Word: john
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...What he doesn't get to do much is play the leading man, or get the girl. If the girl wants him, as in Ghost World, where he was chased by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson, it usually plays as a joke. So when Saint John of Las Vegas, in which he gets the lead, opens with Buscemi hitting on a convenience-store clerk, we assume his character, John Alighieri, doesn't stand a chance. He's disheveled and his face is heavily bruised. But she gives John a considering look. He's buying $1,000 worth of lottery tickets...
...From there the movie begins a backwards loop to explain how John, who claims to have been lucky once, came to this unlucky point, a problematic storytelling tactic if you've cast Buscemi in the lead. We completely expect him to be a semi-hysterical mess standing under the unflattering glow of fluorescent lights. He was perfectly cast as Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web and as Tony Soprano's shiftless, foolish cousin in The Sopranos. Not to mention Carl Showalter, aka, the wood-chipper victim, in Fargo. But a fondness for the actor keeps us attentive to writer/director...
...John is a semi-recovered gambling addict, who fled Las Vegas after some unnamed fiscal disaster and got himself a desk job at an insurance company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The only good part of his boring job is sharing a cubicle wall with Jill (Sarah Silverman), a buxom administrative drone who has her own addiction issues revolving around compulsive collecting of smiley face paraphernalia. (This seems like recycled, or at least, unimaginative material, and Silverman is shamefully wasted on a character just there to be mocked). John's only chance at making more money is to accept a challenge...
...Korean War. Nor has gnarly, underseasoned and overcrusted fried chicken improved much. But pizza is growing and breathing; it seems to have a special place in America. Maybe it's because pizza's the most domesticated of all our dishes, meant to be eaten at home. (Domino's, Papa John's and the other delivery outfits don't even have tables in their stores.) (See the 10 worst fast food meals...
...kept a vigil outside its doors, alongside an array of protesters who still feel the need to publicly express their anger over Blair's Iraq role. "I'm hoping he's going to live in the U.S.A. after this. Him and Bush are ... cronies, aren't they?" asked pensioner John Howsam, who braved icy rain to make his point...