People often point to the Dark Knight, or possible Spider-Man 2 as the best comic book movie. I feel this is. One reason being it shows Comic Books and Comic Book movies are a lot more then superheroes. There are others that do this such as Road to Pertition and History of Violence. But I feel this art style and acting put this movie above all others.
It's certainly not your typical comic book movie, then again it wasn't your typical comic either. It's a good movie but my vote goes to Sin City. Arguebly in the top 5 best comic book related movies, though.
shareAmerican Splendor was infinitely better than Sin City. So was Oldboy, Riki-Oh, Ghost World, Ichi the Killer, or Akira. Sin City is probably the most faithful to it's original source, but it's too bad the comic was nothing more than weak noir eyecandy.
shareI'd hardly call Sin City weak noir candy. There was nothing weak about it. I never knew Oldboy was based on a comic, though. The other movies you listed are pretty good. What can I say about story of Ricky? But American Splendor, I thought was more of a homage to the comic. Sin City was a good dark well written movie that was visually striking and had some genuine excitement.
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Lumping all books with pictures (comics) together is like lumping all books with no pictures (novels, short stories) together.
Then where do you put things like the works of Thurber, who had the odd amusing drawing to go along with his stories?
It's one of the best, but Ghost World is better. Also, I'm surprised no one's mentioned Watchmen, which was a shockingly good adaptation of something that shouldn't have worked as a movie at all. I loved it.
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I'm only five foot one
I got a pain in my heart
No one has mentioned Watchmen because it actually suffered from the fidelity to the original. There was just too much information crammed into too little time.
shareReally? I didn't get that impression at all. When I saw the movie, it had been about ten years since I'd read the comic, and nothing confused me or seemed crammed in. It was a nicely streamlined version of the story, in my opinion.
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I'm only five foot one
I got a pain in my heart
To each his own, I guess. I didn't think it was bad, but I did think some parts were rushed, and I would have rather seen some subplots cut altogether so others could have been fleshed out more. It just didn't have the right pacing for me, and seemed like a pale imitation of the book. And I of course have no way of knowing this, but I have the feeling that if I hadn't read the book (much less read it several times) that it wouldn't have made any sense to me at all.
Don't get me started on changing the octopus monster...
No doubt about it. It's far and away the best comic book related movie and doesn't get enough credit for its originality. One of my favorite movies of all time
Excitement, Adventure, Possessions....A Jedi-Knight seeks not these things.
My 5 favorite comics film in NO particular order...
American Splendor
Ghost World
X-Men 2
Dark Knight
Spider-Man (yeah I'm one of the few who actually likes the first one better...)
Something the OP wrote that I want to address...
You're absolutely right that American Splendor is much more of an interesting contrast to superhero films than Road to Perdition, History of Violence, or other non-superhero comic-based movies because superheroes are actually present throughout American Splendor.
First, in the film's opening scene, Harvey's childhood friends are pretending to be superheroes, whereas he prefers to be himself. He wonders why everybody has to be "so stupid."
Second, the real Pekar's narration indicates that if you're looking for escapism or for some fantasy figure to save the day, "you've got the wrong movie." This is again a shot at superheroes.
Third, when Bob Crumb comments that Pekar has turned himself into a "comic hero," Pekar retorts back that there's no "idealized *beep* and he then says the line that defines the movie: "ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."
Throughout the movie, Pekar yearns for a more exciting, more fulfilling life than that of a file clerk with few friends and even fewer romantic prospects who occasionally gets to have his fifteen minutes of fame by writing a jazz review. He never says or in any way indicates that he wants to be a superhero per se, but I think that's what the movie's getting at. However, he ultimately realizes that the ordinary life can have more moments of pain and joy than the life of any superhero.
Okay, I'm done with my rant. Anyone who wants to tell me why I'm wrong, go for it.
This is one of them and proof comic books are not always superheroes.
"You killed Captain Clown, YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN"-The Joker on Batman TAS
Although there's no superhero saving the world from megalomaniacal villains, American Splendor is definitely in my top five comic book films of all time.
OBAMA 2012