Fading Gigolo

Financial fissures beget liaising insurances while potential clients attract attentive patrolpersons in John Turturro's Fading Gigolo, wherein the world's oldest profession brings good fortune to Murray (Woody Allen) and Fioravante (John Turturro), suddenly caught-up in an historical vortex, secularly lucrative, religiously blasphemed.

The film unreels pleasantly enough, risks taken, rewards cashed-in, comical awkwardness syncopating charm, Midnight Cowboy's lighter side.

Fioravante is a strong character, mild-manneredly reflexive, sensitive yet powerful, equanimously conscious.

His love for Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) isn't tragic or heartbreaking, more like a mature delicate yet robust scintillating red wine, caressed then invested, with lucid modest elegance.

About 50 minutes in I thought, is it starting to drag?, but then Avigal appeared again, and I was immediately reminded of my nightly glass of red wine, and then knew that it wasn't starting to drag at all.

Ancient religious practices follow, a ridiculous patriarchal kerfuffle, chillingly yet playfully impassing an ancient contemporary dialectic.

The negative side of prostitution, apart from a requisite ethical dilemma, is totally absent from the film, but it is a lighthearted comedy, presenting issues of race/ethnicity, identity, and community from a temperately confrontational perspective.

Apart from the nut with the baseball bat.

Not sure if I'm reading too much into some of Woody Allen's introductory lines, but from an off-the-wall point of view, it's as if he's handing off his reins to Mr. Turturro, either sincerely or mischievously, who proves he could be a worthy successor.

There's a volatile scene near the beginning involving a traffic accident.

Minor characters feud to introduce Dovi (Liev Schreiber).

More scenes like this one throughout, not necessarily volatile, just ones which interject cameos to inquisitively motivate the action, work well.

Highlighting the multidimensional nature of the world at large.

Thereby romanticizing the role of individuals within it.

He sort of does this with Murry's kids, but they have a direct relationship to a major character, which lessens their impact.

Transformers

Michael Bay's new film Transformers unravels a teenaged synthesis of hormones, military paranoia, and tryin' too hard comedy. The Decepticons and Autobots are back in another epic battle, fighting over the Allspark, a giant cube with the power to create or destroy worlds. Along for the ride are a number of would be high school heroes, numerous military personnel, cranky, mind-your-own-business parents, and the ever weird and wonderful John Turturro. The action sequences are slight, the offbeat comedy tedious (except for the masturbation bit), and Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script borrows heavily from every big time blockbuster this side of Cybertron. Focusing primarily on the myriad humanoid characters, Transformers forgets the main reason behind Transformers: Transformers. Instead of providing us with an elaborate narrative, transporting the Hasbroian folklore to another dimension, Bay caters too intensely to his earthly plot devices and quickly drowns his tale in banal political mumbo jumbo (note that Iranian scientists are not to be credited but North Korea's military is on par with that of China). Optimus Prime does wax quixotic about goodness and we are briefly reintroduced to Megatron's acerbic abuse of Starscream, but their scenes are far to brief, making me wish I'd simply rented seasons one through three, as well as the first full-length feature film.