The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

To me, this movie is perfection.

i must have seen a different film!!

As Good As It Gets

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a 2001, comedy crime film, written, directed and starring Woody Allen. The film also features renowned actors; Helen Hunt as Miss Fitzgerald, Dan Aykroyd as Mr. Magruder as well as a very young Charlize Theron.The film is set in New York in the year 1940, gambling, larceny, addiction and infidelity is at the core of these characters and the film. We follow the story of CW Briggs who is an insurance investigator at North Coast Insurance. Later on Briggs and a group of people as well as his possible love interest Miss Fitzgerald go to see a hypnotist where they get programmed to react a certain way when a certain word is used. They are not aware of the fact that the hypnotist wants to use this control to his advantage. They suddenly become puppets in his master puppeteer's plan. The film seems to look like an old black-and-white Noir film, just in colour this time, and the witty banter and comments exchanged between characters, especially that of Briggs and Fitzgerald, makes them more lovable towards the audience. In the foreground we see characters living in the mid-ground of apartment buildings and the insurance company. They join the background when we see Briggs going out to do as the Hypnotist said. Allen stays to the traditional linear storyline, following only one story line (which is that of Briggs) clearly staying to the recipe of cause-and-effect, logic and rational. Allen cleverly uses contrast in the execution of the characters. Briggs is seen as a more hyper character saying what's on his mind in the most creative ways, as well as covering his own behind in the most clever of ways. The other characters being more calm and collected in their lines and execution of their character. It is also definitely seen in the difference in behaviour between when Fitzgerald and Briggs jump from being themselves to being controlled by the hypnotist. We also see the actors and actresses giving not only giving great work, but also giving such theatrical performances that at some stage it felt like I was watching a theatre piece and not a film. By keeping the look of the film warm and almost retro, the director succeeds in creating a film that is visually as enjoyable as the story itself.The film is also presented as a satirical Noir film. The use of warm colour and mundane shapes make this film easy to watch, and almost sooths you as you go along for the ride. There are crimes being committed, investigations being held, our protagonist confronted with beautiful women and his own hormones, just in this case our hero is not your normal Noir hero, he's the underdog, the loser. They guy who has wanted attention his whole life.Like in most of Allen's films, such as 1977's Annie Hall, 2013's Blue Jasmine and 2014's Magic in the Moonlight, we are clearly aware of the space in which the story takes place, as well as which perspective from where the story is told from, in this case the character of Briggs. The title of the film and the content of the film go hand in hand. Fitzgerald and Briggs are under the control of the Jade Scorpion. Doing as the hypnotist wishes and not asking anything. It makes you think that maybe we are all just puppets in the hands of a great or evil puppeteer. Aren't we all just instruments? Then there's the recurring carnival music that plays when Briggs or Fitzgerald goes into their larcenist hypnosis. This makes me feel like he's putting the people on display, saying humans are made to be viewed and made to be manipulated, because in the end their minds are stronger than their bodies, but it is so easy to hack those minds, thus so easy to control those bodies. The characters in this film are also a lot older than me at this stage and they all have been married at some stage, but none of it turned out the way they wanted it to be. People cheat on each other and even when they judge the act of infidelity we have two characters, Fitzgerald and Magruder engaging in a heated affair. This comments strongly on the legitimacy of marriages, what do they really mean, when people are so eager to break them. We see people who are filled with addiction, Briggs with his gambling with the horses, Fitzgerald who has tequila at 10 in the morning, downing a bottle in a matter of seconds, as well as a bullpen filled with drifting smoke from the smoking staff. We are also faced with the idea of mental illness, what is reality, if we are all just puppets in the hands of a master pupeteer... We see Fitzgerald wanting to jump out of the window just when Magruder, (who has a wife) tells her he can't be with her. The film also highlights the power of the human mind and the senses of the human as strong and durable. Because there was nothing Briggs could do on his own about the hypnotist and his assistant, because he didn't know what was going on and it was his mind that made him do what he was doing. We also see a slow and steady love story that makes us realize that maybe the one you were meant to be with was right under your nose, because even when their feelings for each other don't come out until the end, Briggs and Fitzgerald behave as if they are an old married couple. In the end we see them together, but only after Fitzgerald's secret word is said. I then started to ask myself, what is love, is it just an infatuation that can't last, or are we so hypnotized by the idea of love or a strange love story that we are willing to settle, like most of the characters in this film? How intoxicating or toxic is love actually? Because in the end all the characters are playing games with each other, this is shown much more clearly with the sly way the hypnotist uses hypnosis to force people to do what he wants, Magruder holding Fitzgerald on a line, postponing to talk to his wife, but rather keeping Fitzgerald under wraps and not letting anyone know what's really going on. We also see a film about men being attracted to strong women, men like Briggs, and women seeking independence and adventure as with the characters of Fitzgerald and the erotic supreme queen, Laura Kensington. On an imitational level the film succeeds to create a story that doesn't only feel plausible, but it creates a world that was so long ago, but it feels so real and tangible right now. On a formalist level, we don't see Allen really playing around with symbolic composition, the film's composition is as real as possible. He intuitively uses the elements of a realistic, yet theatrical, film.And then on an emotional level we see the film excelling in making us feel sympathetic towards the characters, in the way the music flows from one scene to the next. The way Allen and Hunt so carefully and steadily create their chemistry on stage, as well as the believability of the whole situation, even though he threw in something as strange and odd as hypnosis. In the end I found myself really enjoying this film. It's not one of my favourite films, but it's definitely not one of my least favourite. You start to wonder if Allen is really playing a character, or if he's just being himself and living out his own life frame for frame. In the end it made me feel hopeful about life and love, saying that you have to take chances on yourself and other people, and that sometimes just the right word can change your whole life.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001): Dir: Woody Allen / Cast: Woody Allen, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, Charlize Theron, David Ogden Stiers: Great 1940's galore yet lacking the true inspiration of Woody Allen. Title references the idea of one medium causing disruption to another. Allen and Helen Hunt play a bickering couple in the business of selling security alarms. Upon an evening out they are called up on stage where a hypnotist causes them to fall in love. The hypnotist is really a jewel thief and as follows Allen is phoned and hypnotized into stealing. He doesn't realize that police are looking for him and when he becomes a suspect his only shield is Hunt, who believes him but not sure why. This leads to a totally contrived ending. Unlike his great work in Small Time Crooks, this is not one of Allen's best efforts as director. He throws in familiar elements lifted from better movies. His role is familiar but works for him. Hunt is having an affair with her boss while being entranced herself. The ending works against her relationship mentality and her level of freedom. Dan Aykroyd is miscast as Hunt's sleazy boss who is all too predictable. Charlize Theron as a hooker sleepwalks through it. David Ogden Stiers plays the hypnotist who lands Allen in trouble to begin with. Its referral to film noir is perfectly realized despite a screenplay that is jaded. Score: 6 ½ / 10

It's 1940. CW Briggs (Woody Allen) is an insurance investigator who cracks a lot of cases. Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) is his new boss working under the owner Chris Magruder (Dan Aykroyd) who she's having an affair with. She's constantly butting heads with CW while reorganizing the office. They are at a company diner. CW and Betty Ann are hypnotized by magician Voltan to be used later for robberies. Then CW is given a robbery case on Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron) that he himself unknowingly robbed.It has marginally funny lines from Woody. I don't think Helen Hunt and/or her character works that well. Her affair with the boss keeps her from having any romantic chemistry with CW. It's good that they hate each other because it comes across the screen. They are more bitter and not funny together. Their eventual turn is unconvincing. This is a passable effort from Woody especially the period piece aspect. There are funny moments but the central chemistry is lacking.

Woody Allen's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is set in 1940 and combines and pays homage to two film genres popular during the forties, screwball comedy and film noir, even though during that decade those two genres were not generally regarded as having much in common with one another. It shares with film noir the figure of the dedicated, trenchcoat-wearing lone criminal investigator and with screwball comedy not only an absurd and convoluted plot but also the device of two characters who, on the surface, hate (or at least dislike) one another but who are secretly in love. In the forties those characters were often a divorced or separated couple who inevitably ended by getting back together, like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday."Here the ill-matched couple are C.W. Briggs, an insurance investigator, and Betty Ann Fitzgerald, an efficiency expert working for the same company. Although Briggs has had a good deal of success in uncovering insurance frauds and recovering stolen goods, due mainly to his ability to think like a criminal and his numerous underworld connections, he does not impress Betty Ann who regards his methods as outdated and Briggs himself as a male chauvinist pig (to use a more modern expression not actually in use in the forties). Unfortunately for Briggs, Betty Ann has the ear of his boss, Chris Magruder, with whom she is secretly having an affair. The plot is not only far-fetched but also fairly complex, but the central idea is that Briggs and Betty Ann are hypnotised by a crooked stage magician into stealing jewels, that neither of them have any memory of what they have done under hypnosis, and that Briggs is then assigned by Magruder to investigate these crimes. The film had a production budget of $26 million, making it Allen's most expensive film to date, even though that figure is peanuts compared to today's average Hollywood blockbusters, or even to the Hollywood blockbusters of 2001. It fared poorly at the box office and received a mixed reception from the critics. For at least the last twenty years the standard critical idée recue about Woody Allen has been to say "He's not as funny as he used to be", but in the case of "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" critics of this type have had an unexpected ally, Woody himself, who has said that it is perhaps his worst movie. He stated that it was only the high cost of the film, caused largely by its period setting and its elaborate sets, which prevented him from going back and reshooting the whole thing from scratch as he famously (or notoriously) did with "September". My initial reaction was to say that this is yet more evidence that great artists are not always great critics, especially where their own work is concerned. Yet in one respect I think that Allen was right. His main concern was that he had been wrong to cast himself as Briggs, and, in all honesty, I am compelled to agree with him on this point. To start with, it was a mistake to make Briggs so much older than Betty Ann. (Allen is 28 years older than his leading lady Helen Hunt). Addressed to a man of her own age, Betty Ann's sharp put-downs would be pertinent and to the point; addressed to a man old enough to be her father they seem arrogant, impertinent and evidence of a lack of respect. More importantly, Briggs is totally different from the sort of neurotic, angst-ridden intellectual whom we have come to regard as the typical Woody Allen character. This is a role- a cynical, wisecracking private eye, irresistible to women even if they dislike what he stands for- which seems to demand a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant, and I don't think Woody really fits that particular bill. And yet, despite this miscasting, I cannot agree with Woody that this is his worst movie. "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" may lack the depth and significance of his truly great films like "Crimes and Misdemeanors", "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan", but it has a genuinely witty script, based around the brilliant comic idea of a detective investigating a series of crimes which, unknown to him, he has committed himself. Allen himself may be miscast, but this cannot be said of the rest of the cast, especially Hunt who makes the most of her splendidly bitchy part, the sort of roles which in the thirties or forties would have been played by Russell or Katharine Hepburn. All the great films noirs, and most of the great original screwball comedies ("Nothing Sacred" being a rare exception), were shot in black- and-white. No doubt Allen considered doing the same with this film, as he had done with "Manhattan", but in the end made it in colour, but in colours which Roger Ebert described as "burnished and aged", with a palette dominated (as in some of his other films, such as "Alice") by browns, yellows and oranges. This palette combines with the elaborate period sets to give this film a highly distinctive look, one which recalls the films of the forties without actually copying them. Charlize Theron appears in a role which adds little to the plot but which adds greatly to the mood by recalling the femmes fatales of noir; if Hunt is the new Russell or Hepburn, Theron takes on the role of the new Lizabeth Scott or Gloria Grahame. Is this really your worst movie, Woody? In my view it's nothing of the sort- in fact, it's a positively good one!. You will have to try very hard if you want to come up with something as awful as "September". Even in its reshot version that must count as your worst movie. 7/10