'Romance': Love Stinks
"Romance and Cigarettes"
one and 1/2 stars
Rated R for sexual content including strong dialogue, and language
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Written and directed by John Turturro
Starring James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon
"Romance & Cigarettes" might have been more in tune with modern society if it had been called "Romance OR Cigarettes." Ick, who could kiss someone who tastes like an ashtray?
Anyhow, the movie comes on as a novelty item, meaning it's so full of disparate parts and so unable to approach coherence, it just sits there and burns out. Imagine being the marketing genius
responsible for the tag line. Possibly "Sort of a musical, sort of a drama, sort of a comedy but not really any of them." Or, "Hmmm? You tell us."
The movie hails from the great actor John Turturro, trying his luck as writer-director but not finding much. The great James Gandolfini plays a construction guy in the New York area torn between a sexy shopgirl (Kate Winslet) and his wife (Susan Sarandon), but the movie keeps breaking out into amateur musical numbers such as Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love" as sung by the defiantly un-musical Gandolfini, accompanied by a chorus of dancing garbagemen.
The influence is said to be Dennis Potter ("The Singing Detective"), but I thought of Woody Allen's
dismal "Everyone Says I Love You" or Steve Martin and Gilda Radner's artless spin on Fred and Ginger in a memorable "Saturday Night Live" parody. No wonder the company didn't want to release this film.
Source: Northwest Herald
