Crumb is about the experiences and characters of the Crumb family, particularly Robert Crumb's brothers, Maxon and Charles, his wife and children (his sisters declined to be interviewed). Though Zwigoff had the consent of the Crumb brothers, some questioned the ability of the more disturbed brothers to provide that consent.
Des comics books aux diverses incarnations animées ou de chair et d'os, la fabuleuse histoire d'une icône emblématique de la culturelle américaine, appartenant au monde imaginaire de l’Univers DC: Superman...
Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is a faded Hollywood actor best known for playing the superhero Birdman decades ago in a series of films. He is often tormented by the mocking, critical inner voice of Birdman, and frequently visualizes himself performing feats of levitation and telekinesis. The film opens with a quotation from Raymond Carver stating that the main fulfillment in life is related to having once been loved, then cuts to a dramatic atmospheric disturbance resembling a meteor descending in flames. The film then cuts to a surreal shot depicting Riggan as levitating in his stage room. Riggan hopes to reinvent his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway production of a loosely based adaptation of Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".
Le film revient sur la carrière d'Hergé, mais surtout sur l'homme qu'il était, en mettant en image de nombreux extraits des bandes son originales des entretiens avec Numa Sadoul. La mise en scène, volontairement sobre, est accompagné de diverses images d'archives et d'entretiens avec des spécialistes et amis d'Hergé. Les divers entretiens avec des critiques suivent tous la même scénographie : ils se déplace dans une salle entièrement pavée de planches, s'arrêtent, les commentent, jusqu'à ce que la caméra aille se placer au-dessus d'eux, révélant les preneurs de sons, chef opérateurs, etc.
American Splendor retrace la véritable histoire du scénariste de comics Harvey Pekar. Au début du film, celui-ci mène une existence plutôt morose entre son travail de documentaliste, quelques conversations sur tout et rien avec ses collègues et quelques connaissances, et sa passion pour le jazz, qu'il assouvit en recherchant des pièces rares dans les garage sales (équivalent américain des vide-greniers) ou les magasins d'occasion. C'est ainsi qu'il fait la connaissance du célèbre dessinateur de bande dessinée Robert Crumb, alors inconnu, qui est lui aussi collectionneur. Plusieurs années plus tard, alors que Crumb est devenu célèbre, Harvey lui soumet les story-boards d'un projet de bande dessinée basée sur sa vie, lui proposant d'en assurer le dessin. Crumb accepte, et contre toute attente, cette série intitulée American Splendor relatant une vie simple, banale, obtient un grand succès. Harvey Pekar acquiert ainsi une certaine célébrité aux États-Unis, dont les conséquences sur sa vie quotidienne sont présentées dans le film. En particulier, American Splendor lui permet de rencontrer sa future femme Joyce Brabner, qui écrit elle aussi des comics, et avec qui il va réaliser d'autres histoires autobiographiques, également intégrées en partie dans le film (notamment Our Cancer Year).
Les aventures d'Hergé, ou comment Georges Rémi a créé Les Aventures de Tintin. Des interviews, des images d'archives et des clips d'animation racontent l'histoire de Tintin, qui est l'histoire du XXe siècle.
Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) and Ivan Cavalli (Leopoldo Trieste), arrive in Rome for their honeymoon. Wanda is obsessed with the "White Sheik" (Alberto Sordi), the hero of a soap opera photo strip and sneaks off to find him, leaving her conventional, petit bourgeois husband in hysterics as he tries to hide his wife's disappearance from his strait-laced relatives who are waiting to go with them to visit the Pope. The plotline was re-used by Woody Allen in his film To Rome with Love.
Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) are comic book artists and lifelong friends. Holden is the friendly, more mild-mannered half of the duo; Banky, meanwhile, is the loud and fiery half. Everything is going well for them until they meet Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) at a comic book convention in New York where they are promoting their comic Bluntman and Chronic. Holden is attracted to Alyssa, but soon learns that she is attracted to women. The two begin hanging out, and a deep friendship develops. Eventually, Holden is no longer able to contain his feelings, and confesses his love to Alyssa. She is initially angry with him, but that night, the two begin a romantic relationship.
Le psychologue et écrivain américain William Moulton Marston est notamment l'inventeur du détecteur de mensonge. Au début des années 1940, il s'inspire de sa femme Elizabeth et de leur amante Olive pour imaginer la super-héroïne Wonder Woman, apparue pour la première fois dans la revue All Star Comics.
The film follows the career of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, as he begins to work as a comics artist in post-war occupied Japan, meets his idol Osamu Tezuka, and invents the gekiga genre of Japanese comics for adults. Interweaved with the biographical material are segments based on Tatsumi's short stories "Hell", "Beloved Monkey", "Just a Man", "Good-Bye" and "Occupied".
Set in the 1970s in the rural South, the film follows the lives of protagonist Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch), and three of his friends, Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin), Wade Scalisi (Jake Richardson), and Joey Anderson (Tyler Long). The four boys all attend a private Catholic school named St. Agatha's, which they detest. The boys experiment with smoking and drinking, obsess over girls, and play pranks on their teachers, such as stealing their school's statue of St. Agatha and keeping it in their clubhouse. The four friends dedicate much of their time to a comic book of their own creation titled The Atomic Trinity in order to escape the monotony and avoid the difficulties in their own lives.
John Callahan , devenu tétraplégique à l'âge de vingt-et-un ans à cause de son alcoolisme, trouve dans le dessin une forme de thérapie avant de devenir un célèbre dessinateur de bandes dessinées.
American caricaturist Jim Crocker is a popular womanizer in London known by his pen name 'Piccadilly Jim'. He supports his father James, an out-of-work actor with a great admiration for Shakespeare, but also with an inability to remember lines from the Bard's work. Most characters in the film describe James as a ham. Jim lives with his impeccable valet, Bayliss. Jim is happy when he finds out that his father is to be engaged to Eugenia Willis, until it turns out that Eugenia's overbearing sister, Nesta Pett, refuses to give permission for the marriage due to doubts of James' sincerity and his financial background. One morning, James' tries to introduce the Petts to his son, whom he describes as an artist, but Jim, who has stayed out all night drinking again, comes staggering in to find that Nesta Pett has discovered that the "artist" is a caricaturist, which does not impress her.