The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Director: Woody Allen
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 3.0
Loopy Allen retro-comedy (set pre-WWII) has him playing an insurance investigator and Helen Hunt as his boss (technically speaking) and they both get hypnotized (!) and 'programmed' by the shady criminal Voltan (David Ogden Stiers) in order to steal jewels. This film got critically trashed when it came out, so I was hesitant to watch it, but it turns out, some sixteen years later, that it fits in neatly with, say, 2014's Magic in the Moonlight where he gets to take many of his obsessions and cram them into one (very, very light) movie: zippy one-liners, older male/younger woman romantic subplots (who the hell leaves Charlize Theron in bed?!), magical arts and (of course!) jazz. I kept wondering the entire time how he's gonna write himself out of one of his most silliest plots ... but he does it, by damn (just make Wallace Shawn a part-time magician!).