Ray Pride

The real world of ordinary life as seen through the eyes of a cranky Cleveland file clerk who adores jazz and distrusts the modern world. With the adaptation of over twenty-five years of Harvey Pekar's curmudgeonly comics, documentary-makers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have created a daring, generous, multilayered portrait of the man and his mind, deftly shifting between reenactments with gifted actors like Paul Giamatti (as Pekar), Hope Davis as his wife Joyce Brabner, and James Urbaniak as a sly R. Crumb, and with scenes with Pekar and people he knows, animated sequences and for good measure, footage from several of Pekar's notorious performances on David Letterman's show in the 1980s. It's pretty remarkable stuff. 107m. Winner of two prizes at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

"American Splendor" opens Friday at the Landmark Century.

(2003-08-20)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
Richard Linklater's exhilarating, wildly entertaining 1993 youth-culture memory piece of self-discovery through teenage rituals is less geographically specific than the paranoiac Austin, Texas, of his earlier "Slacker," yet more culturally detailed, capturing 1976 America with loving, ethnographic precision
(2003-08-13)

Act your rage
Terror, scorn, anger, let's bring them together now and consider Peter Mullan's magisterial "The Magdalene Sisters," a sustained howl against affront and dishonor
(2003-08-13)

Educational Eden
Michigan Avenue's the city's prime brand extension
(2003-08-13)

Short Runs
This week's limited screenings
(2003-08-13)

Tip of the Week
(2003-08-05)

Short Runs
(2003-08-05)

L.A. confidence
(2003-08-05)

Tip of the Week
(2003-07-30)

The Oh No show
(2003-07-30)

Short Runs
(2003-07-30)

Tip of the Week
(2003-07-23)

Leaving Navy Pier
(2003-07-23)

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