Celebrity is one of Woody Allen’s finest. This is a minority opinion….But I prefer Allen when he works in a minor key – “Broadway Danny Rose,” “Radio Days” --precisely because he’s not trying to be profound, only true to firsthand observation.

Here Branagh and his writer-director have managed something more haunting than town-square self-flagellation: they've created a man whose appetites will always be greater than his abilities. And for an artist like Woody Allen, who possesses plenty of both, there can be no scarier fate on the planet.

Allen's canniest hire of all is Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a bratty, destructive young star, juicing the proceedings with a power surge that subsides as soon as he exits.

The movie's shot in black and white; Allen is one of the rare and valuable directors who sometimes insists in working in the format that is the soul of cinema.

It is a recognized truth of the movie industry that even the best film makers will have disappointments, and, for Woody Allen, Celebrity fits into that category.

Ms. Davis gets to deliver the film's obvious message in a single unremarkable line: ''You can tell a lot about a society by who it chooses to celebrate.'' But most of what you can tell from the fun-house mirrors of Celebrity is what you already know.

Woody Allen's new film has a few shortcomings but it's a heartfelt cry from what may be the last serious man left in the America as he contemplates what his native land has become.

It is this sense of real life blurring with make-believe that Allen's film is really playing with, like a kitten toying with a scared mouse. Back and forth he bats the subject, moving between reality, illusion and the imitation of reality with a deft touch that may bruise but never kills.

The hero's restlessness infects the rest of the movie; the story feels febrile and unhappy, and Allen seems to take his dissatisfaction out on his helpless characters--especially the women.

It would be easy to dismiss Celebrity as merely a wafer-thin picture about the wafer-thinness of our narcissistic culture. But the truth is shallower and even less engaging -- this flick should have been called “Unpleasantville.”

Shot in crisp black and white, this homage to "La Dolce Vita" nonetheless lacks the charm and energy of Fellini's farcical original.

Suffers from lulls and lapses and one lulu of a casting gaffe, but this keenly observant spoof of the fame game is hardly the work of a burnout.

If your tolerance for Branagh's shtick and Woody's narrowness of focus is as low as mine, you can take solace in the director's joke on himself.

This is middling Woody, at best: For every funny line or sequence, there's at least one misfire.