American Splendor movie review

COMIC GENIUS
A scene from 'American Splendor'
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"AMERICAN SPLENDOR"
*** stars
101 minutes | Rated: R
LIMITED: Friday, August 22, 2003
Written & directed by Shari Springer Berman, Bob Pulcini

Starring Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, James Urbaniak, Harvey Pekar, Judah Friedlander, Joyce Pekar, Shari Springer Berman, Judah Friedlander, Robert Pulcini, Toby Radloff, Donal Logue, Molly Shannon, James McCaffrey, Madylin Sweeten, Danielle Batone



This film received an Honorable Mention on the Best of 2003 list.


 FEATURE LINK
Read our interview with Hope Davis 1998 interview with
actress Hope Davis


 COUCH CRITIQUE
   SMALL SCREEN SHRINKAGE: 0%
   WIDESCREEN: COULDN'T HURT

The innovative comic-book style of this movie will pop off the small screen just as much as it did off the big screen.

   VIDEO RELEASE: 02.03.2003



 OTHER REVIEWS/COMING SOON
 
  • Paul Giamatti
  • Hope Davis
  • Donal Logue
  • Molly Shannon


  •  LINKS for this film
    Official site
    at movies.yahoo.com
    at Rotten Tomatoes
    at Internet Movie Database
    Watch the trailer (apple.com)
    Pekar's acrimonious, autobiographical 'American Splendor' goes big-screen with his own running commentary

    By Rob Blackwelder

    Breaking the fourth wall in an extraordinarily innovative way, "American Splendor" stars perennial second-banana Paul Giamatti ("Man On the Moon," "Big Fat Liar") as cantankerous file clerk Harvey Pekar -- the anti-hero of his own autobiographical underground comic book for the last 20 years -- and also features the real Harvey Pekar as meta-narrator and commentator ("OK, here's me, or the guy playing me, even though he doesn't look anything like me") in sardonic interview segments that compliment the action.

    Peeling cartoon thought bubbles -- and sometimes entire panels and pages -- straight from the pages of "American Splendor" and incorporating them into the film, co-writers/directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (documentary makers up to now) capture brilliantly both the inner grumblings of charismatically prickly Pekar and his dark and uniquely unironic sense of self-parody.

    Inventive and blessed with uncommonly human-yet-cartoony performances (Hope Davis plays Pekar's loving but ever-aggravated wife Joyce), this film is one of a kind.



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