Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine "American Splendor"

has this film been out in the US yet ???

it's about a comic writer !!! i think it won at "Sundance" !!??

i've seen an ad for it in "Empire" [ UK based film magazine ]

is it any good .....

Matthew.

Another one I meant to see, but now I think it's no longer playing in theaters. DVD should be out already or released soon, I think.

I heard that Paul Giamatti (who is probably best known for playing a guy who gets dyed blue by Frankie Muniz in "Big Fat Liar") did a terrific job of playing Pekar. (The real Pekar also appears as himself in the movie.) I don't think there's too much Oscar buzz for Giamatti though, probably because the movie didn't make a huge splash with mainstream audiences.

It was... interesting.

Interesting it was. It was a biographical account of Pekar's life as a comic book writer with fictional scenes featuring Giamatti and Helen Davis (as Pekar's wife) being interwoven with interviews with the real Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner. It's not a conventional movie -- more of a documentary -- but it was entertaining. Some of the highlights --

-- Joyce throws up when Harvey first tries to make love to her.

-- Harvey becomes a frequent guest on Letterman, but then later rips Letterman on the air for exploiting him.

-- the creation of Harvey and Joyce's graphic novel, "Our Cancer Year." (The graphic novel was based on Pekar's real brush with cancer.)

-- a self-described "nerd" friend of Harvey's briefly becomes a celebrity on MTV.

I've never been a fan of American Splendor (I don't find the mundaneness of life as enthralling as Pekar does). But, for all his cantankerousness, Pekar comes off as a likeable lug who overcomes the odds to find love and create his own comic book.

For the record, it's Hope Davis and I'm not sure if this is better or worse, but she throws up right after they first kiss.

I liked the movie for how it interweaved fictional dramatizations of Harvey's life with the interview segments -- even the interviews were a tad dramatized though in how they were staged. I wasn't as bowled over as some of the critics seemed to be (the staged "happy ending" in particular seemed out of place considering the theme of the film and Harvey's comic), but it's got some good performances and offers an interesting insight into one of the pioneers of the underground comic "movement".

Thanks for the correction. I should have known this as I used to work with Hope's ex-mother-in-law.

thanks for the info !!

the film isn't out in the UK, till January !!

so i may go see it, then ......

Matthew.