Anything Else
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Anything Else
| Anything Else | |
|---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Letty Aronson |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Jason Biggs Christina Ricci Woody Allen Erica Leerhsen Danny DeVito |
| Cinematography | Darius Khondji |
| Editing by | Alisa Lepselter |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks (USA) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (UK DVD) |
| Release date(s) | 27 August 2003 |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$18,000,00 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Anything Else is a 2003 romantic comedy film. The film was written and directed by Woody Allen, produced by his sister Letty Aronson, and stars Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Woody Allen, Erica Leerhsen, Adrian Grenier and Danny DeVito.
Anything Else was the opening-night selection at the 60th annual Venice International Film Festival.
Plot
Jerry Falk (Biggs) is an aspiring writer living in New York City who falls in love at first sight with Amanda (Ricci) and dumps his girlfriend to get with her. Seeking advice, Jerry turns to the aging struggling artist (Allen) who acts as his oracle -- and that includes trying to help sort out Jerry's romantic life.
Critical reception
The film received generally poor reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 40 percent positive reviews, based on 129 reviews.[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 43 out of 100, based on 37 reviews.[2] Leonard Maltin, in his movie and video guide, gave the film a "BOMB" rating, and called it "Allen's all-time worst".
Marketing
Dreamworks launched a $10 million marketing campaign for the movie that was centered on the appeal of Biggs and Ricci to attract a teenage audience to the film. Trailers, TV ads and posters for the film seemed to hide the fact that the film was written and directed by Allen, perhaps due to his last few films being underperformers at the box office. Roger Ebert noted in his review of the film that "It's as if they have the treasure of a Woody Allen movie and they're trying to package it for the American Pie crowd." [3] The film was a flop stateside, opening at #12 its opening weekend and grossing only $3.2 million. As always for Allen's films, it performed better overseas, grossing $10.3 million, but could not make back its $18 million shooting budget or the $10 million Dreamworks spent marketing the film.
Filming
Anything Else is only the second Allen film to be shot in anamorphic format, the first being Manhattan. It also has the honor of being the first film released with all prints having cyan optical soundtracks (the new standard for analog sound on film prints).
When he cast him and during most of the shoot, Allen was under the impression that Biggs was Jewish. Allen was surprised to discover that he is in fact Catholic.
References
- ↑ "Anything Else - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ↑ "Anything Else (2003): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ↑ Ebert, Roger. "Anything Else review". Chicago Sun-Times.
External links
- Anything Else at the Internet Movie Database
- Anything Else at Allmovie
- Anything Else at Rotten Tomatoes
- Anything Else at Metacritic
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