John Turturro's third film as director, Romance and Cigarettes, got canned by its distributor and suffered some of the worst reviews around this year (even from some of my favorite outlets, like The Onion AV Club), as well as a handful of the best. Count me in the "best" category; I loved it and was lucky enough to interview Turturro about it, an experience that really cemented my admiration for him and his work. I'm not sure what other critics disliked about it so much, though I could see it being a movie you either love or hate. A blue-collar musical, it follows James Gandolfini through a torrid affair with Kate Winslet, and an estrangement from his wife (Susan Sarandon) and his daughters (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker and Aida Turturro). It's sweet, sad, hilarious and dirty — a great date movie, if your date has a good sense of humor.
Turturro has distribution rights to Romance and Cigarettes until January 17th, at which point Sony will ignominiously dump it to DVD and run for the hills. It's done really well given its limited distribution, but in this last push — well, I can't speak for my Screengrab colleagues, but at least a portion of Screengrab encourages you to see this lovely film before it leaves the screen. Here's a clip (illustrating Turturro's juxtaposition of bawdy humor and fantasy) I hand-picked to whet your appetites. (Right-click to save.) Hit the jump for a list of theaters opening Romance and Cigarettes in the coming weeks; it's also currently playing at a number of others, including, for New Yorkers, the Quad on 13th St.
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