Controversial Blus: Anything But Anything Else's Botched Discs, Please

Alright, this post has been a long time coming.  I guess I kept holding off because I was waiting for a happy resolution to this story.  But at this point, it's safe to say that just isn't coming.  At least not in this decade.  So here swe go.  I'm talking about the not just controversial, but straight-up botched, blu-rays of Woody Allen's underrated 2003 comedy Anything Else.

Admittedly our romantic leads, Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, aren't the most dynamic movie stars Allen's ever cast.  In fact, I'd put them near the bottom of the list.  But at least they're age appropriate.  And they're bolstered immeasurably by a smart script and a fantastic supporting cast, including Stockard Channing, Danny Devito, Fisher Stevens and Allen himself in one of his funniest roles.  Also look for a pre-Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon.  Anyway, the central romance is a little inert, though Ricci manages to make things somewhat interesting, but the story around goes to some surprisingly bitter and compelling places.  It's an honest film about failure, and I think it's one of his best from this period.  But  it tends to get overlooked because Dreamworks tried to market it to the American Pie crowd (Allen isn't even shown in the trailer), and this is definitely not what that audience was looking for.

Dreamworks Entertainment released Anything Else on DVD as a new release back in 2003.  It was barebones, naturally, but otherwise a pretty solid presentation.  And that's a good thing, because it languished in standard definition for years.  Eventually, in 2016, it came out in Germany, from Concorde Video.  It's unfortunate it was our only option, because as we're about to see, it had a problem.  More recently, it's been released in the US (more on that in a bit) and Spain, but it's all the same.  Let's take a look.

2003 Dreamworks DVD top; 2016 Concorde BD bottom.

So, hard to miss, the sides have been completely shorn off the picture.  It takes me back to the old days, as a teen, when I learned the Star Wars movies I saw on television didn't look like they originally did in theaters.  Here, we're going from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.  And to be clear, this is not an open matte situation, where Concorde is just showing extra picture along the top and bottom that shjould've been cropped out.  This just fully chops off both sides of the image, neutering the cinematography of DP Darius Khondji (Se7en, Uncut Gems) and making this one of those rare cases where the DVD is better than the blu.  And that's a shame, because otherwise this is a decent HD upgrade with a much clearer and sharper image.  The little sign on the counter in front of Allen is unreadable mush on the DVD, but on the blu, we can read it plainly, "AMERICA, FLY OUR FLAG PROUDLY!"  And just to be clear, yes, the new American and Spanish blus use this same, cropped HD master.

When Quiver announced their big Woody Allen Collection blu-ray set in 2021, all of us fans were hoping we could finally replace our Anything Else discs, whether we had the Dreamworks or the Concorde.  We were even more excited by the inclusion of Sweet & Lowdown (or "Lockdown," as they spelled it on their cover mock-up there) and Deconstructing Harry, both making their worldwide blu-ray debuts.  Well, their 9 nlu-ray set turned into an 8 blu-ray set, with Sweet and Deconstructing nowhere to be found.  I think it's a safe assumption that's because they bought the rights and announced the set before they learned the reason why those two films had never been released on blu anywhere else in the world: there were no preexisting HD masters.  And I guess Quiver is too small/ under-equipped a company, or just not interested enough in these films, to commission them.  And that would also explain why they released the same European 1.78 master of Anything Else.  That's just what they were handed.  At one point, Quiver responded about it publicly on Twitter that, "we understand the frustration! We are reviewing this internally."  But that was in 2021, and they've yet to follow up on that, so I hope nobody's been holding their breath.

Anyway, both of the discs we're looking at here feature the original English mono in 2.0, in DTS-HD on the blu.  Dreamworks disc also includes optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, while Concorde's only has German, plus a German dub, also in DTS-HD.  One point you have to give to Quiver: their release does include optional English subtitles if you need 'em.  Neither disc has any extras, not even the trailer.  So I guess I'd just suggest grabbing whichever release is cheapest and easiest for you to acquire in the moment, even if that's still the DVD.  Definitely don't bother double-dipping.  None of these discs are worth recommending, but this film deserves a spot on any Allen fan's shelf regardless.