Writer-director Woody Allen does not appear in this lesser comedic effort (he did himself a service by bowing out), but he's nearly present just the same. Kenneth Branagh does an amazing Woody Allen impersonation as a fidgety, horny newspaper and magazine writer who has various encounters with sexy women after divorcing his neurotic wife, played by a drab, worn-out Judy Davis. Melanie Griffith is very good as a glamorous starlet, Winona Ryder is cute as a waitress and movie extra, Charlize Theron is positively feral as predatory supermodel, and Leonardo DiCaprio is very convincing (unpleasantly so) as a havoc-wreaking, foul-mouthed movie star. But the meet-cutes and idle chatter between these characters do not a movie make--these people are so tiresome most of the time, they bore themselves. Allen takes a bit of chance here--this isn't his usual collection of smart-talking, classical music-loving New Yorkers--however the male-female hang-ups are still the same, depressingly so. *1/2 from ****

Celebrity, the 1998 edition of Woody Allen's film-a-year output certainly benefits from being shot in black and white, and I am thankful that it was executed in such a way. Celebrity blends anguish and comedy as it evaluates the symbiotic relationship between the media and celebrities all the while illustrating the lives of a man and woman after their marriage ends. Starring Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis as the divorced pair, Celebrity is a deeply probing look at the concept of identity, how that is altered by love, and how one's own expectations can alter the course of their life. Never one to shy away from the philosophical struggles of our own existence, Woody Allen delivers another top-tier film that has sadly been largely ignored amidst his other more notable features.Lee Simon (Kenneth Branagh) experiences an identity crisis after attending his high school reunion. Lee sees a room full of people that he deems as losers causing him to evaluate his own life. Lee's assessment reveals him to be a generally unhappy person, dissatisfied with nearly every aspect of his life. Working as a travel writer, Lee earns a steady living but is unfulfilled by his work. His marriage to Robin (Judy Davis) has been troubled for awhile as she is increasingly prohibited by her personal neuroses and particular brand of Catholic repressions regarding her sexual life. The high school reunion is the tipping point of the feelings Lee has been struggling with. Essentially, it is his perception of others and their possible perception of him that sent Lee into a crisis resulting in his seeking a divorce from his wife. Along with the divorce, Lee also changes his career, settling as a journalist for an entertainment magazine as he vows to finish the screenplay he has been developing. For the first time in awhile, Lee thinks he has catapulted his life in the right direction, believing the connections he is making in the entertainment industry will pave the way for his screenplay being positively received. Through his work, Lee spends a majority of his time around celebrities witnessing their lavish expenses and experiencing their many idiosyncrasies. Lee has been initiated into a world with seemingly endless possibility for sexual encounters to soften the blow of his many life changes. Conversely, Robin struggles through the divorce, questioning both her life's meaning and direction. Not knowing what else to do, Robin takes part in a Catholic retreat allowing her time to reflect and contemplate the next step in her life with the help of her friends. Unexpectedly, at a plastic surgery consultation, Robin meets a television producer who hires her to be a production assistant thusly bringing her into the fold of celebrity life, as well. Robin's job affords her the opportunity to be surrounded by the rich and famous as well as their handlers, people responsible for their happiness, and the media personnel who wish to know everything about each celebrity and write about it for their own livelihood. In love, Robin is reluctant to chase, unlike Lee who is pursuing anyone he thinks he may have a chance with. Robin still finds herself devastated and dismayed that her marriage has ended and has fallen into a relationship, quite by chance, with her boss, Tony Gardella (Joe Mantegna) the man who discovered her at her plastic surgery consultation. Lee and Robin have been worlds apart from one another throughout their bleak marriage, once divorced, however, their lives have never converged more. As each has taken a drastically different path since the dissolution of their marriage, one becomes closer to true happiness, the other becomes more unhappy than ever before. In Celebrity, we see the story essentially from Lee's perspective and Robin's perspective separately. Even considering the number of flashbacks and abrupt cuts between the two sides of the story, the film converges seamlessly by the time the credits roll. By the end of the film, we see the perspective of each come together as the two principals meet in a crowded movie theatre after each has been thrust into the fast-paced world of celebrities and those that depend on them. In an eye-opening exercise, both Lee and Robin have learned that the glamorous life of a celebrity, the only side seen by the public at large, is not what it's made out to be. It would appear to be an ideal life if all one has to do is be seen as beautiful, attend premieres in gorgeous clothes and parade in front of a camera for work. What only those inside the industry see, however, is how often one is shuffled around a film set before an effect is wasted or a light fades, or the pressure of catching the first symptoms of a cold so you're not out of work failing to fulfill a contract. Woody Allen's film, Celebrity, paints a complete picture of the ones we think have perfect elegant lives and exposes how often they are used for their celebrity status as a stepping stone for others and how often they are taken advantage of. Allen also exposes how altered the lives of those that work around the celebrities are, how exhausting a job it is to work around the neuroses of those who never get to leave the public eye. My favorite element at work in Celebrity is the realization that we are not as separate as we think. We are constantly affected by the lives of others in ways that we are unable to fathom. Lee and Robin's stories are told in two parts, the audience has the advantage of seeing them at the same time reveal that they are not diverging as much as they think.

Many Allen's fans are surprised at "Celebrity"'s poor ratings and reception. Well, I'm surprised at their surprise.As incongruous as it is to talk about ratings in a film that dismisses critics, I think 6 stars out of 10 is a pretty reasonable appreciation of Allen's attempt to emulate Fellini's masterpiece "La Dolce Vita". It doesn't disqualify everything from "Celebrity" and many moments hit the right chord, but other ones fell desperately flat or annoying, and I don't mean Allen-annoying but annoying-annoying. Yes, I know it's supposed to have that effect, but between Allen's intentions and the finished result, it's up to the viewer to make up his mind. Having done that, I could narrow it down to one double problem: Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis. Bad actions can be fun, bad acting, not so much, not from the lead characters anyway.The film's opening echoes the unforgettable image from "La Dolce Vita" with the plane carrying the Jesus statue with bikini-clad women waving at them. One can also see a good deal of symbolism in a plane skywriting the word 'HELP', but the sequence doesn't let much time for analysis as it immediately introduces the first celebrity played by Melanie Griffith, later approached by Branagh after he's done flirting with another actress played by Winona Ryder. Now, the plane, with the black-and-white photography established the kinship between Allen and Fellini and the rest of the film consists on different encounters with celebrities, all related to archetypal situations, just like Mastroianni's unforgettable journey.Do we learn something about the celebrities' world? Not much but it can be fun, some take luscious poses in bed and make it with the interviewer, other sniff coke, the rest is made of partying, boozing, dancing, banging, to clearly establish the obvious: a world of false sophistication and debauchery that can only sound appealing to someone going through midlife crisis and eager to spice up his life a little. So the problem wasn't much in the episodic structure and the rather absence of plot, the story is as confusing as the mind of a man approaching the forties can get. The problem is in the performances. Basically, the two people who belong to the normal world are those who don't act normally.Indeed, we expect from a sexy and easily aroused top-model (Charlize Theron) to be open-minded in terms of sexual preferences and be concerned about anything that can affect her health or face, because she's under contract with a cosmetic company. We expect from a young coke-addict star, much more with the look of Di Caprio, to handle wife-beating, hotel-room crashing or plural sex as part of common routine, or for a stage starlet not to be in a hurry to belong to somebody. And the celebrities did justice to their cameos. But I didn't think it would happen -and I saw the film twice- I was strongly annoyed by Branagh and Davis.There's a part where Branagh contemplates his age with anxiousness during a prom reunion, if he was as good in the rest of the film as he was in that sequence, "Celebrity" might have been a better experience. In fact, why not just playing it like Mastroianni? He wasn't exceptional but there was a constant boredom or detachment in his eyes, which made him a better foil for the world he was plunging us into. This time, it's Branagh and Davis who make the celebrities look normal by contrast, by both needlessly overplaying their nervousness and anxiety. Basically, Branagh is doing an Allen impression and Judy Davis is playing the same character as in "Husbands and Wives", but it had a point when she was an insecure middle-aged woman left by a good husband, here, there wasn't any psychological set-up to make her hysteria believable.Take one scene where Joe Mantegna asks her out, she hesitates, tries to find the right way to say no, she's good at embodying nervousness, but for such an inhibited character, her anxiety confined to ostensible hysteria, and she was anything but discreet. Take the other scene with the hooker, she's with a woman, one with sexual experience, so the least likely to be shocked, but Davis is again as neurotic as ever, incapable to finish a sentence, stuttering, hesitating, mentioning her 'Catholic education' once again. Seriously, there have been dysfunctional couples in Allen's films but rarely with the two of them being like Davis and Branagh, the latter channeling Allen so shamelessly it makes you wonder why Allen didn't play the role.When Allen plays his usual neurotic guy, he doesn't act, he's just being himself and that's what the film needed, normal people to emphasize the attraction one could have toward the celebrity world, but by playing the two 'straight persons' in such an eccentric way, the film loses its balance and coherence. We don't see in Davis and Branagh a normal couple, but caricatures. And Branagh's role wasn't demanding much, even by underplaying it, it would have worked better than playing the Allenian card and damaging the film's credibility. In the scene where he splits up again with Famke Janssen's character, it's like Jamsen can give acting lessons to the Shakespearian actor. She plays a realistically hurt woman; he's doing a stand-up routine. This was the opportunity for playing an interesting comedic character but there's worse than doing your shtick, it's doing someone else's.Now, the film has its moments, I don't think Allen could make a dull or boring film even if he wanted to, but "Celebrity" doesn't strike as one of his major offerings, and it's not saying much from a director with such a prolific career. And I'm severe for a simple reason, even if I didn't like an Allen film as I expected, I rarely exclude the possibility of watching it again, but here, I can't imagine seeing Davis and Branagh again, and unfortunately, there's not single scene without any of them.

Well, one of my last "1" rating was another Allen movie so he really collects mine.Here, he offers a dull movie with no plot (it's just a collage of meetings)and totally drowned under streams of babbles. By chance, Allen is to movies what men magazines are to publishing: as he got money, he can always cast sexy actress: for this one he chose a young Charlize and it was good to see again Ms. Onatop.Beyond making a movie about movie stars is as pointless and void as the concept of celebrities. It's the same thing when TV makes shows about TV. It's cultural cannibalism or artistic myopia. My opinion is that artists and celebrities are two different breeds. The first bring emotion and inspiration through art, the former had just their poor and material life to offer to the audience. One delivers a message, the other runs after money.Let's make the difference and skip this movie for example!