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| This excerpt is by Rob Lowing from the Sun
Herald. Celebrity opened just recently in London to again...RAVE reviews
for DiCaprio's performance.. Stars and Gripes...Rob Lowing... (Portions of the review *NOT* dealing with Leonardo deleted.) "The biggest casting coup, of course, was snaring Titanic star
DiCaprio. Warning to the fans... he is on screen for barely 20 minutes,
with little dialogue. But, funnily enough, the fans won't be disappointed.
DiCaprio's furious, destructive character (probably deliberately) isn't
exactly teen dream pin-up material - he does drugs and suggests a
"swinging" evening. But DiCaprio offers a blast of energy which gives both
the movie and adult viewers a crucial jolt of adrenalin." Thanks to Bellacia, here's another glowing writeup from a critic in a UK magazine about Celebrity and Leonardo's performance.
Rex Reed's review of Celebrity.
Thanks to Gail for finding this article! Here's the excerpt that critiques LD's contribution. David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. (posted Friday, Oct. 9, 1998) "In Celebrity, he gets a lot of mileage out of Davis (playing yet another poetically discombobulated basket case--gorgeously), Winona Ryder (evenmore breathtaking in black-and-white), Mantegna, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, Melanie Griffith (giving Lee a blow job), and Leonardo DiCaprio as a hotel room trashing, pretty boy superstar. Allen gets more than he deserves from DiCaprio, whose brief appearance is the highlight of the picture. He's meant to embody everything shallow and psychotic about stardom (the conception is out of tabloid tales of Johnny Depp), but the actor has never looked as beautiful, with the chiseled insolence of a young Elvis Presley and the bearing of a Greek God. Every idea in the sequence is banal, but DiCaprio reminds you why movie stars sometimes deserve to be worshipped." Andrew Sarris's review of Celebrity: 'Meanwhile, Lee, her errant ex-husband, is traumatized in turn by a wild night out with Mr. DiCaprio’s Brandon Darrow, a young punk superstar who trashes hotel rooms, beats up his girlfriend and uses language so foul his teenage Titanic fans might be shocked if they were ever induced to see Celebrity. Mr. DiCaprio is particularly astute in demonstrating the cold-blooded calculation that goes into the temper tantrums that keep making the gossip columns. It is like John McEnroe’s gamesmanship in years past of blowing up at the umpires on the tennis court, more to disrupt the concentration of his opponents than to risk losing his own. He always seemed to win the next few points.'
The reviews..
This film's central situation, involving the post-divorce romances of
Lee and his high-strung ex-wife, Robin (Judy Davis), becomes little more
than a pretext for watching fame crop up in the most peculiar places.
There are a handful of fabulous caricatures in Allen's Manhattan
sketchbook, but the film too easily allows these peripheral figures to
outshine its central story. Surprise: the most wildly famous figure whom Lee encounters happens
also to be this film's hottest star. In a devilishly satirical sequence
midway through the film, Leonardo DiCaprio (uncannily well cast before the
release of "Titanic") bursts into the story while trashing a hotel room at
the Stanhope and slapping around his equally hysterical moll (actually
Gretchen Mol). Just as the police are being summoned, Lee arrives to pitch
his screenplay to the bad-boy wonder and is caught up in the frenzy. Allen's screenplay and the show-stopping DiCaprio are shrewdly
perfect when it comes to the star's whims, the entourage that lives on his
borrowed glory, and the cunning flattery with which this actor keeps Lee
dangling. "All you writers are so sensitive!" the young super nova complains when
Lee hesitates about joining him in the druggy orgy that is rendered with
especially evil glee. Says the groupie who's been relegated to Lee in quite a crowded bedroom
scene: "I wrote some film scripts. You ever heard of Chekhov? I write like
him."
Screaming fans, photographers and autograph hounds outside Lincoln
Center nearly knocked over police barricades when "Titanic" heartthrob
Leonardo DiCaprio showed up for the premiere of "Celebrity," which opened
the New York Film Festival. Tensions rose when DiCaprio paused long enough to give a few quick
sound bites to a TV crew. Sensing that things might get out of hand,
security guards steered Leo toward the door, which provoked boos from some
photographers who'd missed their Leo shot. But the star, who now has a reputation for being aloof after skipping
the Oscars, freed himself. Going back to pose some more, he earned a round
of applause That was just the sort of real-life performance that made DiCaprio's
co-star, Kenneth Branagh, think will help the young actor "survive this
storm of adulation." Branagh, who caught up with DiCaprio at the
post-premiere party at Tavern on the Green, told us: "It's inevitable that
there's a transient sadness to this kind of fame... the need for security
and all . . . But I find him very together, able to be funny about what's
happened to him." FROM PEOPLE ONLINE : Leonardo DiCaprio didn't disappoint anyone this weekend -- fans, film
festival-goers or even the paparazzi. Attending the opening of the New
York Film Festival Friday for the premiere of Woody Allen's "Celebrity" --
in which Leo's character lampoons bad-boy movie star behavior by trashing
a New York hotel room while beating up his girlfriend (played by Gretchen
Mol) before heading off to a druggy Atlantic City orgy -- DiCaprio posed
for photographers when he arrived at Lincoln Center, stayed throughout the
movie and attended the official fest reception at Tavern on the Green
after the screening. All that was more than Woody Allen did. He was
elsewhere in town, shooting a new movie. "Celebrity," which opens to the
public Nov. 13, drew a mixed response. It contains some Allenesque gems,
including the entire DiCaprio sequence, Bebe Neuwirth instructing Judy
Davis on how to improve her lovemaking skills, and Kenneth Branagh (who
mimics whiny Woody to perfection) on an ill-fated date with the luscious
ubermodel Charlize Theron. But the film's 114-min. length and its blunted
attack on today's star culture as it retreads over familiar Allen
territory -- the adventures of an oversexed, neurotic loser who mistreats
women -- dilute the movie's pleasures. NEW YORK It was a scene of life imitating art imitating life
Friday night at Lincoln Center, as the New York Film Festival opened in
the thrall of Leomania. Pushy paparazzi and high-pitched fans rushed
police barricades as Leonardo DiCaprio arrived for the screening of Woody
Allen's "Celebrity," a black-and-white satire on fame in which the
"Titanic" heartthrob appears as a hotel-smashing young star a la Johnny
Depp. DiCaprio gamely followed the bulk of the film's ensemble cast to the
post-screening fete at Tavern on the Green -- and then to a private
after-party at Gabriel's hosted by Miramax, which will release "Celebrity"
on Nov. 13. "He's got this quality about him that's a star," Charlize
Theron said. "May he do more films that move us even more."
There may be only one compelling reason to rush out to see Woody
Allen’s Celebrity, but it’s a corker:this one’s gonna be a smash
with the teenage girls! That’s right, because of a brilliant casting coup, which puts post
Titanic mega-hearthrob Leonardo DiCaprio in this satire of
Celebrity culture, Allen may pull in his biggest opening weekend box
office yet. And-------here’s the compelling part---------many of the tickets will
be purchased by people entering Woody’s world for the first
time-----people who weren’t even bornwhen Annie Hall went lah de
dah.... For us long in the tooth types, Allen has become as surprising as a
trip to the loo in the middle of the night....after a while, you don’t
even need the lights on to know exactly where you are going. Which is why
you either love the guy’s movies...or you couldn’t give a tinker’s
toss. In Woody’s world, nothing----apart from cast and camera
technique------ever changes.Indeed, the only cinematic universe more
hermetically sealed might be George Lucas’, and he had ti create a whole
new galaxy to do the trick! All Allen has to do is walk down Fifth Avenue and presto!------even the
most unpredictable city in the western world is made to knuckle under to
his law. Which means...quick as you say..."psychotherapy"....everybody starts peeling offpungent one liners, stunning young women get weak kneed for stunning older writers, literary references pass like gas emissions, and emotional immaturity spreads through the streets like typhus. And increasingly, everybody starts to act like Woody Allen. In this movie, Kenneth Branaugh plays a star struck but frustrated
screen writer who is also, inexplicably but surprisingly, a chick magnet.
And he does an eerie impersonationof Allen’s patented high-strung wise-guy
schtick, right down to the plaid and corduroy duds and artfully
constipated patter. The thing about Celebrity---which against the blindingly vacuous
backdrop of Manhatten celebrity culture, chronicles the post-marital
fallout of not one but two Allen act-alikes....Branaugh and Judy
Davis...is that much of the movie’s audience, lured there by the
appearance of Leonardo DiCaprio, won’t have had the chance to be jaded by
Woody’s world. Yet.
It’s hard to imagine who, besides Allen and the odd supermodel, might
actually be shocked by Celebrity’s bold assertion that fame sucks,
but maybe that’s why the casting of DiCaprio might be the most brilliant
stroke of Allen’s career. Not only could he score big at the box office for the first time in
years, but his message might actually seem fresh to all those first time
tourists to Woody’s world, led there by the presence of their Leo. For two hours, Simon seeks to absorb some of the magic of celebrity as he pitches his screenplay at a succession of celebrities, including Melanie Griffith (looking like she's seen Ivana Trump's plastic surgeon) as actress/legend Nicole Oliver and Leonardo DiCaprio (in an eerily prophetic portrayal shot BEFORE he became the hottest star in the universe) as Hollywood bad-boy actor Brandon Darrow. In a scene clearly derived from Johnny Depp's hotel trashing incidents, he beats up his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol), in a disturbing and ugly scene that may answer once and for all the eternal question "What if Jack Dawson had lived?" After trashing their hotel room, he then invites Lee, who is writing a story about him and pitching a script, to a night of cocaine-and-sex partying in Atlantic City. It's a hilarious, if nasty, portrayal of spoiled Hollywood brats, and the only bit in the film with any energy involving something other than neurotic anxiety. Hate DiCaprio if you must, but hate him for the right reason: because no kid that young has any business making his craft look so damn easy. Jeannie Williams USA Today Neither Branagh nor DiCaprio had to have fame manufactured. Branagh,
37, a top British actor who was a boy wonder himself, gives Leo high marks
for handling teen-idol status. "For a man so thrust into the limelight, I find nothing of the craft of acting diminished with him. . . . He has wisdom about his situation, a very old head on his shoulders. He had a significant career before this, and that's kept him sane. There's no sign (the fuss) has swelled his head in the wrong way, and he retains a sense of humor about it.'' ClaudiaS - 01:01pm Nov 20, 1998 EST (#20024 of 20069) Here are the first two paragraphs of the Celebrity review from my local
paper... Di-Captivating DiCaprio nails role with aplomp while Woody whittles on same material
Woody Allen gets one thing spectacularly right in Celebrity, and that's
the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as a spoiled, self-indulgent young actor
who trashes hotel rooms and treats his female groupies only slightly
better For all we know, poor Leo could be an Eagle Scout in real life. But it's much more tempting to believe, as the gossip columns do, that he's been a total brat ever since Titanic. Either way, DiCaprio is smart and talented enough to have accepted a part that's a marvelous parody of how craven the celebrity culture can be. (Julie Hinds/SJMN) From Boston Globe, Jay Carr
Chicago Tribune Celebrity Woody Allen's "Celebrity" is unsparing .....By Michael
Wilmington Celebrities and the media people who report about them can live in a
curious symbiosis -- needing, pursuing, exploiting and sometimes resenting
each other -- and that volatile marriage is the subject of Woody Allen's
new movie, "Celebrity." With a blend of sobriety and giddiness, comedy and
trauma, this film draws us into the klieg-lit domain of the famous and
their parasites -- a realm of show business hype machines, junkets,
interviews, publicity and instant high life. Allen's new film, from one of his cleverest scripts, lets us feel the
claustrophobia, the ephemeral fame and the glittery, pampered hysteria of
this world through the eyes of the people who live in the camera's eye and
the reporters (a.k.a. voyeurs) who would like to crash or worm their way
in. At the center of this false, sparkly, hectic world -- with its
glamorous hubbub and pumped-up tension -- is Kenneth Branagh as neurotic
celebrity journalist Lee Simon. Much like Marcello Mastroianni's jet-set
writer in the 1960 Federico Fellini classic "La Dolce Vita," Simon is a
failed writer and wannabe artist who lives in the reflected glory of the
famous people he follows and writes about -- until finally he decides,
disastrously, to try to enter their world, sexually and socially. Branagh is playing the natural Woody Allen role here and it's a weird
hybrid: Allen's twitchy psyche seems to be constantly peeking out from
Branagh's blunt, blond British face. Simon is a typical Allen nebbish, and
he gets part way to his callow goals of sex or success only to foul up.
Meanwhile, in a brutal irony, the wife Simon callously abandons, Robin
(Judy Davis), wins, without really trying, almost everything her
ex-husband wants: true love (with Joe Mantegna as nice guy TV producer
Tony Gardella), money and a high-profile niche in the celebrity world. (As
a TV journalist, she's seen cruising Allen's favorite restaurant,
Elaine's, for interviews.) "Celebrity" has a perfect Woody Allen subject. From the beginning, he's played guys who wanted to hang out with movie stars, legends, sports or political heroes and to sleep with beautiful, famous women. In creating glamour grifter Simon, he's sending up himself. And, as usual, he's packed his movie with dozens of familiar faces -- including Leonardo DiCaprio, Wynona Ryder, Charlize Theron amd Melanie Griffith (and even Hornets and ex-Knicks basketball forward Anthony Mason), playing either themselves or exaggerations and travesties of their public personas.
As Simon, Branagh has amusingly appropriated Allen mannerisms and
speech patterns: the stammering hesitations and ineffectual body English,
the darting, guilty eyes and wounded smiles. But, brilliant as he is,
Branagh can't quite make them work comedically. Allen can make catastrophe
and humiliation amusing because of the way he looks: like a daydreamer, a
kvetcher, a loser. Branagh looks like someone who could handle affairs
with women in such roles as those played by Ryder (stage actress), Theron
(wild supermodel), Griffith or Famke Janssen (as girlfriend Bonnie).
Better looking than Woody, though much less handsome than Marcello in "La
Dolce Vita," he can't make Simon's plight convincing enough, though he
does capture a sense of loss, overreaching and recklessness. Allen was clearly thinking of "La Dolce Vita" when he planned this
movie. But, despite its Fellini references and plot line, "Celebrity" was
shot in black and white by Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist
and, as in Allen's other Bergman pastiche-parodies, it's a comedy
saturated in angst and despair, with jokes that draw blood. The targets are many: movie art high and low, media fame on many levels. And, as in 1997's "Deconstructing Harry," it's full of self-knocks. In both "Harry" and "Celebrity" Allen punishes the character who suggests himself, exposing him in "Harry" as a philandering, dishonest, immoral coward and in "Celebrity" as a wormy wannabe, hurting his loved ones and wasting his talent. In "Celebrity," though -- with Branagh in the lead -- he's getting whipped by proxy. A comedy specialist like Robin Williams, Billy Crystal or even Michael Keaton might have gotten the laughs that Branagh misses. Here's what Joanna Connor the reviewer for my local paper the Cleveland
Plain Dealer says about Leo: Syracuse New Times: By Bill DeLapp: Celebrity does reach an emotional epiphany of sorts at the midway
point, when Lee attempts to slip his script to a Hollywood enfant terrible
named Brandon (Leonardo DiCaprio), whom we first meet as the young movie
star is tearing up his posh hotel room and slapping around his girlfriend
(Rounders' Gretchen Mol). It's followed by an extended trip to Atlantic
City for a boxing match, craps, cocaine and multiple sex partners, with
Lee helplessly dragged along the way in the hopes that Brandon's fame will
cement his script deal. This section is galvanized by DiCaprio's
dazzlingly scary performance (his 10 minutes in Celebrity fare better than
his two separate roles in The Man in the Iron Mask), as his spoiled star
clearly revels in his effortless power to casually humiliate Lee's
desperate scribe at every opportunity.
|
The reviews
are in, the film has opened at the New York Film Festival on Friday,
September25th! Leonardo attended the Festival...his first public
appearance since The Man in the Iron Mask Premiere in New York back last
March. From a live witness...one of the DOLs who was there and saw
him...to all the entertainment reports, he looked very spiffy in a black
suit with satin lapels, a dark shirt, a black long tie, with his hair cut
short and darker than pre Titanic times. Entertainment reporter, Claudia
Cohen reported that he looked "absolutely adorable"!
By JANET
MASLIN ....of the New York Times...
Premiere
Hordes Give Leo a Swarm Welcome 
DiCaprio Rave at
N.Y. Festival
"Woody Fizzles while Leo burns" ...by Geoff Pevere...The
Toronto Star movie critic...
DiCaprio---who does a
hiariously self-lacerating 12 minute turn as a hotel trashing, supermodel
bashing spoiled brat of an actor----is likely to bring more new tourists
to Woody’s world than anything since the lurid Soon-Yi affair. And that
ultimately reveals more about the nature of contemporary celebrity than
just about anything in Celebrity’s too-languid two-hour running
time.
Because of
this miscalculation, ''Celebrity'' - which has some funny stuff, even some
hilarious stuff in it - never quite jells. Much has been made of Allen's
prescient casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as a rising young star who trashes
his hotel room and behaves boorishly - riffs, I'd have thought, on Johnny
Depp's headline-grabbing trashing of an Upper East Side hotel room a few
years ago. DiCaprio brings both subtlety and vividness to the young
hotshot Branagh's journalist self-servingly chases so he can hustle a film
script he wrote.
This is a beautiful, funny cast. And, as in Altman's "The
Player," Allen uses the celebrity of his ensemble to amplify his themes.
(Celebrity corrupts; absolute celebrity may corrupt absolutely.)
DiCaprio's Brandon Darrow, the boyish, hedonistic superstar, living in a
world of hotel orgy and tumult, is a dead-on satiric character, and so is
Griffith as casually lusty movie queen Nicole Olivier and Andre Gregory as
the pretentious Greek art film director Papadakis.