neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Hollywood Ending
	Woody Allen Woody Allen, Téa Leoni, Debra Messing, George Hamilton, Tiffani Thiessen, Treat Williams, Mark Rydell 2002		You're not alone if you find it difficult to buy the idea of long-in-the-tooth actor/writer/director Woody Allen paired with way younger leading ladies in his later films. That stumbling block is present, times three, in "Hollywood Ending," a decent comedy with Allen as Val Waxman, a has-been director struck by psychosomatic blindness while shooting a major studio movie. The gals? Neurotic Val's ditzy current flame is played by Debra Messing (lush babe from TV's "Will & Grace"); tart, leggy Téa Leoni ("Flirting With Disaster") has the role of his ex-wife; and perky Tiffani Thiessen (former teen ingenue from the dumb TV series "Saved by the Bell") plays an actress who throws herself at him. Right. To Allen's credit, this is all considerably funnier than his previous effort, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion." The blind-director premise is clever, if kind of thin to sustain a full-length feature. Still, Allen mines satirical gold from the movie-biz milieu. With George Hamilton and Treat Williams as Hollywood weasels.