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Fading Gigolo, John Turturro’s fifth directorial effort, is a wonderful film. It also is what my mother used to call “not everyone’s cup of tea.” About part-time florist Fioravante (Turturro) who becomes a Don Juan-for-hire to solve his financial woes, it is unfashionable in some key ways: wry rather than snarky, tender-hearted rather than glib. It takes place in the multicultural neighborhoods of old-school Brooklyn rather than in the hipster playground now earmarked as the New York City borough, and it features men and women, often in compromisingly graphic positions, who are over 40. Perhaps most unfashionably, it co-stars Woody Allen in his first artistic effort since the controversies about his personal life resurfaced, as well as in one of his first appearances in a film that he did not direct and write. Continue Reading →