not as good as all the hype

Just perfect...

A Brilliant Conflict

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Although there were definitely some funny lines, 'Hollywood Ending' was incredibly boring. Ridiculous slapstick, gags that went on WAY too long, and tedious mundane bits.I know every Woody Allen film can't be as great as his 'Manhattan' or 'Annie Hall', but this movie was simply dreadful. Couldn't wait for it to be over ~ almost unheard of for one his flicks.Gave a very generous 3* out of 10.

Val Waxman (Woody Allen) is a fading Oscar-winning film director but he's becoming an even bigger diva. He has been reduced to making a TV commercial in a Canadian blizzard. Lori (Debra Messing) is his aspiring actress girlfriend. His ex-wife Ellie (Téa Leoni) convinces her studio head boyfriend Hal (Treat Williams) to hire Val to direct her dream project. Hal had stolen Ellie from Val and Val still holds a grudge. Val suffers psychosomatic blindness from the stress and his agent Al struggles to cover for him as he films the movie blind.I didn't really laugh. There's one basic joke and then it's the same thing repeating. Val is annoyingly bitter and not in a funny way. I don't really care about any of the characters. I want to like this Woody film more but there is something off and I can't completely put my finger on it.

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.

Woody Allen is a comic genius who plays himself in this film as Val Waxman. I don't believe his on screen relationship with Debra Messing or with Tea Leoni but that's Woody Allen for you. This film has him playing a down and out New York City film director who gets to make a film in the city with a Chinese cinematographer who can't speak English. Just days before filming commences, his character comes down with blindness. He can't let the cast, crew, and backers know he's really blind. But still, I do enjoy a good Woody Allen comedy. It's light-hearted at times in this film. If you don't get Woody Allen, I'm sorry that you probably wouldn't like the film. Anyway, I think it's time he got his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television; the Cecil B. DeMille Award; the National Medal of the Arts; and the Kennedy Center Honors. It's just time for him to get his rewards.