Anything Else written and directed by Woody Allen hundreds of films form The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other prestigious compilations are reviewed on my blog, where you can find notes of many of the best books of all time https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Anything Else written and directed by Woody Allen hundreds of films form The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other prestigious compilations are reviewed on my blog, where you can find notes of many of the best books of all time https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

6 out of 10

 

Annie Hall is one of the best movies ever made https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/annie-hall-screenplay-by-woody-allen.html but Anything Else is nowhere near, indeed, Anything else would tempt one to joke:

 

-          Give me Anything Else, but this

 

Woody Allen was once celebrated as one of the greatest film makers, an auteur in fact, although the mesmerizing William Goldman explains in his fabulous work the fallacy of believing in that once popular concept

In Adventures in The Screen Trade  https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/adventures-in-screen-trade-by-william.html we read about Alfred Hitchcock and many more, the idea that the whole team is quintessential is explained and evidence is given, even using the example of Alfred Hitchcock himself, this is a marvelous book

 

In some ways, I feel some sympathy for Woody Allen, given some recent experiences, where I have not done anything (or much) wrong, and yet I find I have to start on Goodreads from near zero – well, there is this torrent of notes, which will be copied, but all the ‘popularity’, the high ranking are gone, forever maybe

‘Happiness Activity No 6: Developing Strategies for Coping-practicing ways to endure or surmount hardship or trauma’ this is from The How of Happiness https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html by fabulous Sonja Lyubomirsky and you find wonderful advice in there, if you want to read it

 

It is petty to moan about being out of Goodreads, and just a couple of days later, from WhatsApp, the latter being just a coincidence, others would be tempted to get into conspiracy theories, or blame Orange Woland – it is not inconceivable to believe that being critical of that fellow contributed to some protest and complaints

On WhatsApp I have to get information I need, so I ask questions, and then some of those there decide to block the number – although they advertise services, I will not go into details, who knows what sensitive soul would protest about them – and then when the numbers add up, they tell me I broke the rules

 

-          They refer to spam

 

Indeed, come to think of it, there were some warnings here as well, in that I deviate from the subject of the ‘review’, and then some blamed for that, for good reason perhaps, but I need to emphasize my modesty:

 

-          I feel very few people read these notes, which is the normal behavior

 

Why know what some obscure, amateur like me thinks about some great or lousy book, it is a matter for the experts, the critics, and then if come to how hierarchies are established on Goodreads, it is just like on other social networks, they give you likes (if) and then you do the same, establishing a virtuous or negative spiral – it is in the classic of Psychology Influence https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/influence-psychology-of-persuasion.html by Robert Cialdini, the Reciprocity Rule

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’