American Splendor
by Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
List Price:
Our Price: $1.69
You Save: $8.28 (83%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Chris Ambrose, Harvey Pekar, Joey Krajcar, Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer BermanDirector: Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman
Brand: GIAMATTI,PAUL
Writer: Shari Springer Berman
Writer: Harvey Pekar
Writer: Robert Pulcini
Producer: Christine K. Walker
Producer: Declan Baldwin
Writer: Joyce Brabner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2010-04-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 92031
Studio: HBO Video
Product features:
- Actors: Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, Harvey Pekar, Chris Ambrose, Joey Krajcar.
- Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1). Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
- Rated: R. Run Time: 101 minutes.
DVD Reviews of American Splendor
DVD Review: I, Me, Mine
Summary: 3 Stars
Having just watched Paul Giamatti's acting prowess in Alexander Payne's excellent "Sideways" three times, and with Terry Zwigoff's movie "Ghost World" (which I must have seen a dozen times already) being a wonderful and quietly tragic movie based on an underground comic book, I was prepared to enjoy a movie that seemed right up my alley.
First off: This movie is well made and Giamatti gives a great performance, as does Hope Davis ("About Schmidt"), who plays his wife.
However, it doesn't put me in the comic book world any more than, say, "Remains of the Day" did. Despite the directors using a number of gimmicks, such as comic strip panels and animation and intercutting scenes with the actual Harvey Pekar (the comic book author upon whom the movie is based) and his wife and nerd co-worker, this movie still put up a wall between itself and me, whereas in "Ghost World" I got totally sucked into the atmosphere, as there was much more graphic unity and cohesion with the plot and characters.
Another reason is that in "Ghost World," I found it easier to sympathize and empathize with the characters. Not so with Harvey Pekar. Sure, Giamatti's fun to watch, but he doesn't have very good monologue to work with or dialogue. He's sort of similar to Seymour, Steve Buscemi's loner from "Ghost World" (and, I have heard, Seymour was based in part on Pekar, a friend of comic illustrator Robert Crumb). Unlike Seymour, however, Pekar has few redeeming qualities.
The harrowing misfortune of living with depression aside, I've never seen such a bitter and negative character like Pekar. On the DVD packaging, he's billed as a "curmudgeon," so I was expecting him to be an intelligent cynic with ascerbic wit, sort of a modern-day H.L. Mencken or Mark Twain.
But Pekar never really does more than grunt about not wanting to look on the brighter side of life, because that's "Hollywood BS." The most intellectual he gets is when he's a guest on "Late Night with David Letterman" for the fifth time or so, when he accuses Letterman of being a sellout, because his show is on NBC, and NBC is owned by General Electric, a company that makes weapons systems. That's his great big revelation? Would be perhaps had I not heard it out of the mouths of John Cusack and Tim Robbins many times before.
Basically, Pekar's shtick is chronicling his commonplace, everyday life. Mind you, not finding something beautiful and unique about it, just giving his readers something that's "real," not like the "Hollywood BS" he so disdains.
His stories revolve around his job as a file clerk at the Veterans Administration hospital in Cleveland, trips to the supermarket, etc. At the hospital, we run into a handful of his oddball co-workers, but not much else. His journey to the express lane while getting trapped behind a kvetching woman with a handful of coupons is cute, but not terribly novel. From Pekar, I get the feeling of a recycled Andy Rooney monologue: "Did you ever notice that... (fill in the blank)?"
Except even Rooney used voice inflection to try to actually interest his audience, as does Giamatti. Had the directors left Giamatti alone to perform the role, maybe I'd not be down on Pekar so much. But, by writing the real Pekar into the script, they sabotage anything Giamatti has done to make him marginally sympathetic, interesting or intelligent.
The real Pekar comes off as sort of a non-entity at best, and a grouch complaining about meaningless trivial inconveniences at worst. He's (dare I say it?) a bore! A self-absorbed and emptyheaded bore!
Thus we are left bereft, empty of any inspiration whatsoever, the victims of a false advertising campaign. There's no "splenor" at all to his self-loathing and negativity. Pekar is basically a man so nihilistic, he'd make Nietzsche blush.
But, unlike Nietzsche, Pekar has negated even the possibility of there being any Uebermenschen, heroes, or even good and interesting people.
Want proof of how Harvey Pekar's life has been a mostly wasted life (based upon what's presented in this film, at least)? Here it is: He worked at the V.A. Hospital in Cleveland long enough to earn a retirement party. That's a pretty huge chunk taken out of his life.
Have you ever been to a V.A. Hospital? It's a ready-made central casting of a novel (or comic book) of epic proportions: So many aging soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen, and they've all got stories to tell. Tales of daring exploits and understated, modest, disclaimers of any heroism at all. At his fingertips, any time he wanted to lunch with them at the cafteria or share a coffee at the canteen, he could have given the world a treasure trove of stories of our many heroes, a few cowards, some braggarts, a few saints and quite a few sinners.
He could have opened up to the rest of us the world of the forgotten veterans too poor to go anywhere else but the V.A. hospital; of American Legion members who go there rather than their private docs, just to chew the fat and share old war stories with their fellow comrades; of the ancient guy sitting outside the entrance in his wheelchair, using a few of his last precious breaths to suck in nicotine, while smoking a Camel through his tracheostomy tube; the heartbreak of lonely old homeless vets, who've no family in the world, and who are just waiting to die.
Oddly, we meet none of these colorful types. Harvey Pekar is too busy staring at file cabinet drawers, complaining about the length of lines at the store and gazing at his own navel to look beyond to see a grand and glorious world outside of himself.
But, of course, Pekar's world precludes the very existence of such people as heroes, and the wars they fought and won were nothing more than "Hollywood BS."
I do recommend "American Splendor" as a rental, so that viewers can watch some good performances as well as competent color timing, sound editing and film splicing.
"American Splendor" is the antithesis of "It's A Wonderful Life": It unintentionally answers the question "would the world have been better off without Harvey Pekar?" with "well, it really doesn't matter. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?"
But, of course, any other answer would have been more of the same, phoney "Hollywood BS."
Description of American Splendor
Based on the life and work of underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar- a prickly poet of the mundane who knows that all the strategizing in the world can't save a guy from picking the wrong supermarket checkout line.One of the most acclaimed films of 2003, American Splendor is also one of the most audaciously creative biographical movies ever made. Blending fact, fiction, and personal perspective from the comic books that inspired it, this marvelous portrait of Harvey Pekar--scowling curmudgeon, brow-beaten everyman, insightful chronicler of his own life, and frustrated file clerk at a Cleveland V.A. hospital--is an inspired amalgam of the media (comic books, TV, and film) that lifted Pekar from obscurity to the status of a pop-cultural icon. As played by Paul Giamatti in a master-stroke of casting, we see Pekar and his understanding wife (played by Hope Davis) as underdogs in a world full of obstacles, yet also infused with subtle hope and (gasp!) heartwarming perseverance. We also see the real Pekar, and this multifaceted commingling of "reel" and "real" turns American Splendor into a uniquely cinematic celebration of Pekar's life and, by extension, the tenacity of an unlikely American hero. --Jeff Shannon
Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Synecdoche New YorkSONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2009-03-10; DVD
Best price: $4.80
Price in other shops:
BrickGORDON-LEVITT,JOSEP; Release date: 2006-08-08; DVD
Best price: $1.79
Price in other shops:
Our Cancer Yearby Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner
Running Press; Published: 1994-10-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.94
Price in other shops:
Bob and Harv's Comicsby Harvey Pekar
Running Press; Published: 1996-11-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.91
Price in other shops:
Ghost WorldBIRCH,THORA; Release date: 2002-02-05; DVD
Best price: $5.61
Price in other shops:
Best of American Splendorby Harvey Pekar
Ballantine Books; Published: 2005-01-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.34
Price in other shops:
Broken FlowersNBC Universal; Release date: 2006-01-03; DVD
Best price: $1.91
Price in other shops:
The New American Splendor Anthology: From Off the Streets of Clevelandby Harvey Pekar
Running Press; Published: 1993-01-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.81
Price in other shops:
American Splendor and More American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekarby Harvey Pekar
Ballantine Books; Published: 2003-07-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.44
Price in other shops:
Crumb (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2006-04-25; DVD
Best price: $7.86
Price in other shops: