Celebrity | | Cast : | Kenneth Branagh | | Director : | Woody Allen | | Studio : | Miramax Home Entertainment | | Format : | Black & White, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | November 20, 1998 | | DVD Released Date : | May 03, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | January 17, 2005 | | Summary | Woody Allen's worst? And Brannagh - oh dear | Content
 | If Manhattan holds a strong claim to be the ultimate New York comedy, Celebrity is equally in danger of being considered the worst. It covers many Allen themes - divorce, complex relationship issues, anxious, furrow browed, tweed jacket wearing intellectual men pursuing and sleeping with implausibly attractive women etc.
This is Allen's natural territory that he has made his own in classics such as 'Manhattan' and 'Hannah and Her Sisters'. Celebrity takes the familiar themes but intertwines them into the self absorbed, brutal world of Manhattan intellectual celebrity life. Just how vicious this world can be is highlighted by the plight of Lee Simon (Kenneth Brannagh), who consciously adopts a Woody Allen style persona, as he divorces his wife and plunges into headlong into socialite society, desperately wooing supermodels, actresses and book editors. Brannagh casts a rather pathetic figure in his Allen guise - with Woody Allen the nervous intellectual conceit works and it is possible to see why women find him esoterically charming. With Brannagh he just comes across as a middle aged stammering wet. No woman, let alone celebrities, would engage in the type of tumultuous affairs Brannagh manages to embroil himself in during the film.
Woody Allen films normally guarantee sharp dialogue and some on the button jokes. In Celebrity, the dialogue is often unconvincing and flat and, although there are some good jokes (for example Brannagh's ex wife Robin, when asked what goes through her mind during oral sex, replies, 'The Cruxifixion', these are rare occurences. Two or three genuinely funny scenes is a poor return from an Allen film.
The cinematography and score parallels 'Manhattan' in its measured, black and white sequences and classical soundtrack. But these Allen hallmarks are painful reminders of a time when Allen made some of the funniest romantic comedies of all time. Celebrity - with its viciousness, poor characterisation and unconvincing plotting, represents a nadir in the Allen cannon. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 03, 2004 | | Summary | Could not reach the end... | Content
| Man, I love most of Woody Allen's movies, but I could not reach the end of CELEBRITY. AFter the first fifteen minutes I realized was in for a journey of perseverance, but I failed: I was simply not in the mood to watch a film that I surely would not enjoy.
Until the part I watched, I did not like the pacing, the plot or the characters. I tought the movie was slow, boring, lifeless. Probably, the so-called "authentic" WOody Allen faans will say I'm nuts and that the movie is a masterpiece. I disagree. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 16, 2004 | | Summary | This movie had me laughing! | Content
| I am surprised that most people did not like this film. One person even described it as the "worst movie ever"?!? I would definitely have to disagree. "Celebrity" reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "The Big Lebowski" by the Coen Brothers. Like that film, the story revolves around the lives of these pathetic characters. You can't help but feel sorry for them, but laugh at the same time. In fact, this is one of my favorite Woody Allen films. A lot of people think this is unlike a typical Woody Allen film. Perhaps I don't like his traditional work as much. I also enjoyed Allen's "Anything Else", but many fans did not. It appears most people either like his early work or his later work. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 30, 2003 | | Summary | Every master has a low point | Content
| I consider myself a Woody Allen fan. I love his movies, his essays, his plays, and his stand-up routine. So it pains me to say that Celebrity is the first, and so far the only, movie by Allen that I had to shut off before it was over. It was so tedious, that I turned it off twice! I don't know where to begin. This story, if you can call it that, was a messy hodge-podge. Sure, all actors considered are very talented, but their characters were not at all engaging and their respective plots were big empty holes. Celebtity presents itself as a case study of celebrity life: the kind of life a celebrity leads and how a culture regards that celebrated personality. But the movie never does it. All it does it hop from one soap opera lilly pad to another with little unification. The only part of the movie that upholds that promise is when Branaugh, a jabbering brainiac trying to get his screenplay off the ground, follows DiCaprio around Vegas, an arrogant teen movie star with a bad temper, trying to get him to look at his movie script. Only then does the word celebrity come to mind successfully. But this interaction is cut short as Branaugh flies back to NYC to do something, I don't even remember what. Another part of the movie that made me grin was when Branaugh's soon to be live-in girlfriend realizes that he wants another woman. She takes the only copy of his manuscript, some book he was writing, and threw it out into the bay. That was priceless. The rest though, is disposable. It's really hard to believe that this script came from the same guy who gave us Manhattan. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 15, 2003 | | Summary | Perhaps the worst film ever made. | Content
| It is apparently impossible to give a film 0 stars, so I have had to give it one. A Godawful mess bereft of wit, rhythm, or interest. Kenneth Branagh is alternately irritating and embarrassing as he does his Woody impression for two hours. The only good in this film is Leonardo DiCaprio's 15 minutes, during which he blows the stagey, theatrical, northeastern smarty-pants segment of the cast out of the water. Seriously, if you enjoy this film on any level, there is something wrong with you. And I like Woody Allen. |
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