Rating: 
Summary: Harvey Pekar gets all five stars
Review: American splendor stupefied me - this is more than a movie - more than a simple canvas of the life of Harvey Pekar. This is every man's life. Once in a while you come across a movie which just blows you away but mind it not with graphics or special effects but just with the camera work, acting, screen play and direction and this is such a masterpiece.
We do not have a hero who is trying to save the world or a bambie racing for money this is just the story of you and me. This is the story of the compulsions and boredom that we all go through in our daily drudgery. so to make that interesting , as interesting that you will watch it for almost 2 hours is relatively difficult but this movie succeeds in doing so.
The plot deals with the simple monotonous life of cartoonist Harvey Pekar and Pear himself acts in the movie in and out. Merging Harvey Pekar and his acting persona has been a tremendous job. If you like "being John Malkovich" then you will enjoy this movie. Giamatti as Harvey Pekar and Berman as his wife have done a tremendous job in bringing out the characters with force and respect. I will highly recommend you to watch this movie or even buy this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating underground figure
Review: Like Crumb and Ghost World (both great films in their own right), American Splendor focuses on a subculture that is seldom glimpsed by the mainstream --that of underground comic book writers. American Splendor is the name of a comic book created by Harvey Pekar, played in this film by Paul Giamatti, who expertly captures the personality and nuances of Pekar. We know this because this film is part documentary, with the real Pekar (and other characters dramatized in the film) giving commentary throughout. This technique of mixing the real with the fictionalized works well for this movie, which is about a person who is almost obsessively introspective and constantly wondering about his identity. Although he is a counterculture hero of sorts, Pekar lived most of his life in an extremely low key manner --as a file clerk for a VA hospital. Most of his comic books were derived from the people and events he experienced at work and around the streets of Cleveland. At the start of the film, Pekar's wife has left him, complaining that she cannot stand the "plebeian life" anymore. Although Pekar himself is hardly content with his own life, he also seems to require it. At one point he muses that he'd be lost without his work routine. Later, one of his female fans named Joyce (Hope Davis) writes to Pekar and they get married almost immediately, "skipping the whole courtship thing," as Joyce puts it. Joyce is a fellow misfit, and they seem like a perfect match. The strength of this film is in the way it captures the whole sense of life (to borrow a phrase from Ayn Rand) of Harvey Pekar. Before seeing this, I had never heard of him or his comic book, but I am always intrigued by people who live on the fringes and create something original from their unconventional vantage points. Pekar reveals himself as a perverse sort of character who seems to need a degree of conflict, even misery, in his life. As he gains in popularity, it seems likely that he could, like his friend and collaborator Robert Crumb, have launched a career out of his art and quit his day job, but he doesn't do this until the very end when he formally retires. He appeared several times on David Letterman's Late Night show, but finally resented the way the host used him for laughs. I enjoyed the scene of his final appearance on the show, when he publicly insults the smug Letterman; I wish more people would do things like that. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, helped by the cast and the actual characters of course, have created a masterpiece in this multifaceted portrayal of a unique modern artist.
Rating: 
Summary: Semi-Splendid Concoction
Review: In 1995, Robert Zwigoff put together a documentary on the underground comic artist turned above-ground super-star weirdo Robert Crumb. The film, called 'Crumb' was an excellent portrayal of the kind of weird humanity that 'American Splendor' is also striving for. 'Splendor' feels almost like a psuedo-sequel to 'Crumb'... as it deals with Harvey Pekar, the writer of "American Splendor" comics - oft drawn by the aforementioned Robert Crumb. However, while 'Crumb' was a bastion of weirdness in an even weirder world, Pekar seems a bastion of hopeless negativity in a whitewashed empty world. 'Splendor' may be aiming higher than 'Crumb' - it is both documentary and docu-drama, and it pushes post modern to the self-reflexive extreme - but it fails where the less creative straight documentary succeeds.Harvey Pekar is a miserable grumpy old man. Even as a boy, he's a grumpy old man. Paul Giamatti takes the grumpy old man bit way too far when playing Pekar, but I don't blame him. You can feel the directors eking it out of him... like the flat bland camera work, it's all supposed to infuse us with helplessness and blah-ness. Then when the ultimate success of Pekar's life is slowly unpacked towards the end of the film, he seems a semi-shining pebble in a sea of not so shiny pebbles. Not so. He seems mostly like an actor playing a character: a character that also stars in the film. Harvey Pekar himself makes several appearances and is distinctly NOT the character Giamatti is playing. In fact, one gets the feeling that much of his entire 'public' life is a sort of charade put on for fun. People laugh when Harvey's down, so Harvey acts down. It all turns out to be unintentionally pathetic. On the other hand, it is entertaining. The excess of the film worked for me. Its grotesque exaggerations of the human plight - much like the 'American Splendor' comic - touches even the most jaded of us. "A reliable disappointment," Pekar thinks in a cartoon bubble as he looks in the mirror. It's a perfect way to sum up the film. And despite my criticisms, I'd recommend it to people.
Rating: 
Summary: "Life is a carnival, take another look"
Review: This highly original film takes realism to a new level. Not only do we meet characters who seem real (that is, quirky and unglamorous), but we also step outside the film to see the real people these characters are based on. I also feel it is courageous of all involved in the production to give us this extra window on the truth. By doing so they potentially sacrificed the film's credibility. In the end however this credibility is not sacrificed at all, since we are allowed to really evaluate 1) just how masterfully the two leading roles are played by Giamatti and Davis and 2) how realistically the production captures the essence of these two people.
One of my favorite things about this film was that it had a Carpe Diem message while simultaneously acknowledging that even if you achieve your central dream, life will not be easy. Pursuit of his dream (at least to this point) has not made Pekar rich, eliminated family/relationship or health problems, or offered a panacea for his personality disorders and atrophies. Ironically, seizing control of his life in the mid-70s has in some ways led to loss of control today; this is the idea that his life has come to imitate his art.
But overall the decision seems to have made his life better. Less explored, but perhaps equally important, is the role of his other hobby in making his life both meaningful and bearable-his love of music and music collection. Again, the music is not enough to make him totally happy, but it seems to have helped him particularly through the period before he began making comics.
Another plus is the gritty depiction of old Cleveland through the decades. Less successful was the interweaving of comic scenes in the film. They did not detract, but they also did not add a lot. Sure, they are meant to show that he is an everyman, experiencing life's banalities. But the epic superhero/Ulysses theme is with us from the opening Halloween scene, and the idea that any moment can be seen as textured and momentous is a very important one. But it's just not as interesting (disturbing?) as it would have been to see more of the images in, say, Crumb's mind. This banality, which ironically makes the film so original and fresh, is also what limits it to being a 3.5/4-star movie. The film says what it has to say quite well, and with a unique style, but there is a real limit to what these limited characters have to say.
Rating:
Summary: True American Beauty.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The best movie I've seen all year
Review: In the underground comic book series "American Splendor," Cleveland file clerk Harvey Pekar writes about his own bizarre-yet-humdrum life. The movie "American Splendor" establishes the 'bizarre biopic' as a new genre of film, taking the basic premise behind the comic book and spinning it out even further: actor Paul Giamatti plays Pekar, but Pekar himself also appears on-screen. At one point Pekar is interviewed with his friend Toby, while the actors playing them take a break from filming in the back of the frame. The film sometimes whimsically takes on the flat graphic look of a comic book as well, as when the 'real' Harvey is interviewed on a set featuring two-dimensional props placed on a flat white background-the real Harvey thus appearing less 'real' in 2 dimensions than Giamatti (the 'actor' Harvey) appears in 3. Which is the "real" Harvey? Is it Giamatti, the actor who plays him? The author Harvey Pekar, who actually appears in the film as himself? The comic-strip character Harvey, who is sometimes animated in the film? It sounds confusing, but the film is so tightly constructed that it's fun rather than bewildering, an offbeat commentary on the differences between "real" life as it is lived and as we observe it. Giamatti turns in an outstanding performance in the year's best cast. He has Pekar perfectly, down to the oddball way his right upper lip is raised in a perpetual sneer, while his bushy left eyebrow descends in a terrifying squint. Hope Davis as his wife Joyce is deadpan yet hilarious, and she has the best two lines in the film: one when she proposes marriage (which I will not spoil for you), and one when she declares with absolute conviction in her voice that the final speech in the movie "Revenge of the Nerds" to be the equivalent of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Although this movie is quite unconventional on its surface, underneath it is actually rather charming and sentimental: it's the wacked-out true 'love' story describing how oddball file clerk Harvey Pekar became famous as an underground cartoonist, finds true love (meaning love with fights, frustrations, and general insanity rather than the bland type), and overcomes cancer. In the final moments of the film we see the real Harvey retire from his fileclerk existence, hoping for a peaceful retirement on the proceeds of the film. Despite Harvey's rough bulldog interface, you will be rooting for him.
Rating:
Summary: Strange. witty, imaginative, and altogether wonderful.
Review: It's enough to make Borges and Pirandello salivate like Pavlov's dogs. In "American Splendor," directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini present myriad images of the autobiographical comic book writer Harvey Pekar, each reflecting, refracting and playing off the others. They have the real Pekar commenting on the movie and on Paul Giamatti's performance as Pekar, as well as several different cartoon versions of Pekar (all drawn, like the "American Splendor" comic books, by different artists). Adding to the fun are Pekar's real-life wife Joyce Brabner and self-described "nerd" friend Toby Radloff, wandering through the action along with Hope Davis and Judah Friedlander, the actors playing them. At one point Giamatti and Friedlander watch with affectionate amusement as the real Pekar and Radloff have an intense discussion about gourmet jelly beans; at another, Giamatti and Davis as Pekar and Brabner watch a stage performance of two other actors playing Pekar and Brabner. Sound confusing? It could have been, but under Berman and Pulcini's steady hands "American Splendor" is a graceful, surprising and unexpectedly touching film about a strange, curmudgeonly, beaten-down man who cried "I exist!" to the world and actually got the world to listen to him. Of course the film would never have worked if the actors hadn't done justice to their real-life counterparts, so visible (and so sublimely weird) on the screen; but Giamatti, Davis and Friedlander give hilarious, pitch-perfect performances. The real Pekar, and Giamatti portraying him, become lovable existential heroes by the end, wandering the grimy, chilly streets of Cleveland with eternal grimaces molded on their faces. Sure, life stinks a lot of the time, Pekar and "American Splendor" tell us. But wherever humanity reigns--however eccentric--there is poignancy and hope.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Movie.....
Review: I'll never forget walking out of the movie OCTOBER SKY. I hated that movie. I hated it with a passion. Every beat, every plot twist, everything about that movie made my blood boil. I went with two friends that absolutely loved it, the girl I was with cried. The guy couldn't help but rave about it. I just seethed and screamed bloody murder about how manipulative and commercial it was. They just ignored me. That's why when I settled into AMERICAN SPLENDOR, a scene stuck out like a sore thumb. Our hero, Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti, Big Fat Liar), has just gone to see REVENGE OF THE NERDS with his wife Joyce (Hope Davis, Next Stop Wonderland) and his pal from work Toby (Judah Friedlander, Showtime). They loved it, as he rails against it. They discuss the power and key plot points like it's something by Dreyer or Bergman. Harvey just gets madder. There's no way he's going to win the argument, so he becomes silent. It was at that moment when I knew how he felt. This is what is so nice about AMERICAN SPLENDOR. It's about real people, who live mundane lives, who may amount to nothing, but yet still thrive and grow. It's about passion and depression. It's about love and hate. It's about what makes us real and human. It also proves the point that sometimes even the mundane life is really funny and worth celebrating. SPLENDOR tells the story of Harvey Pekar, a regular guy who like Jazz records and works at the local V.A. Hospital. He dropped out of college, his wife left him, and he just wants more than his life has given him. When he begins to record his life in comic book form, and his old pal Robert Crumb (James Urbaniak, Henry Fool) begins to illustrate them. The comic book gets published. Harvey becomes a cult underground hero and he even winds up on Letterman. But with all his accolades and good fortune, he still stays where he is. SPLENDOR is a good film with electric performances by Giamatti, Davis, and Fridlander. Each one embodies their character with so much life, when frankly the script doesn't call for much. This is the kind of movie that would fail miserably if any of the performances were off by even a little. Luckily, none were. The film's unique approach to the material also works. I liked the comic book touches, the crude animations, and in what I thought was amazingly inspired, a candid look at the real Harvey Pekar, Joyce his wife, and his weird pal Tobey. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (Off The Menu: The Last Days at Chasens) chose the documentary approach to this non-fiction film and it works. To be honest the film does suffer for it's opening 20 minutes, they are slow and on the verge of being tedious. Pekar is larger than life, but to dull on his own. But the moment Hope Davis arrives she brings a light and presence to the film, that it desperately needed. She is so good. Let's face it she is one of the most underrated actresses in Hollywood. You want more proof give her delightfully enchanting NEXT STOP WONDERLAND a look. She should be given much meatier roles; she can play them better than most. AMERICAN SPLENDOR proves the big budget Hollywood movies wrong. Sometimes the mundane is fascinating and sometimes the mundane needs to be praised. Give the opening moments a chance and watch as the film envelops you. See what Harvey Pekar and you have in common. He's a regular guy, and that makes him extraordinary. **** out of 5
Rating:
Summary: Just Amazing
Review: Alot of reviews that I have read recently find this movie depressing, and yet I can't look at it like that. Through out the movie Harvey finds himself in horrid situations, and yet in the end, even through all of that, finds people who love and care about him. Yes,he himself is grumpy and old, but even then, in the shot at his retirment, you see that he has people there for him. He starts saying he is so lonely, and in the end, he isn't. He is surrounded by those who care for him. I know I sound sappy, but thats what I saw. Yes, there are also those moments were you feel like he has been cursed, but it never stays that way. An amazing, and superb film that will stick in your mind for as long as you live.
Rating:
Summary: Working class success--via comic books...
Review: American Splendor is a unique film and well worth seeing. Based on the life and writing of Cleveland native and comic book writer Harvey Pekar, it stars Paul Giamatti as Harvey and Hope Davis as Joyce, his wife. The filmmakers have very cleverly written the real Harvey Pekar, his real wife, and his real friends into the script of the film as well, and the fusing of the actors playing them with the real people is truly inspired. Pekar is a frustrated working class guy who befriends fellow Clevelander Robert Crumb, the famed cartoonist. When he (Pekar) has the idea to do a comic based on his real life, he shows it to Crumb who loves it and who offers to draw it for him. The resulting book, American Splendor, is a huge hit. In spite of that, Harvey keeps his job as a lowly clerk at a Veterans' Hospital which gives him much of his source material for his comics writing. Scenes alternate between the actors playing Harvey and his friends with the real people, and whenever there is voiceover, it is done by the real Harvey Pekar. Pekar was on the Letterman show a number of times and twice, that's shown as it really happened. But he's a gloomy character, as he freely admits facing the camera, and the one time when he was on Letterman when he lost it and raged at both Dave and the audience, that's shown with Giamatti from the POV of a backstage crew member (i.e., Dave's face is not seen--it's a fictional Dave Letterman). Giamatti is great here--he gained weight for this role to look like a gloomy slob who knows all too well how to go nowhere fast. His dingy Cleveland apartment is a total mess, filled with the stacks of 78s and 45 he obsessively collects, and with the underground comics he just as maniacally buys. Crumb is portrayed by former rock singer James Urbaniak (who did a great job in the Hal Hartley film Henry Fool) and is also excellent. And the casting of Hope Davis as Joyce, Harvey's wife, was also a great choice. Her neuroses are a perfect complement to Harvey's. If you're in need of a very quirky American movie that has nothing at all to do with inane teen comedy, superhero razzmatazz, or superficial emotion portrayed by flighty people doing flaky things, check out this film. A sure cure for empty-headed entertainment.
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