American Splendor R
Harvey Pekar is a cynical clerk living a rather dreary life where he collects old things. Eventually his crass behavior is combined with a friend's comic book writing ability to form an underground comics sensation. He gets cancer and incorporates it into the most well-known of his comics. Using narrative form can sometimes be grating although it's actually pretty good. Sure he's no comics superhero and his genre is very snarky, but the actors in this manage to pull it off well. Review by Adam Browne
Sad sack characters are Oscar bait, but because this was kind of an indie flick it didn't really get the recognition it should have. The actors do a pretty darn good imitation of Pekar and his wife, as the commentary and interviews on the DVD indicate. What it seems to fail at is trying to make these characters compelling enough to be remembered. They're so downbeat. Give them some joy juice or something.
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