Woody Allen's latest takes aim at modern celebrity Woody Allen is accustomed to casting big-name celebrities, as was the case with Thursday night's Los Angeles Film Festival opener "To Rome With Love," but that doesn't mean he's above a little commentary on the topic of celebrity itself. Starring Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Allen himself, "Rome" is a bright little exercise in the writer-director's most recent European city of worship -- previously deployed in films such as "Midnight in Paris" and "Vicki Cristina Barcelona." But not far beneath the humming of Vespas and neurotic banter is a tepid frustration with the modern cult of celebrity, nearly 15 years after Allen made 1998's, um, "Celebrity" with Charlize Theron and Leonardo DiCaprio. In a series of interwoven tales pouring from the landmark Spanish Steps, the characters of "Rome" are all touched by fame in some way (Page playing an insufferable young actress, for instance), but no more so than lovable "Life Is Beautiful" star Roberto Benigni as an average schlub inexplicably descended upon by the Italian media one random morning. A middle-class corporate clerk, Benigni finds himself in the center of a unmistakably Kardashian-esque circus, where reporters clamor to document his morning shave, paparazzi stalk his every movement and the ether calls out for his thoughts on the existence of God. For no reason at all. Early on, Benigni comes upon an overwhelming crush of photographers outside a Roman cafe, where a character says, "I hear Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in town promoting a film." Woody seems to be working out some demons about the saturation of reality television, and, even in the face of great philanthropy like that of Brangelina, the absurdity of superstardom. It reminds us of an interview actress Rachel Weisz gave last year, about her decision to live in Manhattan. "This is New York, where everyone is a star in their own movie," she said. But, clearly, not when in "Rome." Angelina Jolie is wearing an engagement ring, jeweler says Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt are engaged after seven years, six kids Jon Hamm says his Kim Kardashian comments were 'not personal,' but not wrong