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.

Charlottesville and Albemarle County are great filming locations, by the way.

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

But thanks. Im just getting warmed up. More soon.

/loki, could you do that cut it half “read more” formatting trick?