Jackie Danicki

I got this (WARNING: Flash wankery!) on DVD for £5.99 at Borders last week, and we watched it at the weekend. I didn’t know what to expect, but what I got was far from what I expected. (That last sentence makes about as much sense as the film does. I don’t mean that as a dig. It’s just…You gotta see it.)

Not that the movie was uninteresting; it was anything but. So I’m disappointed to find that the Official Harvey Pekar blog is dull and unreadable. The movie Harvey - both Paul Giamatti’s depiction and Pekar’s own appearances - was engaging. The blog Harvey, not so much.

I was talking to Antoine last night about a friend of mine who he’s never met. I likened this guy, in terms of attitude, to Harvey Pekar. The gloom and doom never end in his world. When he’s lonely and depressed, I try to show him how far he’s come in recent times. I try to draw out of him what he may have learned from his (self-inflicted, garden variety) trials. But there’s no concept that these experiences could yield more than just grief.

I’ve spent nearly three years trying to ’save’ this friend and show him that life is as good as he wants to make it. More fool me. American Splendor and Harvey Pekar have taught me that there’s no saving someone who gets off on misery and victimhood. Pekar, for all his chagrin schtick, takes his joy where he can find it. Those who don’t, don’t, and there’s nothing anyone can do to force it on them.

Bottom line: Worth a rental; buy Ghost World if you want a really good film based on a graphic novel.

Filed under: Life