Scarlett Johansson made my day weird, but in a good way. I noticed on Amazon Prime that they were offering the movie Under the Skin for free. I mean, free if you have Prime. So… free-ish.

I don’t hate ScarJo but she’s not an actress that I generally seek out the movies of, but I remembered a scifi movie with her and Morgan Freeman being promoted not too long ago and while my mom saw it and thought it was dumb, I had some administrative tasks to deal with and I figured I’d turn it on in the background.

Twenty minutes into it, and I’ve seen a lot of Scarlett. More than I’d ever anticipated seeing of her. And no Morgan Freeman. And the movie is… intriguing. Mostly silent. I’m not seeing anything that I recognized from the trailers, but a whole lot of Kubrik-like direction and Glasgow accents.

What in the hell am I watching?

Well, it wasn’t Lucy.

It was a very intriguing sci fi film that, like Snowpiercer, I just can’t explain or do justice, though it is a lean in and pay attention kind of film. If I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have tried to do other things while watching it because the other things didn’t happen.

After the movie, I wondered what movie I’d thought I was going to watch and looked up Scarlett Johansson’s name and an article popped up about her looking at properties in LA. Now, I’m not a big “let’s learn about all the private lives of celebrities” but I do enjoy seeing celebrity homes. I don’t know if there’s some architecture perv support group or what, but I just find it interesting. I do use what I’ve seen in writing sometimes. Goldie and Jett’s home in Double Black (Black Gold 2)was actually a property that was for sale at the time, though I kind of cobble together details so it’s not quite so obvious where I’m talking about.

In the first book, Black Gold, I had an image in my mind of Ellen, Goldie’s mom’s, house. I hadn’t shopped for it like I did Jett and Goldie’s, but just had, in my mind, a blueprint and style of architecture and decoration.

Apparently, Scarlett Johansson toured the house that I’d pictured as Ellen’s. She didn’t buy it, which… it’s weird to me that a house Scarlett Johansson didn’t buy made the news, but also weird that she toured a house that I thought I’d made up!

See what I pictured as Ellen’s house!

See Under the Skin,but be prepared that it is NOT an action movie. If you don’t like movies with intense psychological elements and limited dialog like The Shining or Eyes Wide Shut, this probably isn’t a movie for you.

p.s. This is some good Scarlett Johansson… I hope she does more movies like this!