- Anything Else
Infobox Film
name = Anything Else
caption = Theatrical release poster
director =Woody Allen
writer =Woody Allen
starring =Jason Biggs Christina Ricci Woody Allen Erica Leerhsen Danny DeVito
cinematography =Darius Khondji
producer =Letty Aronson
editing =Alisa Lepselter
distributor=DreamWorks (USA)Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (UK DVD)
budget = ~ US$18,000,00
released =27 August 2003
runtime = 108 min.
country =United States
language = English
imdb_id = 0313792
amg_id = 1:283490|"Anything Else" is a 2003
romantic comedy film. The film was written and directed byWoody Allen , produced by his sisterLetty Aronson , and starsJason Biggs ,Christina Ricci ,Woody Allen ,Erica Leerhsen ,Adrian Grenier andDanny 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. [cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/anything_else/ |title=Anything Else - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes |accessdate=2008-02-13 |publisher=Rotten Tomatoes ]Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 43 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. [cite web|url=http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/anythingelse |title=Anything Else (2003): Reviews |accessdate=2008-02-13 |publisher=Metacritic ]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." [ cite web | url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030919/REVIEWS/309190301/1023 | last= Ebert | first= Roger | title= "Anything Else" review | publisher= Chicago Sun-Times] 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 millionDreamworks 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 factCatholic .References
External links
*imdb title|id=0313792|title=Anything Else
*amg movie|id=1:283490|title=Anything Else
*rotten-tomatoes|id=anything_else|title=Anything Else
*metacritic film|id=anythingelse|title=Anything Else
*mojo title|id=anythingelse|title=Anything Else
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