* * * * *
                                        
                               American Splendor
                                        
I just watched American Splendor [1], a biography of Harvey Pekar [2], writer
of the comic book American Splendor [3] which chronicles his life as a file
clerk (and he remained a file clerk while writing the comic—I guess you could
say he was a blogger before blogging was invented, using comics as his
vehicle instead of a huge ever growing pulsating webpage that rules from the
center of cyberspace). 

The movie wasn't a documentary. I think. 

I mean, it starred Paul Giamatti [4] as Harvey, and Hope Davis as his third
wife, Joyce, but it was narrated by Harvey Pekar (who commented that Paul
Giamatti doesn't look anything like him), and had interviews with both him
and his wife, and even some commentary from Harvey's friend Toby Radloff [5]
(played by Judah Friedlander [6] in the film). 

A real mind-bending scene was when Harvey (as played by Giamatti) and Joyce
(played by Davis) went to the opening of a play based upon the comic book
(which is based upon the life of Harvey)—so Harvey is providing narration,
we're watching Giamatti and Davis (portraying Harvey and Joyce) watching
Donal Logue [7] and Molly Shannon [8] playing Harvey and Davis. 

It was probably the most self-referential film I've ever seen. 

Overall, it was a good film (Spring [9] was expecting to suffer through
watching it, but ended up enjoying it) and a very unique way of handling the
subject matter. 

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305206/
[2] http://www.harveypekar.com/
[3] http://www.toonopedia.com/splendor.htm
[4] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0316079/
[5] http://www.tobyradloff.com/
[6] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0295103/
[7] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006610/
[8] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0788340/
[9] http://www.springdew.com/

Email author at sean@conman.org