As Good As It Gets

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Genius. Wonderful. Many of Allen's films tackle the dichotomy between reality and delusion, and this one nails it, better even than the others. Technically, creatively, wittily. I'm staggered by the low 7.7 rating. This film is one of the most ingenious, clever, philosophical movies ever made, and I do not understand why it's not in the top ten of all time. Perhaps it's just because it's too movingly downbeat and melancholy at its conclusion.

I've always ranked Woody Allen's films amongst my all time favorites because they're the perfect blend of creativity and originality, two qualities that are as scarce as they are important in cinema.The Purple Rose of Cairo is a product of the finest quality, I'd say it's Allen at his best. It tells the story of a woman in his late thirties who works at a restaurant to make a living, coming back to a home where an ape-like, macho husband awaits her. Still, she dreams. She dreams of pictures, explorers, poets, a world fairer and more just. The question that is so rooted in our soul, the one that drags us out of our comfort zone and into the abyss every time we try to come up with and answer is...Where is it? Not in this world because there's so much pain and injustice going in it that one wonders if we shouldn't rip the evil apart from what's pure light to give ourselves a chance to behold the light that should guides through the the darkness, into the Promise Land.Is it, then, in another world? I'm' not a religious person although the previous paragraph might make me look like one, therefore I must rule out a religious answer, but that road is opened for you to take it. The answer is CINEMA. Where else could it be.In an attempt to simplify what otherwise could have been a rather difficult topic, the American director mixes both worlds- real and the one portrayed by pictures- by having movies characters coming into ours, and some of us -the waitress- going into theirs.To me me the originality of the idea goes along way to show that both of them are just to sides of the coin.

This was a very cool movie. Most of us don't know there are two sides of ourselves, the 'what we do in our physical world' side and the 'what we do in our imagination/thought' side. How many of us know the difference and how much more the imagination/thought side of us affects us more than our 'physical' side and what we are doing in it? Probably not many adults go into too much imagination of what can be, rather than what is or what was. That's why it's important for many of us to learn how to focus on what 'can be' as opposed to 'what is now' or 'what was' in the past. The movie helps us understand and puts a physical perspective on an imaginary mind. So there was the movie character (which was the imaginative and fictional idea which wasn't in the current creation/physical reality) and then there's the real actor playing the imaginative/fictional part of the show. Which one would I rather stay in? That's easy...the imaginative/fictional because eventually as I do, it becomes real to me, so real I can sense it in every part of my being by feeling it, the imagination of myself in an ever-changing and evolving world of desire. It's a interesting concept many of us don't bother to delve into, but I'm learning it all by myself and I couldn't be more proud of how far I've come. It's an older movie and it's even a depiction of the 'great depression' era, which is much older, but it's worth a viewing.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO captivates audience as an ultimate escapism for a cinephile, and ends with a masterstroke of reality check, Woody Allen's quixotic fantasy sets in the Depression era, Cecilia (Farrow) is a New Jersey housewife, stuck in a dead-end marriage, her husband Monk (Aiello) is a jobless loafer, treats her badly and they are childless, her clumsiness also puts her job as a waitress hanging on a string and the only thing can cheer her up is watching movies in the local nickelodeon.Now playing is a film called THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, Cecilia has watched it many times, but after Monk blatantly fooling around with his mistress in their own home, a downcast Cecilia has nowhere to go but watch the movie again and again, then, an inconceivable silver-screen magic happens, a minor character in the movie, Tom Baxter (Daniels), who is an intrepid adventurer, walks out of the screen, materialises in the real life and expresses his affections to her, Cecilia is swooned by the unexpected romance, Tom's pure devotion and unworldly nature is a timely remedy for her to forget about the bitter reality, during their rendezvous, the two get closer, although the real world is drastically different from where Tom comes from, he is head-strong to stay with Cecilia, at one point, Tom invites Cecilia to enter the movie with him, offers her a tour of the dreamland, although the champagne tastes like ginger ale.On the other hand, where lies Allen's most incredible sleight-of-hand, the two worlds collide with astonishing visual trickery, the black-and-white cast of THE PURPOSE ROSE OF CAIRO, breaks the fourth wall and directly communicates (sometimes bickers) with the audience, Tom's absence causes a pandemonium, the flick cannot proceed to its next scene; the theatre cannot turn off the projector lest Tom will be left in the real world forever; whereas the film's producer is at his wits' end of this unprecedented plight, the aspiring actor Gil Shepherd (Daniels) who plays Tom in the picture, is apprehensive about his career will come to a premature end in light of Tom's madcap behaviour, files to New Jersey, tries to settle the score. Once he finds about Cecilia, they strike an unexpected fondness to each other. Now it is Cecilia has the final say, whom she really wants, Tom or Gil, basically the same guy but one is a blank sheet emerging from the silver screen and another exists in real world, who promises to bring her to Hollywood. It is a tough decision, Cecilia makes a more logical choice, and everything turns out to be a pipe-dream, life continues, but mercifully, there will always be a new movie to fall in love with, that's why we love cinema!This fetching comedy has been my second favourite Allen's film by far (just after ANNIE HALL of course), Farrow and Daniels (utterly refreshing in his dual-faceted charisma) are incredible in their almost screwball dynamism, as for Aiello, manages to leave his own marks of promise despite the cardboard design of a disqualified husband, there is a faint hope that he may learn something from the lesson, which could be the best thing for our ugly-duckling, shattered in her dream but never stop dreaming.