Saturday, 2 November 2013

150W: Celebrity

Short reviews for clear and concise verdicts on a broad range of films...


Celebrity (Dir: Woody Allen/1998)

Celebrity is powerful. Leonardo DiCaprio, in 1998, was every teenage girl’s fantasy afterTitanic and appearing in a Woody Allen film titled Celebrity was an inspired choice. It wasn’t a huge success, earning $5m in the US alone, but Woody took a step back and placed Kenneth Branagh in the ‘Woody’ role instead. Branagh is Lee, a novel-writer and journalist, divorcing his wife, Robin (Judy Davies) of 16 years. Running parallel to Lee’s midlife crisis is Robin’s post-divorce romance with Tony (Joe Mantegna) as we see their relationship slowly blossom. Comic turns and celebrity-cameos a-plenty (including actors from The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire and The Simpsons) but something is unbalanced. Allen said, with Manhattan, he shot it in monotone to romanticise the city. The monotone choice, with great cinematography from Sven Nykvist, seems at odds with the unromantic celebrity world. An intriguing and engaging context but standard romance.

Rating: 5/10

This entry is part of Woody Allen Wednesdays on Flickering Myth

Nb-Interestingly, Celebrity was one of my earliest entries on my blog ... so if you wanted to take a step back in time and see some awful writing by my younger self, click here

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