Latest Updates - Paul Giamatti

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

The joy of joylessness.

I only ever heard of Harvey Pekar relatively recently, and that was through something on tv about this film.

A really inventive, original movie about the everyday life of Mr Pekar, and his pursuit of the idea that those everyday happenings would be the perfect subject matter for a comic book - rejecting the idea that they should be the exclusive preserve of superheroes and the otherwise fantastical in nature... His creation: American Splendor, has since become something of a cult comic, and this movie, is about as meta as you can get...

...Paul Giamatti plays Harvey, and Harvey himself appears in this movie, often narrating, sometimes offering comment on the movie rendering of his life, and the actors, as they tell the tale of his development of this idea, and the events it led to, including the now infamous David Letterman show appearances, which then create a kind of feedback loop of life imitating art, and art imitating life, as his creation, detailing the everyday mundane, comes to reflect the un-everyday events in his life that the comic led to.

A lot of the real people depicted also appear in the movie, as well as the actors portraying them, oftentimes with moments of great mirth - my favourite being when actual Harvey is talking about sweets with his co-worker on a representation of the set used in the movie, but with Giamatti and and the actor playing the co-worker are seated in the background trying not to crack up at surreal conversation they are having about sweet flavours.

In all, it's the story about a man who doesn't buy into the whole fantastical world of comics, and in general, is a pretty glum, depressive type who makes this ordinary world a note of the extraordinary, but also takes a turn when he discovers he has cancer, and this whole experience becomes the topic of a new comic: Our Cancer Year.

The occasional comic book cell framing and the general surreal meta meta nature of the movie really makes this stand out...

(In particular, when Giamatti's Harvey is watching a stage play rendering of his comic about himself is almost a hall of mirrors experience for the audience)

...Yet has the same sort of vibe as Ghost World, and movies of this sort.

A really great, absorbing watch, and likely to inspire those who see it to seek out the original comics - as I am :)