|
 Movie
B |
Video B+ | Audio D
| Extras C-
Woody Allen, Téa Leoni, George Hamilton, Debra
Messing, Mark Rydell, Treat Williams, and Tiffani Thiessen
director Woody Allen | DreamWorks Home Entertainment
2002 | Romantic - Comedy | PG-13 | 112 minutes
Region 1 | DVD-9
anamorphic
widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio
| Dolby Digital 1.0
Summary: Woody Allen wrote, directed, and
starred as the leading man Hollywood Ending. Woody plays Val
Waxman, a former world-class director who is now
down-and-out-on-his-luck. He has to take odd-and-end commercial
directing duties just to pay the bills. When his former wife, Ellie
(Téa Leoni), suggests to the head of Galaxie Studios that Val would be
the perfect director for their new movie, his luck begins to change.
Incidentally, the head of the studio happens to be the man who stole Ellie
from Val and is now her lover. Reluctantly, the studio executives
give Val the job and everything seems to be going reasonably well, until a
few days before shooting. Val gets a spontaneous case of
psychosomatic blindness due to excessive stress. With help from his
agent, he tries to direct the film in his temporary blindness. As
you can imagine, this gets him into all sorts of trouble. To make
matters worse, Val isn't sure that he is over his ex-wife, who is now
managing him as his producer on the film project and is about to marry the
handsome and rich studio head executive.
If you're a fan of Woody Allen comedies, Hollywood
Ending is definitely your kind of movie. If you're not yet a
fan, you may come to appreciate Woody Allen's comedic genius. Or
maybe not. I enjoyed this film, but Woody Allen's lightning-fast
dialog can be tiresome, even considering his genius flair. Téa
Leoni gives another solid performance. And she looks great in this
film, nearly as great as her appearance in Family Man.
Turning to the sound design, I was shocked when I
realized that the soundtrack is mono! Why is this? Is it
because Woody Allen is deaf in one ear? This would explain his
acting performances where his character wasn't able to locate the speaker
by stereo hearing. There is not much also in the way of bonus
features. Unless you're a die-hard fan of Woody Allen, this is
definitely rental material, not collectible material.
Special Features: Don't hold your breath,
there's not much here: production notes; theatrical trailer; cast &
crew bios
DVD released on 9/17/2002 | Reviewed 9/20/2002
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Additional Notes: Unless we specify otherwise, the
video and audio quality are very good when their grades are "A-"
or better. Only the highest number of channels of surround sound
format is listed (e.g., Dolby Digital 5.1). If there are both Dolby
Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks, then both are listed. All
DVD-Video discs are backwards compatible with stereo-only playback
systems.
Let us know what you think about this DVD review, write to us at Staff@TimeForDVD.com.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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