If anyone has wondered what can make a battle hardened Marine act like a love-struck high-schooler, the answer is simple—a meet and greet with Scarlett Johansson.

The 23-year-old bombshell met with nearly 600 service members at Camp Buehring, Kuwait Jan. 20 during her five-day United Service Organizations (USO) tour to the Gulf region.

Hundreds of Marines and sailors from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit put on their best smiles as they waited anxiously to get a glimpse of the Hollywood actress.

“I’m a huge Scarlett fan,” said Lance Cpl. Nathan Long, a calibration technician with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166 (REIN), 11th MEU. “When I found out she was coming, I couldn’t believe it. All I thought about was that I needed to meet her.”

A hush fell over the crowd as Johansson, wearing a pink sweater, knee-high boots and cherry-red lipstick, entered the USO. Long’s wait to meet her would end soon.

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It used to be a night for greasy-haired blokes with guitars, but this year’s Brit Awards is all about lipstick, stilettos and posh frocks.

There’s a growing list of girls attending – and now I can reveal Scarlett Johansson will be adding some A-list glamour. The Lost In Translation actress has been confirmed to present an award and – more importantly – she has also been invited to perform at the bash on February 20.

Scarlett is recording an album of Tom Waits cover songs – (imaginatively) titled “Scarlett sings Tom Waits” – with Rhino Records in the US. So Brit Awards organisers are pulling out all the stops to persuade her to sing one of the tracks at London’s Earls Court. A ceremony insider said: “Scarlett has tentatively agreed to sing and is definitely presenting a Brit. It would be a real treat.”

[Note from Riikka: The album is actually titled “Anywhere I Lay My Head”]

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Woody Allen was once again asked about his working relationship with Miss Scarlett in a new interview for MTV Movies. He also states that there is no truth to the New York anthology film. Click on the link for the full interview or simply check out the related quotes here:

MTV: There was a report the other day that said you and Scarlett Johansson are going to be a part of a New York anthology film.

Allen: A complete and total fabrication. Made up like a poem by Coleridge. Completely untrue. It wasn’t even grounded in any conversations or anything.

MTV: It is true, however, that you and Scarlett have a great working relationship. Why do you think you two click?

Allen: She just dropped into my professional life inadvertently. It was supposed to be Kate Winslet in Match Point, and at the last minute she was exhausted and called up and said she wanted to back out of it because she’d been doing movie after movie and wanted to spend time with her child. And I understood that completely. I don’t think movies should be anyone’s top priority. I said, “Sure, no problem.” Of course I was faking it, because it was a problem for us. We were trying to figure out who was available for it, and Scarlett happened to be available. This all happened over one weekend. As soon as I met her, I had a very good rapport with her. She’s very charming, very bright, very amusing. She livens the set up. The minute she walks on the set, the amperage goes up 200 points. She’s a great kid and very talented. She can sing. She can do dramatic things and jokes if you need her to. Whenever there’s a part she could play, she would probably always be my first choice.

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Award-winning actress Scarlett Johansson will soon travel to the Persian Gulf to visit service members as part of a USO/Army Morale Welfare Recreation entertainment tour. Johansson will tour the region for five days, visit numerous military installations, greet fans, sign autographs and interact with members of the U.S. armed forces.

Taking time out of her busy film schedule to travel with the USO, Johansson receives countless letters from service members. Determined to do more than simply reply to those letters, she will soon meet and shake hands with men and women in uniform. Johansson will also relay America’s admiration and appreciation to troops serving abroad.

“This USO tour to the Gulf region truly means a lot,” says Johansson. “I have wanted to go over and visit for some time, and now my moment has arrived. It’s one thing to reply to a letter or extend your thanks to service members in a speech, but it’s another thing to visit them and spend time with those that do so much for us back home.”

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PageSix.com reports that Scarlett is set to make her directorial debut with a short film set in New York! Knowing that directing has always been a dream of Scarlett’s, I personally could not be more excited for her. :heart:

Woody Allen muse Scarlett Johansson will soon make her directorial debut this year in New York, I Love You, PageSix.com has learned exclusively.

The project, in which Allen will also participate, taps 12 directors to create five-minute films, all love stories set in NYC.

Johansson and Allen will join confirmed directors Anthony Minghella and Mira Nair on the project, from the producers of Paris, J’Taime, a similar flick from 2006.

ScarJo, a New York native and granddaughter of Danish filmmaker Ejner Johansson, is taking the leap with a series of acting projects on the burner.

Reports surfaced yesterday that Johansson was approached by Courtney Love to play her in Heavier Than Heaven, a forthcoming Kurt Cobain biopic.

Macleans.ca has published an interesting new interview with Woody Allen, where he talks about Scarlett, among other things. Here’s a few related snippets:

Q: I think that [beautiful women] have to be one of the most consistent things in all your films.

A: It’s a treat when I pay my $10 to see a movie if I can feast my eyes on Scarlett Johansson, or in my new movie I have Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz. And it is wonderful, you know, your heart beats in a way that no other phenomenon can make it beat when you see them. When you see Mia Farrow over the years, or Diane Keaton over the years, it’s just a great thing.

Q: You said Scarlett Johansson will have a limitless career if she keeps her poise. What did you mean?

A: Well, you know, she’s 23. She was only 19 when she did Match Point, and everybody is throwing things at her, and she’s so beautiful and so sexy and so gifted, she’s funny, she can sing, she can act dramatically, she can do anything, but she’s gotta make the right choices of films and she’s got to not go the Page Six party route. I don’t want to read about her in the paper with this boyfriend or that boyfriend, or in rehab or taking pills. Now, I haven’t–which is great–but she’s got to keep her poise and select good pictures. I don’t think she’s always made great choices. She’s gotta take her acting seriously, not the acting as an entree into a world of being the toast of the town but the way someone like Meryl Streep did it.

She’s a sexy Hollywood starlet. He’s an aging martial arts star. So what do Scarlett Johansson and Chuck Norris have in common? They both backed winners in Thursday’s Iowa caucuses.

Yes, with a little help from their celebrity fans, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee emerged victorious in Iowa’s pivotal, first-in-the-nation caucuses.

While Norris, 67, stumped for – and sparred with – Huckabee in mid-December, the 23-year-old Johansson was by Obama’s side in the home stretch, speaking to a small group of high school and college-aged “Barack Stars” at a rally in Coralville, Iowa, on Tuesday.

“She actually seemed a little shy when she first started speaking,” audience member Jason Millsap told PEOPLE. “But [she] warmed up to the crowd, who were eager to ask questions… It was pretty exciting and inspiration to see someone as big as her come and talk to her peers.”

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Compiled by me. Please feel free to post your own choices here or at the forum.

Best news:
Scarlett signing up for Vicky Cristina Barcelona [view entry] and The Spirit [view entry].

Worst news:
Scarlett not attending the Venice Film Festival to promote The Nanny Diaries (simply because I was there myself and I would have liked to see her ). The delay of The Other Boleyn Girl [view entry].

Favorite magazine cover:

A tie between the two for me. Episodi is not a new picture in itself but I think it was the most beautiful cover shot of all.

Favorite photoshoot:

I liked them all a lot but Vogue is my fave. Stunning!!!

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Sandra of Portman Source informed me of a site that appears to be an international official site for The Other Boleyn Girl. Not much there yet, except for the international trailer that premiered online a week back. Nevertheless, be sure to bookmark TheOtherBoleynGirlMovie.net.

Roberto sent in a link to Hollywood.com, which confirms that Scarlett’s character in He’s Just Not That Into You is named Anna and the film will be released August 1, 2008.

For those who are interested in the “sexiest women” type of polls, Andre Poupada reported to us that Scarlett has been nominated for AskMen.com’s Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2008. You can vote for her here. Scroll through the galleries and rank each of the nominees on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most desirable). Feel free to vote as many times as you like, the final results will be revealed on January 31, 2008. As you may remember, Scarlett ranked #2 in the 2007 vote.

Scarlett also ranked #8 on EmpireOnline.com’s “Sexiest Movie Star Ever”. Visitors of the site were earlier in the year asked to pick the sexiest movie star ever, with their choice of screen star being unrestricted by age, gender or silver screen era, and over 20,000 votes were reportedly cast. Here’s what they had to say about Scarlett:

#8 – Scarlett Johansson

The voice that sounds like she’s been awake all night and up to all sorts of things would be sexy enough. But match it with a pouting face and a body apparently designed to describe the term ‘va-va-voom’ and you have a killer package.

Sexiest Moment
Sheer knickers in the opening moments of Lost in Translation.

Did You Know…?
She has a twin brother, who is her junior by three minutes

Last but not least, The Nanny Diaries is now out on R1 DVD so be sure to grab your copy! Captures will be up soon.