Woody Allen during the filming of Fading Gigolo this month, with Westsider Books owners Dorian Thornley (left) and Bryan Gonzalez (right).

Aside from one movie, Woody Allen has forsaken New York for nearly a decade, preferring to make movies in places like London and Spain. Who can blame him? (We can!)

But Woody recently came back. It wasn’t for one of his own movies, but for John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo, which we first wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The comedy, written and directed by Turturro, is about a reluctant gigolo named Fioravante (Turturro) who is pimped out by his friend Murray (Allen), the owner of a bookstore. Westsider Books on 80th and Broadway serves as Murray’s bookstore. That doesn’t mean that the whole movie will be set on the Upper West Side (supposedly, it’s mostly set in a Hasidic neighborhood), but at least the UWS makes a cameo.

It’s not Hannah and Her Sisters, but it’s a start.

As the story goes, Turturro pitched the idea to Allen through their mutual barber. Allen, who rarely acts in other people’s movies these days,  got so involved that he rewrote and edited parts of the script.

It also stars Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara.

So is this basically a Woody Allen movie?

It appears to have…

A messy madcap love triangle or rectangle.

Beautiful women.

Older men trying to have sex with younger women.

Jewish stereotypes.

Check, check, check and check.

Anyway, clearly a must-see. It should be out in 2013.

Image courtesy of Westsider Books. Buy a book there so the owners don’t have to turn tricks to survive!