HOLLYWOOD ENDING

 There's one really good gag in Woody Allen's "Hollywood Ending" and luckily it lasts for about three-quarters of the movie. In his most self-referential film since "Stardust Memories" Woody plays a film director who, in the course of making his comeback film, (for the producer who stole his ex-wife), goes psychosomatically blind and the gag is he must hide his blindness from everyone but the very few. What follows is what could best be described as 'one of the early funny ones', a farce with not too much analysis. Until he goes blind the movie isn't particularly funny and is more than a little self-indulgent; these are jokes we've heard a hundred times before. Consequently, "Hollywood Ending" isn't one of his better pictures and would probably make a better short story but there's a sweetness to it and Tea Leoni, (the ex-wife), and Debra Messing, (the dumb actress girlfriend), are both very likeable though when you get down to it, it's director Mark Rydell as Allen's perpetually optimistic Jewish agent who walks away with the movie.