Treat-Williams Movie Reviews

Overall, this movie was a bit over reaching and predictable. There were no surprises and the script fails to deliver on the potential drama of the story. The acting in this movie is quite good and does help to deliver it from made for TV status. In fact, I have to wonder what Linda Hamilton was doing in this movie at all. Either her career is on the way down or her agent needs to suggest that she be more picky with her roles. Truly, her character could have been fully eliminated from the script without really losing anything.

I say go ahead and watch. It's not too bad, if you don't expect too much. It will at least help you to burn a couple of hours with some mindless entertainment. We all need that sometimes.

For DVD collectors: This DVD has basically nothing of interest. There are no extras beyond production notes, cast&crew, and the trailer. Kinda disappointing on that front.

The video is great at showing the behind the scenes maneuvering that allowed Leno to steal The Tonight Show from David Letterman. That may be harsh but I don't think there is any other way to describe what happened. The rightful heir to Carson was Letterman. Leno was (and still is) a poor pretender to the throne.

That being said, the intrigue and lies used to move the transfer of the Tonight Show to Leno is great. CBS's decision to enter the late night market and lure Letterman is played out realistically. It's interesting to note that if Letterman got the Tonight Show, CBS was ready to go after Leno.

The video is a good companion to the book. The book provides much more detail and inside information but the video hits the highlights. If interested, you may want to read the book before viewing the video.

Look forward to seeing this on DVD hopefully with some extras.

The video is great at showing the behind the scenes maneuvering that allowed Leno to steal The Tonight Show from David Letterman. That may be harsh but I don't think there is any other way to describe what happened. The rightful heir to Carson was Letterman. Leno was (and still is) a poor pretender to the throne.

That being said, the intrigue and lies used to move the transfer of the Tonight Show to Leno is great. CBS's decision to enter the late night market and lure Letterman is played out realistically. It's interesting to note that if Letterman got the Tonight Show, CBS was ready to go after Leno.

The video is a good companion to the book. The book provides much more detail and inside information but the video hits the highlights. If interested, you may want to read the book before viewing the video.

Look forward to seeing this on DVD hopefully with some extras.

Note: This film would be good for anyone involved in the film business, but I would NOT recommend it for us moviegoers.

Set in Los Angeles, just days after Japan launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and plunged the U.S. into World War II. It is a time of fear, panic, and uncertainity. Folks are convinced that Japan is planning a full scale invasion. General Stillwell (Robert Stack) is ready for anything as the citizens let loose to defend a nation.

Based on many different stories documented later, the film is a hodgepodge of those events. Fashioned after the comedy epics of the 50's and 60's, like It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, that's what 1941 tried to be. After all these years some of the more confusing stuff now makes better sense. Thanks to some restored footage not seen in the theatrical version. Some of it still falls flat but it's not as bad. Part of the problem is that they tried to throw "everything up in the air" to see what worked. As I said, it's not all that bad if you take it as is.

The Collector's Edition DVD lifts its best bonus material from the laserdisc release. The 103 minute documentary, produced by Spielberg documentarian Laurent Bouzereau includes most of the primary crew but none of the surviving cast. Hmmm...It's still a fine retrospective though. You'll also see home movies and on set footage shot by Spielberg, outtakes, deleted scenes, storyboards, photos, theatrical trailers and other marketing materials. The most interesting extra though, was reading the often scathing reviews offered by some of the critcs back then.

Spielberg and company acknowledge 1941 may not be their finest hour--and while I agree--I also think this restored version is still worth a look with a *** and a half star rating.

1941 is without a doubt the definitive cult film, loved and hated by millions...more of the latter, unfortunately. But for those who love it, they truly do LOVE! Like Spielberg himself says in the documentary "It's a small, twisted crowd that appreciates '1941'." I'm proud to be a part of that core group as I am able to notice, understand and appreciate the jokes director Spielberg, producer John Milius and writers Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale spewed forth into this film while I'm now living such a disgustingly politically-correct environment like our own.

Racist? Hardly...merely a pie in the face of the Statue of Liberty (as Speilberg calls it) and a Stooges poke in the eye to the American social environment of the 40's. Funny? Absolutely! Who can't laugh at Eddie Deezen, Murray Hamilton and the dummy on the runaway ferris wheel? Who can't laugh at Ned Beatty blowing up his own house with a anti-tank mortar? And who can't appreciate and simply gawk at what is still some of the greatest miniature effects ever put onto film?? A.D. Flowers was a genius in this department!

My advice to those naysayers is this...free your minds of the contemporary P.C. clutter poisoning our world these days for 2-1/2 hours and watch this painfully UNDERRATED movie once again. You'll be surprised as to how much more you'll appreciate it. Even Spielberg himself loves it again!

I usually like Woody Allen's movies - especially his more serious films such as Hannah and her sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors and even Mighty Aphrodite. However, "a Hollywood Ending" is not a movie I will recommend. The story starts as rather promising when a once famous director played by Allen is given a promising directing job. This job comes to him when he is at the bottom of his career and thus he has no option but to take the offer even if it comes from his ex-wife and her new lover (whom he detests). At this stage of the movie Woody Allen is as neurotic as ever but the dialogues are witty and interesting. I was now expecting to see something about movie filming on the whole and something about the director's struggle to make the film when his ex-wife is in the neighborhood. However, the director, our hero, suddenly turns psychologically blind and this not-so-funny gimmick is stretched throughout the whole film. The director has no choice but to hide his blindness and thus directs the movie without being able to see what he does, with endless seemingly "funny" situations where this gimmick is used over and over again (a gossip reporter spying around, the young actress invites the blind director to her room, the scenes are not properly filmed, etc. etc). The whole situation did not seem comic to me and I could not understand the pride over spending the studio's 50 million dollars.
This movie seems to be such a waste as the story begins quite well and could have been really interesting. Tia Leoni is beautiful and her performance seems to save this movie from being totally boring. No other actor has left any impression on me. Very disappointing.

The blind director bit ends up becoming a shaggy dog story on which Allen hangs a series of jokes about the Hollywood studio system he has endured and/or taunted from afar for most of his career in making movies. All of Val's ideas for the movie represent things we have seen Allen do in his own work, such as use black & white photography to glorious effect in "Manhattan," so "Hollywood Ending" is definitely a film for someone well versed in Allen's career and not a casual viewer who mostly enjoyed his early, funny films.

I was just disappointed that the blind director bit did not have more of a payoff (in that regard you see almost all of the good stuff from the trailer). Most of the good one-liners in this movie are about the film industry and not the blindness of the main character (e.g., Val is told that someone "has made some very financially successful American films," and shoots back, "That should tell you everything you need to know about him"). Perhaps the problem was that I was thinking back to "Crimes & Misdemeanors," where Allen touched on the subject of blindness in a poignant and purposeful way. But that is not his intent here, where the emphasis is clearly on shtick over pathos. I really expected Woody Allen to do much more with this subject than hang gags on it.