Quirk. How do you feel about it? This is the primary question you must ask yourself before you decide to see Saint John of Las Vegas. It’s such a double edged sword. It can make a movie, but too much and it becomes forced; it can devolve in to parody. This is a movie that is literally drowning in quirkiness. It is a sea of quirk, a river of it flowing directly in to your face. Can you take this much quirk?
John (Steve Buscemi at perhaps his most awkward) is a natural loser, a gambling addict with terrible luck, who seems in love with the idea of who he could be, who he wants to be. He works in an insurance claims company where he sits next to a perky and quirky woman (Sarah Silverman) who has a quirky obsession with smiley faces decorating her cubicle, house, and body with them. His quirky boss is a self obsessed midget whose desk is flanked on four corners with large free standing Greek columns. Intending to ask for a raise, he ends up being promoted to Fraud Investigations, teamed with a pensive “angry young black man” character and sent out on a meandering travelogue to disprove the claims of one Ms. Tasty Delight. On paper the film claims to be a loose adaptation of Dante’s Inferno. Dante is actually listed in the credits as “based on a story by”, though on the face of it, this is basically bullshit. Yes, the main character’s last name is Alighieri, and his companion’s name is Virgil, and there’s even a character named Lue Cipher. But the only serious connection between the two is that it gives the film license to to show scene after scene of super quirky strangeness, each dripping with the all pervasive quirk.
Literally the only normal characters in the entire movie are a series of gas station attendants whose role is to act as straight men for Buscemi’s quirky antics, or become involved in his fantasies of sudden success. Every other character is a bundle of cute and quirky oddness, from gun toting nudists to a wheel chair bound stripper. And it does work, in it’s own delightfully retarded way. The strangeness is amusing and at a few times even jaw dropping. Everyone in the crowd was clearly enjoying themselves. And if that’s what your looking for then it works, it really does. But there’s little else there. Other than Buscemi’s lead, the characters are only defined by their various quirk. There’s no depth to any of them. Even the lead’s character arc is supremely shallow, propelled from his neurotic awkward start to his inevitable happy ending by nothing more than narrative convention. It’s like candy coated candy, there’s nothing else there. But at the same time, I find it hard to fault the film for this as it so clearly aspires to be just that. A fun flighty little romp that you won’t regret. I could even see watching the film again if only to enjoy the confused and bemused expressions of my friends as they view to for the first time, like some viral video on YouTube. You giggle, you stare in disbelief, and then you leave. Half an hour later you might be hungry for more, but then not all meals need to have five courses.
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Tagged as: Alexander, film festival, movie reviews
This review is way funnier if you replace the word ‘quirk’ with ’spunk’.
bwahahaha… ‘big cock’ works too!
Also – I really try not to be a “hater” and I’m really trying hard to respect this review. That being said nothing makes me grit my teeth in rage more than when people use the word ‘retarded’ in the pejorative. As fun and lighthearted as Cvillain is (mostly) I would hope that the editors could have the better sense than to let their authors use hate speech in their articles.
Worse: when movie reviewers say “flighty little romp”.
I don’t think it’s hate speech; it’s that people come to use terms so much they have evolved from what they originally meant and are just slang expressions. People say things all the time without thinking about where the term came from and what it means. Just because I say “that’s lame” doesn’t mean I hate crippled people. Or that guy “gypped me” so I hate gypsies. I went around for years calling inanimate things “bastards” until my dad smacked me and told me what it really means. Nowadays I use it unabashedly. But I’m not hating people without dads.
When I say “that’s lame”, I mean it as a direct affront to the physically disabled. I am certain the Black Eyed Peas hate the mentally challenged. I read it on twitter.
It may just be a personal thing, but that word used in that way makes me cringe in the same way it would as if he used the N word. I’m not trying to get up on a soapbox, don’t misinterpret. I’m just saying when a film review (and a poorly written one at that) calls something “delightfully retarded” I immediately discount its author.
I’m on your side, Loki, I just think putting “retarded” up there with hate speech and the N word is a bit of much. Of course, I’m not in your shoes and can’t understand what the word means to you but I agree his review is retarded. Er, lame. I mean, sucky.
I’m going to apologize right now to everyone for saying “flighty little romp”. It was uncalled for and I will not do it again.
This is my first film review, I’m more used to writing strange short stories filled with monsters and violent gay sex that I show to no one eventually filing them away or burning and deleting them. Writing for a more public audience is weird. I resisted my natural tendencies to say fuck every five words, and tried to sound more like a film reviewer instead of a vile reprobate. I wonder if that was a mistake?
I am open to criticism!
And yes, I said quirk a thousand times.
Keep plugging away at it, as a new field of writing has its own guidelines. Some works are found to be witty and imaginative, and others are burned at the stake for taking a joke too far.
Indeed – a public audience is weird. Next time if you just admit you’re drunk when you write your reviews people might be a bit more accepting. If you think stories about monsters and violent gay sex are weird you should read some of the true stories on our txtnly site. By the way, nice Max costume.
Yeah, read some stories like this one.
/loki, could you do that cut it half “read more” formatting trick?
That is insane. I am constantly amazed that you’re A) Still alive and B) not (completely) off your rocker. Your stories are enriching!
A) You call this living?
B) Dont be so sure…
But thanks. Im just getting warmed up. More soon.
i just read a few of the stories and other entries over there, and really really enjoyed them!
Alexander, if it’s your first review, it’s a good one. I’m the writer-director of Saint John and I’m glad you a) took the time to see it and b) wrote something down about it.
Re: quirky – it is what it is. I can’t reasonably argue the non-quirkiness of the film.
But I did want to comment on Dante, if that’s cool. I was inspired to write Saint John by the feeling I got from reading Dante’s Inferno. I remember thinking “I have no idea what that was about, but what a great ride.” I never expected the audience to remember Dante at all.
Having said that, there are a few details besides character names that Saint John owes The Inferno. So, in the spirit of open-source:
1. In The Inferno, Virgil is confined to hell for the now-seemingly arbitrary sin of being born before Christ. I asked myself “what is a person arbitrarily condemned for, at birth, in the 21st century?” Being African American myself, race seemed like a good choice, so Virgil is Black.
2. I certainly owe the stripper in the wheelchair, the militant nudists/park ranger and Smitty the Flame Lord to Dante’s second, sixth and ninth levels of hell, specifically.
3. The last sin, at the lowest level, is betrayal of one’s fellow man. And I would maintain that there is an element of betrayal on first John and then Virgil’s part, near the end.
4. In the Inferno, Dante commits the heresy of actually stopping and talking to these sinners and giving them time to voice their stories. In a similar vein, John takes a moment to interact with, and even empathize with, these human marginalia. I’d like to think that resonates with the spirit of original Inferno.
5. Beatrice is Dante’s lover and beacon of hope. And Jill is our beacon of hope in the film, if not John’s.
None of this matters to the viewer. And none of this affects your impression of the film. But while the movie is hopefully the “romp” you describe, I wasn’t glib in borrowing from Dante. Just irreverent.
Thanks again for reviewing it.
Hue
Thanks for the clarification, Hue. Welcome to our humble blogamasite.
Charlottesville and Albemarle County are great filming locations, by the way.
And Doc is an amazing actor, with a rich and colorful career:
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0032026/
Thank you for commenting Hue, Alexander already had me interested in something this apparently outlandish, and now I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for the above.
Oh, you have no idea…