Good movie but grossly overrated

Fantastic!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Christina Ricci's the sexiest most gorgeous girl ever. Her panty scenes in this are intense. This is a miniature, Woody Allen, Danny DeVito, Christina Ricci inspired review. Jason Biggs looks like an NFL linebacker in this. Is that that funny, not really. Did I really need to add that last line about Jason, not really. Now is my review all that miniature, not really, just like Christina. Is there anything else, not really, oh just one more thing, I love Christiiiiiinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Woody Allen is not for everyone but to me he is an interesting director who has a lot to say and does so in a funny, interesting and often in a painfully truthful way. He's done some masterpieces like Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdeameanours, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives and Purple Rose of Cairo, some great ones like Zelig, Stardust Memories and Sleeper though also with a few disappointments with What's Up Tiger Lily, To Rome With Love, Celebrity and Cassandra's Dream. Anything Else did not hold up as well as September, Scoop and Curse of the Jade Scorpion on re-watch(all of which I didn't care for on first viewing) but for all the flaws there are in the film it is nowhere near as bad as expected after hearing it cited often as Allen's worst. Anything Else is one of the weakest Allen films of the ones seen so far(there's still a fair few to go yet) but it's a bit too soon to say it is his worst, considering that I did enjoy it over all of the films mentioned as disappointments that's unlikely. Starting with the many good things, as always with Woody Allen Anything Else is exceptionally well made visually, with beautiful locations and luminous photography. The jazz soundtrack is equally sublime, providing slinky and haunting undercurrents that suited the film brilliantly. Anything Else does have a script that is very distinctive of Woody Allen, there are some genuinely funny moments and of the sly kind, parts really make you think of the issues Allen addresses, there is a lot of truth in the dialogue and painfully so and there is a biting, scathing approach that is sharp enough to make their impact. Sure, a few jokes fall flat which will be mentioned later, but the script is just fine on the whole. The story is uneven but it mostly keeps at a good pace, it does have a good amount of charm(well considering that there is a very clear Annie Hall influence that wasn't surprising) and the sense that the relationship is doomed right from the start- something that Annie Hall did not have- gave some darkness and depth. The acting is good, with Christina Ricci particularly strong and she is well supported by Woody Allen(well mostly) and Danny DeVito who are both hilarious. The chemistry between the leads is very believable and wisely takes centre stage. It is easy though to see why people do not like Anything Else because the characters are written so scathingly(especially Ricci's and Stockard Channing's) and in a selfish and neurotic way that compared to other Allen films it's not as easy to connect with them, that was likely to be intentional but as can be seen in the reviews it will turn people off. Stockard Channing does her best and is funny and formidable, but her character is underwritten so you are left wishing that Channing had much more of note to work with. Jason Biggs's didn't really work for me personally, like Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity(except not as annoyingly) some of the performance did feel that, for somebody intentionally channelling Woody Allen himself, that it was too much of an impersonation and not really coming into his own. Not all the story works, with the miscarriage subplot feeling underplayed and the Jews subplot could easily have been much more toned down or scrapped altogether. It was in this subplot also where the weak link of the jokes were situated, the Holocaust jokes are quite crude and unsubtle for Allen and it won't bode well with some, a couple were on the offensive side actually. All in all, has problems but better than expected considering what has been said about it(which is very understandable and valid but it's from personal viewpoint not as bad as all that). 6/10 Bethany Cox

Jason Biggs stars with Woody Allen in "Anything Else," a 2003 film written and directed by the prolific Allen.Biggs is Jerry Falk, a young comic who meets an older comic, David Dobel, who talks with him about life, getting together with him in Central Park and waxing philosophically. Dobel is full of big words and big ideas, some of which are good ("You have to watch everything in this world, or else your life ends up as a black and white newsreel with cello accompaniment in a minor key.") and some are out there - like having a gun for every room.Jerry's life is complicated. He has a psychiatrist that never talks, an agent (Danny Devito) who's the laughing stock of New York, and a girlfriend (Christina Ricci) he adores but who for the last six months hasn't had sex with him. But she loves him. Even when she has sex with other men, she's thinking only of him. And by the way, her mother (Stockard Channing) an aspiring nightclub singer, is moving into his small apartment with her rental piano.Dobel attempts to extricate Jerry from some of these situations, but then seeing how Dobel handles things gives Jerry pause. Someone steals his parking space, Dobel goes back and smashes everything breakable on the car.There's really no plot, just some clever dialogue and some fun scenes. Allen is amazing. He can write a heavy drama one day, a sophisticated comedy the next, a woman's picture the next, and then a smallish in between comedy like "Anything Else." If you're a Woody Allen fan, you will enjoy this, even if you get a little frustrated for Jerry. As Dobel will tell you, never trust a naked bus driver. And life? Well, it's like anything else. Think about that.

Anyone not interested in seeing a morose, persistently pessimistic outlook on life should never see a Woody Allen movie. I have loved almost everything he has done since Annie Hall and have even come to later appreciate the sheer boldness and zaniness of early comedies like Sleeper and Love & Death. What I didn't expect, but should have, was how depressing Allen's movies would become as time wore on.Aside from the funny and charming light comedy Small Time Crooks, the 2000's must have been a bad decade for Woody Allen. His dark worldview is never more prevalent than Anything Else, which follows the relationship between a young, neurotic writer and his unpredictable girlfriend. The story is very reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie from the 1970s like Annie Hall or Manhattan. However, Allen has improved his game by no longer casting himself as the lead role, but here casting the very talented Jason Biggs to play the nervous, conscientious writer who finds himself with a girlfriend so unreliable and bizarre that he has to come up with new tactics everyday to keep up and understand her unusual logic and thinking. Biggs and Christina Ricci are both very good in playing roles Allen and Diane Keaton perfected 30 years prior. Indeed, the whole cast has a real smart edge to them that keeps the audience engaged and on the edge of their seat.There isn't much to say about the rest of the film, other than to see it and be careful before seeing it. Woody Allen, like so many other great directors in cinema history, is an acquired taste. Like Bergman, Kubrick, Welles or Wilder, he is so unique and individualistic in the way he creates characters and situations that it makes perfect sense if someone tells me they don't care for Woody Allen movies. I must confess, his last few films have become so negative and pessimistic in their outlook and message that it makes me feel very depressed. And yet, his films are always interesting. Despite his usual downbeat material, Allen is not without reason and it makes for a very interesting debate and thought-provoking discussion if you can find someone. The message of this film is that life is so inexplicable that so often you cannot even try to explain why and how things happen. Though I wish I could, I cannot disagree with that thinking and it is because of this that I continue to seek out Woody Allen films.