There are two types of people in the world: those who get Woody Allen movies, and those who don't. Those who don't get 'em inevitibly bitch about the obvious: he's annoying, and whiny, and obsesses unlessly about seemingly insignificant shit. Oh, yeah - and they'll say a guy like Woody Allen wouldn't score chicks like Tea Loene and Debra Messing in a million, trillion years.

But those who do get it understand that if there IS a secret meaning of life, it probably lies in the SIMPLE THINGS. Airplane chases and ticking time bombs and aliens giving anal probes are cool and all, but they shine little light on figuring out what the Hell we're all here for in the first place. Love his work or hate it, you're a better person for having seen it.

Decades before a FAR less talented guy cashed in on whining about nothing, Woody Allen pointed his camera at his own life. And there he found the little things - the girl who absolutely, positively can't have sex without smoking dope first, the importance of ALWAYS keeping hooker money around, the crippling paranoia of whether his headache is caused by a potentially sight-impairing brain tumor...

The uninitiated search through all this looking for the point, and in looking so hard it eludes them. It's pretty simple: He's a conflicted, but decent guy, trudging through life in an increasingly imperfect world, battling with a desire to live a happy, meaningful life in the face of the inevitable slow and painful death from cancer, or worse... Critics say this is boring. I say this is the reason cavemen got up and started telling stories in the first place: to make us laugh and want to carry on in the face of, well... you get the point..

Which is why I can relate to his films. I'm not Tom Cruise, I'm not Brad Pitt. Fuck - I'm not even Scott Baio, or that dude from 'Saved By The Bell'. The fate of the free world doesn't resat in my hands - and it never will. I'm not a rogue cop looking for the guy who murdered my gay brother's pre-op trans-gender aromatherapist. I'm a punk kid from Chicago who has a disturbingly hard time getting out of bed in the morning to face the slow march to the grave. I don't give a fuck about nuclear bombs blowing up Washington. I care about why my life is a such a fucking mess all the time. Why the older and wiser I allegedly become, the bigger mess I make out of it. Why happiness, even in its simplest forms, fucking escapes me at every turn. These are the reasons I'm a Woody Allen fan.

So ignore any bad reviews 'Hollywood Ending'has received. These criticisms are more against the man than the film. They simply don't buy his schtick, and therefore EVERY movie is guilty of the same crimes. Those who give it a fair shot will see a nuerotic film director whose insecurities and hypocondria keep him stuck wallowing away in the rut he created. And once in this rut, the only way out is by the grace of his over-taxed friends swooping in dragging him out - kicking and screaming (again). We all know it's a sick, fucked up world. But sometimes we need to be reminded that it's a whole lot let less dangerous with a friend or two around.