American Splendor Back to Index

Imdb Rating: 7.7
Genre: Biography
Directed: Harvey Pekar (comic book series American Splendor) and, Joyce Brabner (comic book series Our Cancer Year)
Country: USA
Year: 2003
Duration: 101 min

Media: Hot stuff
Recommended by zMin

---

Actors: Chris Ambrose (as Superman), Joey Krajcar (as Batman), Josh Hutcherson (as Robin), Cameron Carter (as Green Lantern), Daniel Tay (as Young Harvey), Mary Faktor (as Housewife), Paul Giamatti (as Harvey Pekar), Harvey Pekar (as Real Harvey), Shari Springer Berman (as Interviewer (voice)), Larry John Meyers (as Throat Doctor (as Larry John Myers)), Vivienne Benesch (as Lana), Barbara Brown (as Nurse), Earl Billings (as Mr. Boats), Danny Hoch (as Marty), James Urbaniak (as Robert Crumb)

---

Description: "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Comment: Throughout the years, people have read dozens of comic books: Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, The Green Latern, X-Men, Hulk, etc., looking for escape from reality, but at the same time, looking for a relation from those books. With "American Splendor" on the other hand, it's quite a different comic book. What makes it so special? It's depicting real life where it shows the character Harvey Pekar in different situations.

"American Splendor" is a comic/drama biography about the life of Harvey Pekar(Played by Paul Giamatti) in which the film plays like a comic book showing scenes that are real and fiction. Even the real Harvey makes appearances quite often in the film to talk about his life, his wife(Joyce) and everything that sort of made him the person who he is today.

Harvey Pekar can be described as one of those characters who don't seem to give a damn about the world. The reason that I root for this character is that he's the type person that lives in his own world, from not giving a crap about the incidents in the world, to not having a formal college education, to working at a dead end job where in the future, people are still laughing at him. And yet, I don't blame him. I am reminded of two other movies that had losers, but made an impact on male society: "The Big Lebowski" and "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" in which both male characters didn't have to worry about anything or go out on dates, or even pleasing society(shame on you, people).

All in All, American Splendor is a great movie. Though the film's target audience are for guys, I still encourage people to see this movie. The film also stars, Hope Davis portraying Harvey's wife, Joyce.

One of the Best Films!

IMDB TRIVIA FOR AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003):
- Cameo: [Ted Hope] voice on answering machine from "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993).
- The jacket that Paul Giamatti wears for Harvey's first "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993) appearance is the exact same piece of clothing that we see the real Harvey wearing on the TV.
- Jonathan Demme had tried to adapt a film version of "American Splendor" in the 1980s, but the project never came to fruition as Demme wasn't an established director.
- Rob Schneider and Leonardo DiCaprio was considered for an early film version of the book.
- All of the "white room" documentary scenes were filmed in one day.
- Cameo: [Gary Dumm] longtime American Splendor artist is the gray-haired man getting his copy of "Our Cancer Year" autographed.
- Harvey says that there has already been a film made about Robert Crumb. This is, of course, Crumb (1994).
- Worldwide Pants (David Letterman's company) would not lease out the actual footage where Pekar finally lashed out at Letterman, so the scene had to be recreated with the actors.
- When Harvey first guest stars on David Letterman, Joyce is in the waiting room with a man with an alligator. This was originally intended to be a cameo by John Waters.

*** Back to movie list ***