Hollywood Ending (2002)

Undescribable Perfection

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Easy to sum this picture up: Movie-about-movies + Woody Allen plays himself again + Deus Ex Machina happy ending. Foolish add-ins like a rat-eating rock musician son who Woody, playing the same nebbish as always, allegedly took fishing as a child. I realized I wasn't getting any enjoyment from the film when it took me three separate logins on HBONow to finish it.

Where can we start? I just saw this film on HBO. I know its 15 years old but any good film will hold up over time (ie Casablanca). This might have been better without Woody playing the lead. It seems so over acted. He is more whiny than ever. Mark Rydell is very good. As a filmmaker myself I see the "reality" of the process but I don't think he would have ever gotten the job in the first place. The photography is the most orange I have ever seen. If I shot a film like this, I would be fired. It costs 16 million and made back about 4 million. Very few filmmakers can make films that lose money although today very few films are making a profit. I now understand why he started going to France to make his films. For some reason they make money when shot over there. When you hear a lot of voice over it shows that the film is in trouble and the direction and script aren't enough to tell a story. Someone has to explain whats going on. I like his early work that was very funny but this is not funny. The Chinese cameraman bit is funny for a minute, this really happens on movies. It seems he tries to create these love stories where he is always with a beautiful woman which would never happen in real life. He is a very proficient filmmaker. It seems the stories are very much the same. The jazz soundtracks are getting old too.

Woody Allen has always been a compulsive writer, but in the early 2000s it seemed he wasn't striving for making a particularly deep movie, rather for recreating the feel of his 'early funny ones' and returning to his slapstick roots. Unfortunately, 'the late funny ones' (Hollywood Ending, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Scoop, etc.) probably look funnier on paper than what ended up on the screen (with the exception of the outstanding Small Time Crooks). Allen does pique our interest, but he himself doesn't seem to be interested enough to really flesh out his comedic sketches.One of his most glaring mistakes in this period is that he either forces miscast actors to play his younger alter ego (John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway or Jason Biggs in Anything Else), or he himself gives a mannered, over-acted, sub-par performance, as in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. In Hollywood Ending, he practically demonstrates how not to play a blind man. (In my opinion, Sean Penn in Sweet & Lowdown and Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity were brilliant Woody-clones — it might have been better if one of them had returned to play Allen's role here.) The other problem with the late funny ones is the lack of balance. The plot of Jade Scorpion was thin and unfocused, yet the dialogues were witty, while in Hollywood Ending it's the other way round: the overall plot is well-developed, but the scenes themselves are boring. Instead of fleshing out his ideas, Allen's mind is already working on the next sketch to be shot and released within a year.Nearly 15 years have passed since then, but there's still no sign of Woody slowing down. Maybe he should have, but as long as he continues to make two or three truly great movies every ten years (and refrains from making such dismally awful pictures as Melinda and Melinda), I'll gladly pay the price of watching the fluff in between.

There are certain Woody Allen movies that I don't fully appreciate- I don't like when he films in black and white and I'm not a big fan of slapstick comedy. The movies I prefer are the witty, dialogue rich, relationship based, contemporary feasts. I also prefer Allen to star in his own movies, mostly because when he doesn't, the lead character tends to be doing an imitation of Allen. This film, although I wouldn't give it a ten out of ten, certainly featured all of these ingredients.Once again Allen has surrounded himself with an amazing cast of actors who aren't nobodies, but aren't quite superstars. I don't know if he chooses actors based on chemistry, or if that is something that just comes together when one is working for him. Whatever it is, it is on full display throughout Hollywood Ending.Allen, as usual, plays a neurotic, under-appreciated, genius (called Val) with a knack for speech. He's a genuine artist who has been fired one too many times and is therefore stuck working on commercials and other lowbrow jobs. He has a live in girlfriend, an actress played by Debra Messing, who is pretty much just around because Val doesn't like to sleep alone. After getting fired from his last big picture, he is dumped by his then wife, Ellie (Tia Leoni) for the head of a studio, Hal (Treat Williams).As Val is stuck in Canada filming a commercial (that he eventually gets fired from), Ellie is in Hollywood with her new Hal, trying to get him to use Val to direct their newest film. Everyone in attendance agrees that Val is a great director, but no one wants to hire him because of his mental problems. Finally Ellie convinces to Hal to give Val a chance and things begin to look up.The night before filming is about to begin, Val makes an emergency call to Al (Mark Rydell) because he (Val) has suddenly gone blind. Trips to the doctor reveal that there is no brain tumor (as Val had obviously expected), nor are there problems with his eyes. Instead, as his analyst (of course, it is a Woody Allen movie) explains, it is completely psycho-somatic. Pressured by Al, Val decides to not tell anyone else and attempt to direct the movie anyway.Mayhem obviously ensues, as it's never easy to direct a movie without the use of the eyes. Al agrees to be Val's guide, but on the first day is told that he is not allowed to be on the set. Eventually, after many hilarious incidences, the movie gets made.Although the movie comes out horrible and Val is ultimately discovered, happiness does prevail. Life doesn't often have happy endings, so when one happens in a film it tends to feel forced or corny. Not with Woody Allen; maybe it's because so many of his movies do not end sad, or because even some of the films that end happy are also sad, but Mr. Allen sure knows how to make a happy ending out of a mess.Overall, there have been better Woody Allen films and there have been worse. I would rank Hollywood Ending somewhere near the top of his list though. It never ceases to amaze me how Allen has written and directed over 70 films, many of which have the same general plot, and yet he never seems to lose his freshness.