Anthony Lane's Scarlett Johansson profile in The New Yorker

I stand corrected. The buzz was that she could have (should have) been nominated for Her voice.

Thanks.

 

> Someone says something on the Internet.
> Journalists see something said on the Internet.
> Journalists write about something having the Internet buzzing.
> People on the Internet read the story about something.
> People on the Internet feel compelled to say things about something.
> Profit.

 

I thought those had to have a ? ? ? ? ? somewhere in it.

 

Nah, we've mastered this one.

 

this is more about the new yorker than it is about the piece itself. the story makes it sound like lane had maybe 20 minutes with her, under supervision of her pr person, and he took what he could get from that and riffed it into something bigger. which is not that unusual for a celebrity profile that appears in a great many other magazines.

but in a new yorker profile it's usually more the case that the writer visits the subject multiple times. to me it was less notable for lane's leering than for an apparent lowering of the new yorker's standards.

honestly it would have been better if he had just written about her purely from a critical standpoint, and not bothered with the interview.

(which brings up another tangent about journalists often come out on the short end when they makes tradeoffs for "access," exhibit a judith miller, but that's another thread).

 

I think that happens a lot. Writer pitches (or is assigned) a long story and gets 15 minutes with the subject while she jumps from junket to junket.

It makes you appreciate the features Jones does for Esquire. I love seeing what a great writer does with great access.

 

Go read Jones' Esquire feature on Johansson. He fawns over her looks as much as any feature on her has.

 

I think there's a part of these guys that looks at such a meeting and figures it's a chance to get laid in historic fashion. I can respect that.

 

Right about now, Scarlett Johansson is supposed to be surveying the history of dildos with me.

Alas, Scarlett has changed her mind, deciding that today is not the day to gape at dildos with a stranger.

"Harrison Ford looks like his face is melting off," Scarlett says. "And Mark Hamill looks like his eyeballs are sinking into his head." Sigh.

Did I mention I was expecting dildos?

**

That is a lot of dildo-speak in the first 256 words.

http://www.esquire.com/women/women-feature/ESQ0205SCARLETT_64

 

That voice. Isolated like that in the dark, it's a thing of shivers. Husky but not a smoker's hack, deep but not masculine, breathy but not gaspy, a trace of New York but not Queens, New York. It's perfection. It's what gets you, even in a movie theater. And it's turned out to be her ticket, though when she was a very young actress—she got her first role at the age of eight in an off-Broadway production of Sophistry with Ethan Hawke—casting directors kept interrupting her auditions to check and see if she needed a lozenge.

It's not just the voice that gets you, of course. Our morning began with a walk down Hollywood Boulevard to Highland. We were stared at along the way by men struck dumb by Scarlett's beauty, and for this they can't be blamed: Looking at her invites dilemma, because it's so tough to know what to fall for first. Her eyes are huge and a color that's almost hard to look at, a kind of preternatural blue-green-gray that changes depending on the angle of incidence. Her nose finishes in a pleasing knob that grounds the rest of her features, like the last post of a banister. Her cheekbones are mighty without being too severe, her lips are epic, and her teeth are white but crooked along the bottom, which lends a fallibility to a face that might otherwise be too perfect. And that nearly perfect face sits on top of a body that's petite and fleshy at the same time. Hippy, breasty, it has the give that normally comes only with miles.

Seeing all that, despite Scarlett's camouflage of jeans, plain brown T-shirt, and big hat, passersby began stopping us on our walk so that I might take their picture with her. She was plenty accommodating and swore that she's never picked out in a crowd, but after snapping pics for Eric and Angela and some English broad in rapid succession, I decided she was lying.

 

"Her nose finishes in a pleasing knob that grounds the rest of her features, like the last post of a banister."

Dude.

 

I once made a backwards basketball shot 84 feet away from full court (standing under the opposite basket). It could happen.