Movie Reviews

Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending is about a down-on-his-luck, has-been film director (Allen) who is given one last shot at a major production, so that he may re-establish himself as a viable player in Hollywood. Unfortunately for him, after only a few days into the shooting of the new film, the director suddenly and inexplicably becomes blind. Knowing that this would surely be the end of his career, he explains his situation to a small group of people (including his ex-wife, played by Tea Leoni), who exasperatedly try to help him along in directing the picture. The final big payoff of Hollywood Ending is that the film directed by Allen within this film ends up being seen as an artistic mess and critical disaster by the American press, but the French (always something of an oddity when it comes to cinematic appreciation) love it and offer the director a new career in Paris.

The idea of a secretly-blind director trying to create a picture is a fairly amusing one, and parts of Hollywood Ending are pretty funny. Unfortunately, a lot of it just seemed kind of flat and unenergetic, despite Allen's trademark manic gestures and speech-patterns. And what's the deal with all these incredibly young women who appear as Allen's love-interests? It's just bizarre (and it's something I noticed in the only other Woody Allen movie I've ever seen, Small Time Crooks).

I don't know whether Allen's more recent films simply aren't as good as his earlier ones (none of which I've seen), but at the moment I can't say that I really "get" his appeal. He's amusing at times, but mostly he's just kind of annoying. Maybe I'll have to watch one of his classic films like Annie Hall to understand him better.