John Turturro

TORONTO--It's been a long time since Woody Allen acted in a film he didn't direct. It's probably even longer - as in never - since he's played a pimp. The 76-year-old bespectacled one will do just that in “Fading Gigolo,” a movie conceived and written by John Turturro. Turturro will direct and - of course - play the hooker. The johns? Those would be Sofia Vergara, Vanessa Paradis and Sharon Stone. There are plenty of highly touted Hollywood movies at the Toronto International Film Festival playing to the eager masses and media.

Perhaps at some point it will again be possible to write the name Woody Allen and go from there. But after a year marked by artistic highs and controversial lows for the filmmaker, it seems impossible. To address the elephant in the room, all you'll find on the docket today is a look at "Fading Gigolo," an amusing indie film that includes some of Allen's finest work as an actor in years. Written and directed not by Allen but John Turturro, "Fading Gigolo" is something of a tart meditation on romance and morality through the prism of the oldest profession.

John Turturro's "Illuminata," a rhapsodic celebration of love and life in the theater, is about as close to an all-out art film in the grand traditional manner as an American movie ever gets, recalling such films as Max Ophuls' "La Ronde" and Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night."

The Toronto International Film Festival announced a number of additional world premieres Tuesday, saying that John Turturro's “Fading Gigolo,” Josh Waller's Cory Monteith pic “McCanick,” and Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Errol Flynn film "The Last of Robin Hood” will all appear first at the festival. It also said that “Yurusarezaru Mono,” Lee Sang-il's remake of Clint Eastwood's “Unforgiven,” will make its North American premiere there after playing the Venice Film Festival shortly before; Alex Gibney's cycling doc “The Armstrong Lie” and James Franco's latest director-actor drama “Child of God” will also make their N.A. debuts north of the border.

"Mac" (at the Nuart) gives us a pretty good idea of where John Turturro's manic intensity comes from. Whether playing the nebbishy, idealistic New York playwright turned loose in Golden Era Hollywood in "Barton Fink" or the petty crook pleading for his life in "Miller's Crossing" or in his various roles in Spike Lee films, Turturro is the archetypal blue-collar ethnic guy, unhandsome and put upon, who at the end of his tether gets a wild, frozen look in his eyes just before exploding.

John Turturro climbs into a limousine looking as edgy as the urban homeboys he has played. His leather backpack is jammed between his sneakered feet, and he plucks restlessly at the sleeves of his black T-shirt. His wife, actress Katherine Borowitz, and a writer are already in the car. He looks at them with sidelong glances. "Yeah, yeah? You and Kath? Really?" he says, struggling to make small talk. Turturro, et al.

Joe and Ethan Coen's offbeat comedy "Barton Fink" dominated this year's Cannes Film Festival like nothing in recent memory, winning not only the Golden Palm for best picture, but also the director's prize for the Coens and the best actor prize for John Turturro. It was the third year in a row that an American won the Golden Palm and second in the last three years that Spike Lee has been sent away empty handed. Lee's "Jungle Fever" did win one award, a curious second acting award to Samuel L.

The Toronto International Film Festival announced a number of additional world premieres Tuesday, saying that John Turturro's “Fading Gigolo,” Josh Waller's Cory Monteith pic “McCanick,” and Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Errol Flynn film "The Last of Robin Hood” will all appear first at the festival. It also said that “Yurusarezaru Mono,” Lee Sang-il's remake of Clint Eastwood's “Unforgiven,” will make its North American premiere there after playing the Venice Film Festival shortly before; Alex Gibney's cycling doc “The Armstrong Lie” and James Franco's latest director-actor drama “Child of God” will also make their N.A. debuts north of the border.

It was the early '90s, and Nick Turturro--part-time actor, part-time hotel doorman--was doing a series of one-act plays called "Siddown (Conversations With the Mob)." He wasn't on Broadway. He wasn't off-Broadway. "We were off, off, off Broadway--way down, below sea level." And yet . . . Turturro somehow became possessed of the often disastrous notion that he and the rest of the cast and crew could make a movie.

While John Turturro recounts the "Kafkaesque nightmare" he's been through over the last three years -- struggling to get his third film as a director, "Romance and Cigarettes," into theaters -- there's little hint of the desperadoes ("Miller's Crossing"), hotheads ("Do the Right Thing") and weirdos ("Barton Fink") he's played so well as a go-to character actor. Instead, he convincingly inhabits the role of resilient director. "I hear people complaining, 'Ooh, my movie didn't do this.

TORONTO--It's been a long time since Woody Allen acted in a film he didn't direct. It's probably even longer - as in never - since he's played a pimp. The 76-year-old bespectacled one will do just that in “Fading Gigolo,” a movie conceived and written by John Turturro. Turturro will direct and - of course - play the hooker. The johns? Those would be Sofia Vergara, Vanessa Paradis and Sharon Stone. There are plenty of highly touted Hollywood movies at the Toronto International Film Festival playing to the eager masses and media.

How weird is John Turturro's "Romance & Cigarettes"? Almost indescribably weird, though also strangely involving. A Coen brothers-produced postmodern musical in the vein of "The Singing Detective," it's set in a rundown section of Queens where Nick Murder (James Gandolfini), a middle-aged ironworker, is cheating on his wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon), with a redheaded Irish nymphomaniac named Tula (Kate Winslet) while resolutely smoking himself to death.

While John Turturro recounts the "Kafkaesque nightmare" he's been through over the last three years -- struggling to get his third film as a director, "Romance and Cigarettes," into theaters -- there's little hint of the desperadoes ("Miller's Crossing"), hotheads ("Do the Right Thing") and weirdos ("Barton Fink") he's played so well as a go-to character actor. Instead, he convincingly inhabits the role of resilient director. "I hear people complaining, 'Ooh, my movie didn't do this.

SUSAN SARANDON is belting out "Piece of My Heart," really throwing herself into it, as if she were in a karaoke bar or driving across country. As the cameras look on, her fists are clenched, her face turns red, her eyes bug out. Accompanying her on an organ in a church in Brooklyn, N.Y., is British actor-comic-transvestite Eddie Izzard, his hair in a '70s shag. His manner is both agreeable and grave, like a choirmaster, which is precisely the role he's playing.

John Turturro's "Illuminata," a rhapsodic celebration of love and life in the theater, is about as close to an all-out art film in the grand traditional manner as an American movie ever gets, recalling such films as Max Ophuls' "La Ronde" and Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night."

It was the early '90s, and Nick Turturro--part-time actor, part-time hotel doorman--was doing a series of one-act plays called "Siddown (Conversations With the Mob)." He wasn't on Broadway. He wasn't off-Broadway. "We were off, off, off Broadway--way down, below sea level." And yet . . . Turturro somehow became possessed of the often disastrous notion that he and the rest of the cast and crew could make a movie.

How weird is John Turturro's "Romance & Cigarettes"? Almost indescribably weird, though also strangely involving. A Coen brothers-produced postmodern musical in the vein of "The Singing Detective," it's set in a rundown section of Queens where Nick Murder (James Gandolfini), a middle-aged ironworker, is cheating on his wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon), with a redheaded Irish nymphomaniac named Tula (Kate Winslet) while resolutely smoking himself to death.

Perhaps at some point it will again be possible to write the name Woody Allen and go from there. But after a year marked by artistic highs and controversial lows for the filmmaker, it seems impossible. To address the elephant in the room, all you'll find on the docket today is a look at "Fading Gigolo," an amusing indie film that includes some of Allen's finest work as an actor in years. Written and directed not by Allen but John Turturro, "Fading Gigolo" is something of a tart meditation on romance and morality through the prism of the oldest profession.

"Mac" (at the Nuart) gives us a pretty good idea of where John Turturro's manic intensity comes from. Whether playing the nebbishy, idealistic New York playwright turned loose in Golden Era Hollywood in "Barton Fink" or the petty crook pleading for his life in "Miller's Crossing" or in his various roles in Spike Lee films, Turturro is the archetypal blue-collar ethnic guy, unhandsome and put upon, who at the end of his tether gets a wild, frozen look in his eyes just before exploding.

John Turturro climbs into a limousine looking as edgy as the urban homeboys he has played. His leather backpack is jammed between his sneakered feet, and he plucks restlessly at the sleeves of his black T-shirt. His wife, actress Katherine Borowitz, and a writer are already in the car. He looks at them with sidelong glances. "Yeah, yeah? You and Kath? Really?" he says, struggling to make small talk. Turturro, et al.