A friend who’s seen Woody Allen‘s Scoop…naaah, let it go. But his comments weren’t entirely in synch with those of New York magazine writer Logan Hill, who declares in the new issue that Allen’s two films with Scarlett Johansson — not just Match Point but also his forthcoming Scoop (Focus Features, 7.28) — “have been his best in years.”

Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson in posed shot for New York magazine.

Hill calls it “an old-school Allen comedy — a murder mystery solved by an aging magician (guess who) and a na√É∆í√ǬØve young blonde (Johansson) — peppered with vintage-Woody one-liners. On how he maintains his svelte figure, his character responds, ‘I never gain an ounce. My anxiety acts like aerobics.’ And then there’s his religious biography: ‘I was born into the Hebrews, but as I got older, I converted to narcissism.'”