Fading Gigolo

Here is a list of terrible things about this movie: 1. Woody Allen plays a pimp. 2. Sofia Vergara. 3. Sharon Stone, still beautiful, needing to a. hire a gigolo while b. wondering aloud if she’ll get AIDS. 4. A visual palette of cigarette-stain yellow. 5. A subplot about Hasidic Jews that is supposed to be meaningful despite Bob Balaban standing there in a baseball cap. John Turturro wrote this movie, clearly in 1987, when he was a hot young actor hanging out with Allen, Spike Lee and the Coens. Now he is 57, and it took him this long to make Fading Gigolo---10 bucks says its original title was Gigolo---which he also directed and unwisely stars in as Fioravante, a quiet, “soulful” dude who turns to tricks to make money. All the ladies tell him repeatedly how good he is at sex. He falls in love with Avigal (Vanessa Paradis), a widowed Hasidic Jewish lady he can’t be with anyway. Conundrum! Not really. Tone-deaf, ugly to look at and don’t forget Sofia Vergara is also there, Fading Gigolo is one man’s tribute to himself, decades too late. —Tara Thorne