in "When a liberal power lawyer represents the Trump family, things can get ugly" in The Washington Post. Gorelick took on Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as clients.

How did "things... get ugly"? Well, obviously, it's people who are being ugly. Here are the 3 examples of ugliness given in the article:

In the most public slap, Hilary Rosen, a prominent Democratic strategist and lobbyist, tweeted, “Hey Jamie Gorelick, you’ve just poured that ‘Complicit’ perfume on yourself,” a reference to a “Saturday Night Live” parody ad that imagined an Ivanka Trump-branded scent. (Rosen declined to elaborate on the tweet, saying only, “It is what it is.”)

“Representing Jared and Ivanka is a case of pushing the ethical envelope, helping a wealthy family on the brink of using the presidency to further enrich themselves,” said David Halperin, a speechwriter in the Clinton White House and former counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Gorelick is a Clinton supporter embracing the family that wanted to put Hillary Clinton in jail. People in Washington are all too willing to forgive that.”

This being Washington, some of Gorelick’s critics tuck their attacks behind the cloak of anonymity. “Do you want to be seen as a fixer available to all or a fixer for principles you believe in?” said a lawyer who has worked with Gorelick on campaigns since the Clinton and Gore era. “One probably pays better than the other, but every step you take has consequences.”

Here's that parody ad, which I'd known about but never watched before just now:



Speaking of ugliness, what dominates that SNL clip is beauty. You get completely caught up in the beauty of Scarlett Johansson (as Ivanka Trump). That makes it very funny when she glamorously puts on her lipstick and the reflected image in her mirror is Alec Baldwin (as Donald Trump). So, suddenly ugliness. You think you're pretty but you are really ugly.

Interesting that another woman, Hilary Rosen, chose that idea to discipline Gorelick, the metaphor of outward physical beauty to represent inner virtue.

ADDED: Hilary Rosen... why did I already have a tag for her? Ah, yes! It was back in 2012: Rosengate. Remember that?

"Adviser to Obama, DNC Attacks Ann Romney"... DNC advisor Hilary Rosen, trying to say that Mitt Romney "doesn't connect" on the issue of women struggling economically: He's "running around the country, saying, well, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing." She pauses, then blurts out the unfortunate line, which she clearly thinks is a great zinger: "Guess what? His wife has actually not worked a day in her life."...

Women attacking women. Ha. I heard about a special place in hell...

On the new "Late Show" last night, Stephen Colbert facilitated an anal rape joke told by Elon Musk.

Colbert invites Musk to talk about the Tesla, and a clip is shown of a device — a "snake charger" — that plugs itself into the car.

Musk chuckles, the first nudge to notice how phallic it is. As the tip of the snake approaches the insertion point on the car, Musk says, "This looks a little wrong." Colbert takes us away from the genitalia metaphor:  "That really looks like the thing that jacks into the back of Neo's head in 'The Matrix.'" Musk says: "Right."

But then Colbert sets up what you'll be able to tell is a planned joke: "Is that thing going to attack me in my sleep?" Watch Musk slimily squirming as he feels the approach of the joke. Musk struggles a bit — "Uh, it's, well, I wouldn't, for the prototype, at least" — then gets out the line I'm sure was planned: "I would recommend not dropping anything when you're near it."

That's a variation on "don't drop the soap," the overused (and should never have been used in the first place) prison-rape joke.

The entire interview was awkward and creepy, especially for anyone who isn't a sci-fi/hi-tech fanboy/girl sort of person and predisposed to embrace the smarmy, self-satisfied Musk. Colbert owns a Tesla, and he's interviewed Musk before. He's got him on the second episode of the new show, right after Scarlett Johansson — and he even made Scarlett Johansson talk about Elon Musk. Colbert needed to try to draw in those of us who are outsiders to Musk love.

Perhaps the thinking was: Let's show the lovable nerdy side of Colbert. He loves Tesla. Let's have a weird Steve-and-Elon nerd fest where they make quick references to sci-fi movies and enthuse about relocating to Mars and we can work in a titter over the penis-y movement of a robot. Figure out how to do that well! It's your new network show and you're trying to keep/win an audience.

How is it possible that nobody nixed the anal rape joke?

"I would love to work for SodaStream. They’re quite privileged. People look up to them."

"It’s not the people who want to boycott, it’s the officials."

Leaning up against the cement half-walls of the bus stop, jackets pulled up over their cold hands and faces and cigarette butts glowing in the dark, [the SodaStream workers] blame the [Palestinian Authority] for failing to create jobs while taking a political stand against Israeli business that do.

“The PA can say anything it wants and no one will listen because it’s not providing an alternative,” says one man, a 2006 political science graduate of Al Quds University bundled in a jacket bearing the SodaStream logo. As for reports that the company doesn’t honor labor rights, that’s “propaganda,” he says. “Daniel [Birnbaum, the CEO of SodaStream,] is a peacemaker.”

This is in the American news because there's a Scarlett Johansson/Super Bowl ad angle.



"If only I could make this message go viral."

Just say the word.

"I had some dim intuitive feeling that what was wrong with all journalism is that the reporter tended to be objective and that that was one of the great lies of all time."

Said Norman Mailer, quoted in this subscribers-only article by Louis Menand in The New Yorker. As Menand puts it, Mailer "made the way in which events are reported part of what is reported."

ADDED: You could say something similar about law: I had some dim intuitive feeling that what was wrong with all judicial opinions is that the judge tended to be objective and that that was one of the great lies of all time. But what then? No judge can switch to writing the judicial equivalent of New Journalism.

(20 years ago, I tried to write about this problem, here (PDF) — with some quotes from Mailer's "Executioner's Song.")

AND: From that link, above, on New Journalism, which goes to Wikipedia:

How and when the term New Journalism began to refer to a genre is not clear....

But wherever and whenever the term arose, there is evidence of some literary experimentation in the early 1960s, as when Norman Mailer broke away from fiction to write Superman Comes to the Supermarket. A report of John F. Kennedy's nomination that year, the piece established a precedent which Mailer would later build on in his 1968 convention coverage (Miami and the Siege of Chicago) and in other nonfiction as well.

And here, you can read the full text of "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" (at the Esquire website, Esquire having once been a monumentally important magazine). It begins:

For once let us try to think about a political convention without losing ourselves in housing projects of fact and issue. Politics has its virtues, all too many of them -- it would not rank with baseball as a topic of conversation if it did not satisfy a great many things -- but one can suspect that its secret appeal is close to nicotine. Smoking cigarettes insulates one from one’s life, one does not feel as much, often happily so, and politics quarantines one from history; most of the people who nourish themselves in the political life are in the game not to make history but to be diverted from the history which is being made.

Convenient sidebar chez Esquire: 



Are we doomed? Did you go to my link and read the sentences that followed those 3 mindbendingly interesting sentences that began "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," or did you go over to click through to the explanation of why Miss Johansson in the sexiest woman alive (or what a "brutally frank" 98-year-old woman might say about sex)?

"Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Chastain among the front-runners to play Hillary Clinton in 'Rodham.'"

"Rodham - about the younger years of the former First Lady and senator..."

"Rodham"... based on a true story. That reminds me: When I was a kid, I thought "Rodan" was based on a true story. Here's the 1957 trailer. I was 6 years old and could not discern the difference between that and the news:



"Nothing escapes this monstrous beast of evil."

Bill Richardson says "maybe I’m a Neanderthal" and "Scarlett Johansson is beautiful."

On "Meet the Press" yesterday, there was a panel discussion about Obama's saying that Kamala Harris "happens to be by far the best looking attorney general in the country," and the lumbering, bumbling former governor of New Mexico came out with this:

You know, maybe I’m a Neanderthal, but I thought that the president’s comment was harmless. It was a political speech. He talked about her accomplishments, he talked about her competence. And then he threw in that line, you know, you are at a political event. What are you going to read her resume? So my point is this, you know, political correctness has reached a point, you know, it’s out of control. Am I going to be criticized for instance if I say that a movie star like Scarlett Johansson is beautiful? Are they going to go after me? Probably.

Does anyone really feel like going after Richardson? We were watching the show yesterday, and when he said this, I just laughed. I said something like: Why do they even have Richardson on the show? Why doesn't he know better than to go on and display himself like this?

Scarlett Johansson is beautiful... Bill Richardson is dumb.... What else is obvious?

(By the way, did you notice that Richardson went to North Korea this past January?)

"Scarlett Johansson Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison."

10 years?!

Live-blogging Day 3 of the Democratic convention.

5:41 Central Time: I'm starting now, because it's Tammy Baldwin, my congressperson. She's running to take the seat Herb Kohl has been sitting in for oh, so long. She tells us of Wisconsin's motto, "Forward" (which Obama is using as his motto), and she finds a few opportunities to repeat "Forward." She's talking about "the Wisconsin I know" and "the America I love."

5:51: It's LBGT time. A video, with Obama saying we need to see a man with a man or a woman with a woman as equally worthy as a man and a woman. Then a young man named Zack Wahls — from Iowa — says he was raised by 2 moms, and: "I'm awesome at putting the seat down."

5:55: A really sweet and charming video about the woman who started the "Fired up/Ready to go" chant in Greenwood, South Carolina, some 4 years ago, Edith S. Childs. Ah, it's on line: here. Watch it. I liked that.

5:58: "They really got through the gay stuff quick," I observe.

6:01: Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager is begging us for money. There's a sob in his voice. He sounds genuinely desperate.

6:28: Foo Fighters emote. [ADDED: Meade says: "This is kind of depressing music, and it goes along with the whole convention.]

6:32: The Foo Fighters are singing "I never wanna die" over and over. It's this song, "Walk":

I never wanna die
I'm on my knees
I never wanna die
I'm dancing on my grave
I'm running through the fire
Forever, whatever
I never wanna die
I never wanna leave

No, no... that's not an argument for a politician's reelection.

6:34: Now, there's this really gloomy video. Faces on a dark background. Woebegone people agonizing about how they "did everything right," and yet they are "one mistake away from losing the little that we have."

6: 47: An. act.tress. Kerry. Wash.ing.ton. I'd never heard of her before, but she's emoting big time, like she's talking to a bunch of idiots who never think about politics. But politics is thinking about us, she says ominously. Uh, we're the people watching the convention. We're not your Hollywood friends. "The other side" — "side," pronounced as a series of trembling, upscaling notes — "wants. to. take. our. voi.ces. a.way. and render us. invisible" — big wagging finger — "but we" — "we," rendered in the trembling, upward 4-syllables for a 1-syllable word, like she's really trying to scare us — "are not. invisible." Her doe eyes scan the crowd. Did they understand? Did they com.pre.hend? Did they fath.om the depths of. my. words? [ADDED FROM THE COMMENTS: Fiftyville said: "I loved Kerry Washington's statement... 'You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.' If you have to steal, Dems, why steal from Yakov Smirnoff?"]

6:57: Scarlett Johansson. So the beautiful actresses are all getting dumped in an early hour. Unlike Kerry Washington, the actress Johansson is able to act like a normal person. "We are the generation who feel our voices haven't been heard," she says, repeating something Chelsea Clinton said earlier in the convention. Johansson enthuses about voting. It's a speech that seems more appropriate to a bunch of young kids. And, sorry, I don't understand the basis for this whole generation believing that their "voices haven't been heard." You get to vote. Like everyone else. Why do you feel there's more of an entitlement than that? If you have something to say, say it. You kids have the whole internet. Twitter. YouTube. My generation didn't have that. What's this "no voice" business?

7:04: Debbie Wasserman Schultz aids a woman who is struggling to walk onto the stage. With great effort, she struggles to blurt out the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. My God, it's Gabby Giffords. Many tears run down many faces.

7:09: "As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously," says Caroline Kennedy, reading the script robotically. She complains about states putting restrictions on "access to reproductive health care."

7:13: Jennifer Granholm, "from the great state of Michigan, where the trees are just the right height." (She lifts Mitt Romney's gentle joke about home, and Meade and I disagree about whether she's showing some affection for her fellow Michigander.)

7:17: Granholm has a good (if unfair) line — referencing Romney's supposed lack of concern for auto-industry workers — "The cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft." You have to know that Romney had a car elevator installed in one of his homes.

7:21: It's "actress Eva Longoria." Not sure why Caroline Kennedy and Jennifer Granholm broke up the parade of actresses. Longoria sounds like an intelligent person who actually has followed politics in the normal way that people who like politics follow politics.

7:43: John Kerry. American exceptionalism demands an exceptional President, and that President is Barack Obama, he says.

8:05: As a tribute to servicemen and women goes on at the convention, email from Obama comes in, saying, "Ann -- Before I go on stage to accept the nomination, there's one thing I need to say... Can you pitch in $25 or more right now?"

8:44: Jill Biden warmed us up to think of Joe Biden as the embodiment of human caring, and now Joe Biden is doing the same for Barack Obama. He tells us he "loves" Obama. Obama was "gutsy."

9:40: Obama is giving his speech. Here's the whole text.  His inflections are polished, but nothing is jumping out at me as different from what I've heard him say many times.

9:55: "We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense." Is that controversial?

10:03: The word "hope" appears 15 times in his speech. The last 3 come near the end:  "And I think about the young sailor I met at Walter Reed hospital, still recovering from a grenade attack that would cause him to have his leg amputated above the knee... He gives me hope. I don’t know what party [various heretofore mentioned] men and women belong to. I don’t know if they’ll vote for me. But I know that their spirit defines us. They remind me, in the words of Scripture, that ours is a 'future filled with hope.' And if you share that faith with me – if you share that hope with me – I ask you tonight for your vote." Other people give him hope, the Bible refers to hope, and if you hope like he hopes, you should vote for him. Because... hope!

10:17: The speech ends, and there's a flurry of confetti. No balloons, because an indoor presentation hadn't been planned. Obama steps forward and waves. There's a closeup of his face and I think I see his lip curl with a bit of disgust, and I rewind and ask Meade to interpret the face and he says: resignation. Subjectively, we think we see in his face that he knows he's going to lose. Michelle and Malia and Sasha come out, looking perfectly glossy and pretty, and then there's Biden and Jill and Mrs. Robinson and various other relatives, milling around, waving a bit, and then the long view of the stage shows they've clumped toward the rear wall. Why are they huddling there? The shots of the crowd show some ecstatic delegates — all women — and many stolid/dispirited faces — male and female. At one point there's a hitch in the Bruce Springsteen music — a silent gap — but then it plays again. And now they're gone.

10:26: The Cardinal wanders out to the lectern. He's got his benediction written out on folded sheets of paper. "Help us to see that a society's greatness is found, above all, in the respect it shows for the weakest and neediest among us." He thanks God for giving us those "inalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He thanks God for "the gift of life" and asks that we be given "the courage to defend it." In subtle defiance of the convention's abortion-rights theme, he says: "We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected."

11:03: The Democrats didn't have anything oddball, like Clint Eastwood. Nothing surprising. Nothing to talk about. Speaking of nothing, on Intrade, Obama re-election shares today experienced a 0.0% change. Oh! I checked back, now he's down 0.2%. (Romney is up 0.7% on the day.)

11:12: I just realized I fast-forwarded through Charlie Crist. Looked like another white male governor.  I forgot about the whole former-Republican thing. Does anyone really care?

Clinton holds up a finger and says "You will feel it" — in this Drudge juxtaposition.

Here's the whole page frozen in time right now, but let me close in on these 4 photos:



"You will feel it" is — of course — a line from Clinton's convention speech, but illustrated with the finger pointed up, it takes us back to the Lewinsky days, when we heard about finger-shaped things inserted into vaginas and a finger was famously wagged at us for imagining that he had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Right underneath Bill Clinton — double meaning right there — is Hillary Clinton, and she's getting "snubbed." The snub is by the Chinese VP, but we imagine other snubs. Additional lines under Hillary's picture have her "dubbed" a "sneaky troublemaker."

And, speaking of troublemakers, we're reminded that Hillary is "half a world away" "[a]s Bill speaks." In case that's not a sharp enough nudge to get you to think about things Bill might do while his wife is away, your eyes are drawn quickly to the swelling bosom of Scarlett Johansson, who is one of "Barack's Angels," who will be on the convention stage tonight. (Scarlett's golden hair rolls and flows all down her breasts, while Hillary's hair, in that other pic, is dull, lank, and flat.) And what else are these beautiful young women up to in Charlotte where Hillary is half a world away? In Drudge tease, the trio of beauties "makes push."

And that push? You will feel it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paul Zrimsek said:

And here I thought the true caption for the Scarlett Johanssen photo was the line above it, not the line below.

He's referring to: "Advisers lower expectations for convention bounce..."

"I look like your wicked sexy English teacher and you look like you're writing a sequel to 'Our Town' for your final project."

Fashion -- I won't say "catfight" -- dialogue.

The new Woody Allen movie: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

I walked over to Sundance to catch the 2 PM showing of the new Woody Allen movie, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." I'm a longtime Woody Allen fan, and this one got excellent reviews, so that was enough to get me out to see it on the first day.

There was a ton of typical Woody Allen stuff in this movie:

1. It's set in a European city that Woody apparently decided he wanted to hang around in. (The city is Barcelona.)

2. It depicts Woody Allen's sexual fantasies. A man can sidle up to the table of 2 beautiful women in a restaurant, ask them to fly away with him — in 1 hour! — in his private plane to a picturesque little village and have sex with him there, and the 2 women will go with him.

3. Everyone is inexplicably rich, ensconced in beautifully decorated mansions, but all the good people are anti-materialistic and unimpressed with their surroundings.

4. Young women glow spiritually and sexually in the presence of an artist or when they listen to the kind of music that Woody himself likes. In this case, Spanish guitar music.

5. Each woman is neurotic/crazy in her own special way, but they are easily categorized as the repressed type or the freely expressive type, and Woody really seems to love them all.

6. The men are either businessmen — and it's clear Woody doesn't like them — or artists — and you know Woody identifies with them.

7. Philosophical themes. A voice-over instructs us that the 2 main characters represent order and chaos. Someone lashes out at someone for wielding the categorical imperative.

That said, the movie isn't a Woody Allen cliché. It's continually delightful and surprising, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I got chills when characters kissed. I laughed out loud. And I loved, loved, loved Penelope Cruz. I was enjoying the movie immensely, and since I hadn't read the reviews, I didn't know that the character — Maria Elena — that they kept talking about would turn up and be Penelope Cruz. All the other actors seemed pretty good, and then she showed up and invented a new kind of intensity. Wow. Penelope Cruz.



It's enough to make me want to take up smoking. So exciting. And — spoiler alert — she kisses Scarlett Johansson.

No, that's not the kiss that gave me chills. Javier Bardem is in the movie too, bringing the testosterone to the table.

ADDED: Now that I've seen the movie, I'm reading articles about it. I found this hilariously bad sentence in the L.A. Times:

Of all the major American artists, Allen has experienced one of the cruelest and most violent whipsaws of fortune, of tumbling from audience adulation to mass approbation.

Wow, quite a tumble!

"I'm imagining this 22-year-old guy with his scenario for, you know, marrying Scarlett Johansson."

Jonathan Chait talks to Matthew Yglesias about what it would take for Rudy Giuliani to win the nomination. Video.

Two top 10 lists.

What is true about the persons on the first list is the opposite for those on the second list. Try to guess what it is before clicking on the link.

The first list:

1. Johnny Depp
2. Matt Damon
3. George Clooney
4. Jack Nicholson
5. Rosario Dawson
6. John Travolta
7. Katherine Heigl
8. Jay Leno
9. Dakota Fanning
10. Russell Crowe

The second list:

1. Will Ferrell
2. Tobey Maguire
3. Joaquin Phoenix
4. William Shatner
5. Renée Zellweger
6. John Malkovich
7. Julie Andrews
8. Bruce Willis
9. Teri Hatcher
10. Scarlett Johansson

What the new Woody Allen movie "Scoop" is really about.

The new Woody Allen movie "Scoop" -- which I saw last night -- is ostensibly about a beautiful college girl who fancies herself a reporter and sleeps with men as an investigative reporting technique. She's trying to get the scoop. We see her using this technique -- ineffectively -- in a short scene in the beginning of the movie. Then, after she gets a tip from a ghost that a certain aristocrat is a serial murderer, she applies this technique to him. Scarlett Johansson plays the woman, AKA Sondra Pransky, AKA Jade Julliard Spence. Hugh Jackman is the aristocrat, Peter Lydon. And Woody Allen plays a catalytic role as a corny old magician named Splendini, who unwittingly puts Scarlett in touch with the ghost when he pulls her out of the audience to participate in a trick. She, in turn, pulls him out of his stale magician life to investigate the serial murder with her. Along the way, she tells the aristocrats he's her father, and he plays along, becoming more involved in the investigation as she drifts into love with Peter Lydon.

Okay, that's all very well. There were some jokes that made me laugh out loud. For some reason, I thought it was hilarious when Splendini was posing as a reporter, and his interviewee asked him what paper he was from, and -- after some stuttering -- he said, "The Washington Post," and then babbled about "All the President's Men" and said that he was "the little guy."

Seeing the story this way, it seems good enough, but likely to be dismissed as fluff.

But this is not what the movie is about!

First, if you're inclined to think it's one of Allen's throwaway flicks, a light variation on the dark "Matchpoint," which also starred Johansson, you might point to the silliness of starting off the story by having a ghost giving the main character a tip about a murder. But that's no mark of frivolity. That's an allusion to "Hamlet." That's a tip for you to concentrate on the psycho-sexual details of the story.

The movie teems with sexual imagery -- and I don't just mean the frequent tableaux of a man in a boat. There is also the woman in a box -- the magician's box -- where the man -- Splendini -- "excites her molecules" -- as he puts it, more than once, during a trick where she's supposed to disappear (and where she is stunned to encounter a man who tells her something shocking). There is the locked music room, which you have to go downstairs to reach and find next to a wine rack that consists of phallic bottles stuck in holes.

You need to know the secret code to get into the room. Peter Lydon -- Peter Lie Down -- takes the woman into the room when he is trying to seduce her. The instruments all symbolize genitalia -- oboes and clarinets for the male and plenty of lutes and violins and French horns for the female. Lydon shows Sondra a Stradivarius and tells her it needs to be played. Remember her invented middle name is Juilliard.

Later, Splendini gets into the music room with Sondra, and he picks up the French horn and holds it with the fingers of one hand inside the bell and says he knows a filthy joke about how the French horn player slept with his wife. We never hear the joke, so we're forced to speculate on our own about the way the horn is like a woman's body and the position of the man's hand. Later, important clues are found hidden under the bell of that French horn.

Now, Lydon gets the girl, and he also easily knows the code to get into the music room. Splendini is denied access to her. Woody Allen displays himself as miserably old, shrunken away from any sexual vibrancy. And Sondra has designated him as her father -- giving the character the message that he can't ever be considered. And Woody Allen further humbles himself before us, because we know of his real-life humiliation as a man who had sex with a woman for whom he served as a father. Splendini's wretched age shows itself as he cannot remember the code to get into the room. The code is a series of three two-digit numbers (even though the lock is a keypad, not a combination lock), and the three numbers really seem like the ages of young women he cannot have, something like 16, 21, 23.

So I think this is Woody's elaborate meditation about sex, specifically about an old man's exclusion from sex. The scoop, which Splendini can't get, is the woman's vagina. (Dictionary definition of "scoop": "7. A hollow area; a cavity.") There are many more things I could talk about here, but I don't want to spoil the ending and I've gone on too long already.

"Match Point."

Is this movie any good? Chris says some things I agree with. We were laughing at it a lot early on, and I thought it was incredibly empty and stultifying. Woody Allen is mindnumbingly interested in rich people. But it ended well, and Scarlett Johansson did some terrific acting. She was quite fascinating even as she was saying rather dull lines. And both of the lead actors did have immense and shapely upper lips. That's gotta count for something.

The one fall movie I suddenly care about.

When I went to the movies today, I was irritated by all the trailers for the coming Oscar Season movies — that thing with Scarlett Johansson and Helen Hunt, and then that one with Emma Thompson and Ian McKellan. Actors acting in that I-deserve-an-award mode, swathed in Cinematography. They finally got to the last trailer, with me in a thoroughly negative mode. But I loved it: "Everything Is Illuminated."

CORRECTION: That wasn't Emma Thompson, it was Natasha Richardson. But who gives a damn?

MORE: Manohla Dargis writes:

As Stella, the 1950's bored wife, inattentive mother and unhinged adulteress at the center of this story, Ms. Richardson initially affects the vacant mien of cinema's classically oppressed women. Like the lonely wives and widows of untold Hollywood melodramas, Stella is a martyr in heels and pearls. She burns from within; we, in turn, wait for her to be consumed in flames.

Ha, ha. I'll just get out my old copy of "Beyond the Forest."

Simulblogging the Oscars.

5:51 Central Time. There is still an hour to go before the big Oscars show begins, and I will be going strictly live beginning then. No TiVo tomfoolery once the official broadcast starts -- that's a rule enforced chez Althouse, but not by Althouse. But I want to watch on HDTV anyway, so I guess that would be my rule too, even if it were up to me, which it's not, because I share this old house with someone who is much more serious about film and all of its accoutrements than I will ever be. But pre-7, I'm going to catch up on what the TiVo dragged in: E! Live from the Red Carpet. This show for me, is all about the absence of Joan Rivers. Yes, I know that Joan lives on over at the TV Guide channel, but that show is sad and low energy. I want the old Joan back -- Joan before she was tossed aside by E!. So, what we have is Star Jones, reading her lines and not even pretending to be interested in anything but selling her $20 shoes, and Kathy Griffin trying to do comedy even though her face is disturbingly immobilized.

6:10. Jones interviews Morgan Spurlock. The bodice of her dress fits so badly, so loosely! Here's Carlos Santana. "Che Guevara! That's the luck right there," says Star Jones, after she asks him what he's wearing for luck and he opens his black jacket to reveal a Che Guevara T-Shirt. He is promoting "Motorcycle Diaries," so perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on him. Don Cheadle, not nervous? "I took the right meds before I got here, so I think everything will be smoothed out the rest of the night." Melanie Griffith is wearing a blue-gray dress and carrying a cane -- she's broken her leg! Antonio Banderas has very stringy greasy hair tonight.

6:29. Leonardo Dicaprio! He doesn't care about fashion, but for the Oscars: a Prada suit. What would the little girls out there find surprising about you? "I'd say just about everything." Hilary Swank in a dark blue looks-like-it's-on-backwards dress provokes Jones to say "You are on my list as a perpetual Glamazon." Swank says hi to her fifth grade teacher. Virginia Madsen brings her glamorous mother. Mother and daughter have big swinging earrings. Scarlett Johansson looks incredibly light pink with nearly white poodle hair. The dress is black, a very dramatic contrast. "Aging is about wisdom and grace," Drew Barrymore informs us, with the perspective of her thirty years.

6:48. Spike Lee is wearing a white suit, with a black shirt and tie -- and a black fez! So far, on the hat front, we've seen Carlos Santana in a Che beret and now Spike Lee in a fez! Salma Hayek shows up and suddenly ranks at number 1 on the home voters' best fashion list. Her dress is another dark blue dress -- what's with all the dark blue? -- and it's got black bows and other black trimming all over it. Alan Alda says Morgan Freeman is going to get the Supporting Actor Oscar and he's just there to have fun. Kate Winslet in bright, medium blue: beautiful! She's talking to the other Cate -- Cate Blanchett. Cate is impossibly fragile, with translucent skin and a lemon-sherbet-colored dress. Johnny Depp! He's in dark blue. He's still got some gold teeth from the pirate movie. His wife is beautiful and, actually, looks a lot like him.

7:00. Now, I go to live-blogging, and to HDTV. I love the red carpet on wide-screen, and it's great to get a chance to see all the flaws on the stars. Annette Bening is beautifully crinkled – presumably with grace and wisdom. Jamie Fox is proud to have "cracked open" the love for Ray Charles that was hidden underground.

7:13. Orlando Bloom is asked why everyone admires Johnny Depp so much. Bloom, who's doing the new pirate movie with Depp, starts to explain something slightly complex about integrity, and the interviewer talks over him and shoos him along.

7:34. Nice clip show to begin. I hope they do more montages, less on-stage entertainment. Now Chris Rock comes out and gets a standing ovation. Why a standing ovation? It makes no sense. It's as if they were warning us about all the overpraising we've got coming tonight. "There's only four real stars, and the rest are popular people." Rock is yelling his routine. It's about how moviemakers should wait for the real star to be ready to film. Don't make "Alexander" with Colin Farrell. "If you're doing a movie about the past, you need to get Russell Crowe's ass." Rock loved "Fahrenheit 911," he says, and we see numerous stars in the audience clapping solemnly. Rock talks about Bush: imagine seeking a job, and while you're seeking that job, there's a movie playing everywhere about how awful you are. He goes into a long Bush-bashing tirade, and we see the audience cracking up and clapping. He ends the routine, though, by sending out love for all the troops.

7:44. "The Aviator" gets the first award, for Art Direction. The nominees are all made to stand on the stage, which seems a little sadistic, but does allow the women to show off their gowns. Renee Zellweger comes out in a stiff red dress. She moves like an inchworm. Her hair is dyed black. Best Supporting Actor is next. They don't make these guys line up on the stage. Based on the clips, I said "Anybody but Church." Morgan Freeman wins. He thanks everyone, especially Clint Eastwood. "This was a labor of love."

7:54. Robin Williams comes out with white tape on his mouth, presumably symbolizing censorship. He rips it off and does a little routine about how various cartoon characters -- other than Sponge Bob -- are gay. Donald Duck, with that sailor suit and no pants. Best Animated Feature: "The Incredibles." Cate Blanchett announces the makeup award from the audience, not from the stage -- innovative! "Lemony Snicket" wins. Drew Barrymore announces the first performance of a nominated song. My suggestion for a better Oscars show: just get rid of the song award altogether. Beyoncé sings in French with a boy choir. She looks great, with lots of green eyeshadow, but the song is absolutely deadly.

8:07. Chris thinks Beyoncé sang that song just great. We argue through the commercial about this, with me taking the position that it demanded more of an operatic voice and was not suited to Beyoncé, who I'm willing to believe is an excellent pop singer.

8:10. Chris Rock goes downtown to ask ordinary people what their favorite movie was. "I'm not going to lie, and I'm not going to front to these people," says one guy as he admits he didn't see "Sideways." Scarlett Johansson announces the scientific and technical awards, and I suddenly feel that I understand her dress. Pierce Brosnan announces the Costume award with that fashion character from "The Incredibles," causing me once again to regret that I didn't have a child of an age that could have justified my going to a cartoon this year. On seeing the clips, I mutter "The Aviator," and I'm right, and I take that to mean that "The Aviator" will win the most awards, including Best Picture. Tim Robbins -- who bores us to death with his politics, per Rock -- announces Supporting Actress. Oh, I love them all. And my Cate wins!!!

8:26. A tribute to Johnny Carson, with horrendously smarmy music. Leonardo Dicaprio introduces the Documentary Feature award. The nominees are lined up on stage. One expects Spurlock to win. I saw that movie and thought little of it. So I'm thinking: anybody but Spurlock. And I am satisfied. It's "Born Into Brothels." Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom come out to do the Editing award. If "Aviator" gets this, the handwriting is on the wall. And it does!!!

8:42. Adapted Screenplay: "Sideways." Not surprised. I've like Alexander Payne for a long time. He accepts the award knowing all of his actors missed out. Visual Effects: "Spiderman 2." Didn't see it, but the clip made me laugh with delight. Now we reach the great slump section of the night. Everyone goes into a coma now, and maybe later we will emerge and think, why am I so tired? when will it all end? I like Al Pacino but spare me the awards that don't relate to the past year!

9:08. Struggling to emerge from the coma. What was that? Beyoncé again! Yes, that was Beyoncé, but was that a song? I can't tell you one word that was in that song or remember a single musical phrase. Jeremy Irons ad libs "I hope they missed" when we hear a sound like a gunshot. Best Live Action Short -- a pointless category. "Wasp" wins. I have no idea if it's about the insect or not. Short Animated Film - well, could you show a clip, maybe? Wouldn't that be a better use of time than those damned songs? Something called "Ryan" wins. No one cares. Kate Winslet! We love her chez Althouse. Cinematography is the award. I predict "The Aviator," because it's been an "Aviator" night. And so it is.

9:20. Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz side by side. Fascinating! Another line-them-up-on-the-stage-award, that is, a low-valued award. What is it? Sound mixing. Who cares? The award is announced but the movie isn't named, so we're all confused. What won? Oh, it's "Ray." Now, Sound Editing. What the hell's the difference between that and Sound Mixing? No one knows or cares. Why isn't this grouped with the technical awards that are done in a separate ceremony? The coma continues... Okay, it's "The Incredibles." Here's where I miss using the TiVo assist. The acceptor says these aren't "technical" awards, these are for "artistic decisions." It's as if he heard my bitching. And now, another damned song. Salma Hayek not only announces the song from "The Motorcycle Diaries," she translates the words into English. Carlos Santana plays guitar and Antonio Banderas sings. It's the sort of thing where if you wandered into a bar and this was going on, you'd turn around and walk out.

9:34. Here's Natalie Portman in a dress that requires her to stand perfectly upright. Best Documentary Short Subject, the low point of the evening. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Original Score is next, and John Travolta does us the kindness of speaking very fast. "Finding Neverland" wins. That's one of the movies I saw, but I have no memory of the music.

9:47. Okay, I've ignored the humanitarian award. Annette Bening introduces one of my favorite sections, the memorial to dead filmfolk. Yoyo Ma plays the cello to set the lugubrious tone. Reagan is first, and we hear only applause. Good. It ends with Marlon Brando, with a series of clips. Clearly, Brando is the greatest actor to have died in the past year.

9:56. Sean Combs introduces another boring song, again with Beyoncé. What is the pont of this overuse of Beyoncé? The song is awful, the thing from "Polar Express." Combs tells us we should listen to the words, that they have some important message especially relevant today. I think he may have said that it's "hip." But the song is about how you should believe in your dreams! "Believe in what you feel inside, and give your dreams the wings to fly." Oh, how I hope that song loses, even though none of the other songs made any impression on me. And now, it's Prince! Pink pants, blue jacket. Sparkly hair! He just reads his lines -- doesn't do anything odd. The "Motorcycle Diaries" song wins. Good! Get it over with. The guy who accepts re-sings the damned song. As if we care! At least he doesn't talk. No more songs!!! Finally, we are at Best Actress. Announcing the award is Sean Penn. He tells us Jude Law is one of our finest actors, which he says to contradict Chris Rock's insult to him in the opening routine. Ha! Humorless Sean Penn -- but he was right about that! As expected, Hillary Swank wins. "I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."

10:12. Gwyneth Paltrow comes out to give the Best Foreign Language Film. "The Sea Inside." Samuel Jackson gives the Original Screenplay Award. Some good films here. "Eternal Sunshine." Charlie Kaufman. Good! He seems like a sweet guy, and he really is doing something that no one else does. And it makes Kate Winslet happy, so... "It's the one thing that really deserved it," says Chris.

10:22. Charlize Theron, in a fluffy light blue dress, introduces the Best Actor nominees. As expected, Jamie Foxx wins. Standing O! But the standing O was cheapened earlier in the night. "Thank you, Ray Charles for living." Love! Love! Love! He praises his grandmother for beating him and that gets a big laugh. Ah, but grandma is dead and he's crying over her. So, love! I'm sure there are some people who beat their kids who are sitting at home thinking, see, I'm right, it does the kids good, and they'll thank me for it some day.

10:32. Julia Roberts introduces the directors, who bring their visions to the "scream." Clint Eastwood wins, so we can continue to talk about how Martin Scorsese has never won an Oscar. Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand (dressed in dark blue) come out to give the Best Picture award. Hoffman seems to be in a weird trance. Seeing Streisand reminds me that no one (other than Rock) brought up politics tonight. "Million Dollar Baby" wins.

10:40. That's it!

UPDATE: Here are my morning after thoughts.