American Splendor

[kirbi]

Liam's post in Movie Club reminded me - Steve and I watched this last weekend and forgot to post.

On the whole, I enjoyed it. It had -

* Good performances from Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis as the leads.

* A good (if kinda weird) premise.

* An interesting atmosphere - I really liked the real life bits. This was a strange one, because I'd say that 'Ghost World' was very similar in atmosphere and tone - and I didn't like that at all.

I didn't enjoy the watch as much as Barney's Version though, and I definitely wouldn't call it 'up-beat'.

[NoExclamationMarks]

Damn you people making me think this would be a fun movie! It was still pretty depressing. Well melancholy in any case, not exactly as bad as Barney's Version.

I thought it was funny in places and interesting enough. But I kind of got bored with it as it went along. It was pretty disjointed and it was hard to invest in the characters when they seemed like caricatures that didn't act like regular people would.

The acting was good, but I thought Paul Giamatti didn't come across enough like the real guy. That guy, while also miserable, was always smiling and seemed kinda funny and eccentric and odd. Giamatti was mostly just a miserable git. I didn't really buy that someone like him would be allowed to guest on a talk show regularly just for comic relief.

[liam]

I enjoyed the eccentricity. I know it is pretty dark alright but I thought i remembered it being more comedic than you thought it was. I dunno. Maybe I was drunk or high when i watched it. The fact that he was such a dickhead on the talkshow made me laugh. Im fairly certain its a true story too. In fact definatly coz i think they showed the real dude at the end.

[kirbi]

It was!

And it was good - just kind of a downer.

[Billy Kennedy]

It was good, really nice mix of genres, reality vs fiction etc. Dunno if I'd watch it again but it was definitely worth the watch. That low growling voice is very hypnotic, I could listen to him for days!