America The Beautiful - The Natural Splendors Of Florida (DVD)

Advantages: Utterly original, hilarious, touching, fantastic performances.
Disadvantages: May seem a little confusing for some.

...Where do I begin on a review of a film like this? Do I look at it as a comedy drama? A biography? A documentary? The truth is that it needs to be looked at from all of these angles, as the film manages to successfully work all of these genres into one magnificently original film. Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti) is a very cranky, very average man who works as a filing clerk in a hospital and leads a very uninteresting life. Inspired by his friend Robert Crumb (James Urbaniak), he begins to write a comic book, 'American Splendor', on the mundanities of life because as he says, "ordinary life is pretty complex stuff". We follow Harvey through his life, including his marriage to wife Joyce (Hope Davis), his breakdown on national television, through to his battle with cancer. Now all of this would have been more than enough to fill... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Very oddball
Disadvantages: Very oddball - you'll either love it or hate

...“American Splendor” won a host of awards: Fipresci award (Cannes Film Festival 2003) Grand jury Prize (Sundance Film Festival 2003) Guardian new directors award (Edinburgh Festival 2003) It also got an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay. For me, it was a real surprise to see a refreshingly different movie – one which blurs all the boundaries between fiction, biography, documentary, comedy, tragicomedy… where do you want me to stop? Crucial to the whole thing is Paul Giamatti, who plays Harvey Pekar. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, he is the creator of a cult American comic (or should I say, graphic novel) called “American Splendor”. Which is where the title comes from. He is a filing clerk, stuck in a boring job, but when it comes down to it, content to stay in his boring job, because it pays... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Wonderful film, spuerb acting
Disadvantages: Nothing worth mentioning

...Some of my most recent reviews have been very negative. As I have also bemoaned the lack of quality in many TV programmes and complained that too many merely set out to undermine people and their achievements I felt I was doing that which I most criticise. I will seek to redress this balance by describing some thing that is truly excellent. A film whose mere presence makes the world a better place. American Beauty is such a film. For a directors first movie to be such an absorbing spellbinding production is amazing. The film has the feel of a number of cinematic gods who have combined, used all the known wisdom gathered over a century of film making, and produced a near perfect film. Sam Mendes deserves every honour he has gained from this film. The story is told is a comparatively simplistic way, there is no deviation from... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful