American Splendor

he life of underground comic-book writer Harvey Pekar is chronicled in this exceptionally droll film. Told through a collage of dramatic sequences starring Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis, interviews with the real Pekar and his dysfunctional pals, and quirky animated sequences, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's picture comes off as a cinematic comic book that follows Pekar from his days as a hospital file clerk, his early comic stories (originally drawn by his friend Robert Crumb), his marriage, his "cancer year" and even his boisterous television appearances. The result paints a three-dimensional panel of a lovable loser who makes his life as complicated and obsessive as his record collection. (Home Box Office)