American Splendor
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.74 You Save: $8.23 (83%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.22 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of American Splendor
Movie Review: An Extraordinarily Ordinary Life
Summary: 5 Stars
Life's a funny thing. You eke out an anonymous existence in ratty apartments at a clerk job at the V.A. hospital, submit ideas for stories about your seemingly mundane life (you can bearly draw a straight line)for an underground comic book and they make a classic movie about you. Harvey Pekar is one lucky fellow that the task of making the movie of his life was left to the gifted directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman.
Pulcini and Berman imaginatively tell Harvey's story through interesting devices such as through traditional actors, actual participation by the real-life counterparts themselves or through cartoon panels. At one point in the film the real Harvey Pekar is talking and you can see the actor playing him, Paul Giamatti, laughing in the background. Normally this would be a daunting task for an actor to have the real-life person appear in the same film as you but Giamatti is such a consummate actor that he is more than up to the task. Also providing excellent work here are Hope Davis as Harvey's soulmate, Joyce, and Judah Friedlander as Toby, a nerdy co-worker(and proud of it)of Harvey's. The grimy Cleveland locations also add to the feel of the film as do the use of vintage records on the soundtrack(probably obscure jazz records from Harvey's personal collection). In a perfect world this film should have enjoyed greater box office acceptance than it did like, say, a lesser independent film like "Napoleon Dynamite". I have attempted to recommend this film to other people and it's usually met with a shrug. When I attempt to explain what the film is about it's usually met with puzzled uninterested looks. Some things in life don't come wrapped in pretty paper and a bow. Just ask Harvey.
Movie Review: Multi-Leveled Greatness
Summary: 5 Stars
Documentaries have been getting more and more creative in the last several years, and "American Splendor" is one of the most creative and engaging. It superbly mixes dramatization and documentary, such as when Paul Giamatti plays Harvey Pekar preparing for his first David Letterman appearance, and then we see the actual Harvey Pekar on a television set being interviewed by Letterman. Also very effective is when we see a scene involving his friend Toby, being played excellently by Judah Friedlander: during the scene with Friedlander, I remember thinking "this character is so over the top, it must be an exaggeration", but then we cut to the actual Toby, who is even more of a character than the one portrayed by Friedlander.
The film also very ably captures the essence of the underground comic, and at least as far as the comic itself would indicate, the personality of its creator, Harvey Pekar. A gruff man with genuine emotions and simple needs, he comes across as a misfit hero that anyone can sympathize with. Neither is it hard to sympathize with wife Joyce (played to a `T' by Hope Davis) who has to take care of Harvey and all of his angst-ridden demons.
As a final testament to how well the subject matter of them film is handled: there is a scenario involving a life-threatening illness, and the filmmaker and actors do a great job of treating it with appropriate gravity without falling into the trap of over-sentimentality that most filmmakers are prone to these days.
An excellent film that deserves far more than an underground audience.
Movie Review: Marty goes to Hollywood
Summary: 5 Stars
Witness the everyman gain his fifteen minutes of fame only to find himself parodied and exploited for being just that -- an everyman.
Thanks to Robert Crumb and his cadre of underground comic writers, Harvey Pekar and his average existence has been immortalized in "American Splendor." Who else could go from drawing stick-figure frames about his life to having his life chronicled in critically acclaimed comic books, a play and a feature film.
The film is surprisingly as gentle and moving as it is humorous and nerve-wracking. Hah! A bit like a real man's life, huh? I found myself both squirming in discomfort and laughing out loud at the sheer insanity of everyday situations.
The film breaks all kinds of walls, not just the fourth, in part by incorporating the real-life subject with the fiction, archival footage with off-stage dramatization. I love the scenes with Harvey and Paul Giamatti on the set together. I also really enjoyed the intermingling of animation over the shoulder of live actors. The film seems effortless in its portrayal of this everyman and his everyday world that comes so close to falling apart and yet continues on with what actually amounts to a happy ending.
This one will be a landmark in the new cinema-virtualite.
Whereas "Crumb" was a decidedly dark and almost voyeuristic look into the life of an artistic misfit-genius, "American Splendor" celebrates life and its foibles, follies and joys.
Kudos!
Movie Review: A life unexamined....
Summary: 5 Stars
I forget who said "a life unexamined is not worth living". I think it was Socrates. Oh well. Harvey Pekar's American Splendor series of autobiographical comic books is made into a film. Yes...I know...I know...the books are better. Aren't they always? On it's own this film is a classic. It is honest and real. The film fades between Harvey's short commentraries and the longer scenes. Paul Giamatti plays Harvey and Hope Davis plays Joyce Brabner, Harvey's wife. They communicate each others characters very well. The acting is so well done, and not labored in the least, that the tensions and love in the relationship are evident in each scene. Often this is communicated through one or two words, or even a look. Hope can give "the look" that simply shuts Harvey down. I wonder if this is Joyce's look or did Hope originate this? The daily grind many of us experience is portrayed accurately. Harvey locks himself out of his apartment, Joyce wants him to unload some of his records to make space for her stuff, a long grovery line that goes nowhere and Harvey can't keep his mouth shut about the shortcomings of a film his friend thinks is insprational. This is real life. I grew up around Cleveland ethnics, my famliy came from Germany, and until you have experienced it you haven't lived. The film captures all this. If you are looking for escapism this ain't it...if you think this film offers escapism then you're a blue blood.Movie Review: True American Beauty.
Summary: 5 Stars
AMERICAN SPLENDOR is an intriguing piece of cinema. Based upon the life and comics of Harvey Pekar, AMERICAN SPLENDOR attempts to tell part of Harvey's life and how he became a semi-famous underground comic book writer. At face value, the story doesn't seem like much. After all, there are millions of people who live lives very similar to Harvey's. However, that's part of the film's appeal: it resonates with the everyman in us all. Paul Giamatti pulls off a wonderful performance of Pekar, catching all of Pekar's nuances, seeming to be the exact version of the Pekar from twenty years ago.I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It dares to dive into the question of "does art imitate life or does life imitate art?". Before seeing this movie, I would have said that art imitates life. However, this movie made me question that. Pekar's life was the inspiration for his art, but now his art has become his life. The film plays with this idea in several different ways from the comic-book animated parts of the film to Pekar actually appearing in the film several different times and ways to the actual Letterman appearances Pekar made in the 1980s. I still believe that art is an imitation of life, but the movie made me rethink that assumption. Also, I enjoyed this film because it illustrates how each one of us is an unique person and that beneath the rugged exteriors of us all there lies substance of worth. There is beauty all around us and it is splendid.