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Don't listen to the negative reviews

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In the 'slap-in-your-face' category, the winner is Terry Zwigoff's "Crumb", a dispassionate yet humanly intense documentary about cult-cartoonist and counterculture icon Robert Crumb. I confess I didn't know Crumb much but I was raised by comics from the French- Belgian school, and my idols were influenced by "Mad" magazine. In the late 60's, many of them transitioned from youth-oriented to a more adult form of comics. But what makes Robert Crumb, such a groundbreaking pioneer is that he immediately aimed the adult target… and quite low. Crumb's comics were outlets for his wildest and dirtiest masturbatory fetishes: strong, big-legged and big-butted women, some reduced to bent over bare backs, other penetrated from all parts by worm-like little men… there was no holds barred. But it would be too easy to call him a pervert, he's more complex (and fascinating) than that. Like many baby-boomers (he was born in 1943), Crumb did LSD. The drugs guided his pencil and lead to the iconic "Keep On' Truckin", Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and the Zap Comics that would define the counterculture era like Woodstock for music. He would end up drawing the cover for Janis Joplin's "Cheap Thrills" and become a phenomenon. But Crumb never got along with hippie culture for all that, preferring music from the Great Depression and refused such juicy offers as a Rolling Stones' cover or SNL. You think he was crazy? This is underestimating how efficiently Zwigoff leads this investigation through Crumb's psyche. In fact, Crumb thought he was never liked in the past, so instead of being suddenly loved by selling his soul, he challenged his fans and made himself even more unlikable by being a little truer to himself. Robert Crumb's story is the triumph of inner authenticity, and even in its most vulgar and ugly forms, authenticity is appealing. And the key to this authenticity is Crumb's childhood and this is where the exploration gets interesting, when we're introduced to his lesser known but no-less artist brothers: Charles and Maxon.In fact, they were such preeminent characters in his life that the film could have been called "Crumbs" as we literally get crumbs of their own pains to understand how sometimes, our life is defined by the way we deal with our wounds. And to call the Crumbs a dysfunctional family would be an understatement, the brothers (and two sisters, who refused to take part in the film) lived under the tyranny of an ex-Marine father, an Alpha-male Good-American, who kept arguing with their mother, and was disgusted by the three 'wimps' he raised.There's Maxon, an ascetic painter whose practices go farther than what we usually imagine in Yoga courses. But the true scene-stealer, so to speak, is Charles. He was a promising handsome teen and Robert's first mentor and critic, yet he turned into a social pariah after being humiliated in school and developed an obsession toward child actor from "Treasure Island" movie. Charles seemed to be aware of his own impulses and chose to live in his mother's house, following medical treatment. There is something so resigned, so gentle and intelligent in Charles that you wonder why he didn't try to vent his frustrations on the paper. Well, if one thing, he wasn't Robert. Robert, who was as socially awkward as a teen, wearing thick glasses and missing front teeth, realized that niceness never paid off, not with girls and decided he would make his own self-therapy through drawings. He drew former high-school classmates, also remembering the bullies that poisoned his life. Still, he never played the victim card either, the examination of his own childhood leveraged his vision of life and society, and contributed to create a unique oeuvre, made of intense crosshatching, great winks to the reader, humor, pornography and maybe, misogyny. One of the critics in the film concede that behind this so-called misogyny hides greater insecurities, fears from the boy who didn't match the Alpha-male standards, a deliberate need to escape from suffocating and hypocritical puritanism and rigid moral codes. The same goes with his pictures of black people, what Crumb does is reflecting our own personal fantasies and fears, those we secretly hide, because we want to look normal, but who said the norm was a key to happiness? All along through the documentary, you see Crumb behaving in the most awkward and abrupt way, flirting with one of his admirers, refusing to sign an autograph, laughing at Charles' heartbreaking comments about his failed suicide attempts or his secret desire for a lobotomy, he kind of passes as a rude, non-empathetic and ultimately unlikable person, but he's truly "Mr Natural", and this is the most inspirational aspect of his personality, to the point it made me question my own past and insecurities starting with the glasses, a life-changing curse. Like Crumb, I had some shameful appetites targeting isolated parts, like Crumb, it was only through drawing that I could flirt with popularity, I even remember that whenever I had a possibility to kiss a girl, I brought some drawings to impress her. That's how awkward it was. But there's two ways to cope with such a past, you try to repress it, to hate what you were and be a better person, ending up hating yourself even more, or use the past as the revelation of your inner self and go ahead, without giving a damn to what people think.Crumb did, he's a legend now, and I guess he doesn't care much. (This review is dedicated to the late Ebert and Siskel. Indeed, if it wasn't for their rave reviews and the film topping their annual Top 10 lists in 1995 (#1 for Siskel, #2 for Ebert), I'd never have heard about "Crumb", documentary and artist, so this is one of the cases where I can fully appreciate the value of critics in movie industry.)

Robert Crumb came out of the 1960s as the leading underground comic book artist. Sexually explicit material, usually with women drawn with huge buttocks were his signature. Album covers, including Janis Joplin's Big Brother and the Holding Company being the most well known, show a real and unique artist at work.Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff brings his camera into the Crumb family home; can you say dysfunctional? ? The word is not strong enough to describe this modern day Adam's Family. Robert's brother Charles looks like Lerch and despite his agoraphobia is also a creative genius. The Crumb's interactions are a train wreck in the making that you can't take your eyes off of. The brothers are both certifiably insane and yet hugely talented. Crumb is one of the best documentary's ever made.

A cinematic portrait of the controversial comic book writer/artist and his traumatized family.Crumb is the perfect subject matter for Terry Zwigoff, who is best known for "Ghost World", an adaptation of a graphic novel. Zwigoff clearly has an interest in independent comics and knows how to present them in a way that makes them interesting and accessible to people. Some of "Ghost World"'s biggest fans have never read a comic book, and I suspect one need not know who Crumb is to appreciate this documentary.His brother Charles lives in a "cloistered environment" of books, which is an interesting sight... he speaks of not yet having read Kant or Hegel, but you can see nearby a copy of a Buddhist book, suggesting that such things may not be beyond his range of interests. What Charles does now is unclear. Presumably nothing. And the other brother, Maxon, is even more bizarre.The constant cynicism is a welcome perspective. He seems happy, but Crumb constantly talks disparagingly of things. His attitude is interesting, and sometimes he suggests a Luddite viewpoint. He also, despite needing money, turned down Saturday Night Live and the Rolling Stones... running from fame.A gallery owner calls him the "Daumier of our time" and the Time art critic says he is the Brueghel for the second half of the 20th century. I suppose being compared to classic art is a compliment, though the fact they are such obscure names may not be complimentary at all... I do not know Daumier or Brueghel's work, so I cannot even say if I like it! If Crumb is not weird enough, just wait until they invite him behind the scenes at a pornographic "Leg Show" photo shoot.

Warning! Spoilers ahead! This movie succeeds largely because the documentarian does not inject his bias into the story, nor does he push any sort of agenda. He lets his subjects give their side of the story. He listens to both sides of the argument, whether they approve of what Robert Crumb has done as an artist, or whether he is nothing more than a bizarre pornographer. In all, the neutrality of the movie-maker is this film's best selling point, and I highly recommend this film as one that doesn't beat you over the head with its opinion or message; it lets the subjects do the talking.On the topic of semi-famous underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his family, the film leaves one with an uneasy feeling at best. Charles, Robert's brother, and his mother reminded me of the recent HBO "Grey Gardens" movie, which itself was based on a documentary. If Robert Crumb can be perceived by some as a stark eccentric who cannot fit in to modern society, at least he has been able to create a stable home life with a loving family of his own. This movie is utterly tragic in its portrayal of Crumb's brothers, Charles and Maxon, especially so since Charles is gifted with exceptional cartooning skills (his artwork looked superior to Robert's best efforts), yet was cursed with severe psychiatric problems which prevented him from entering society as a functional individual. While Robert is a functional member of society, the overall impression the movie gave was that he was somewhat distant from other people, including his kin, and could not pick up easily on the feelings of others. The most poignant example of this was a brief (maybe one minute?) description of his father by Crumb's son from his first wife. Still, it was delightful to see Crumb nurture his children by helping them do artwork of their own.On the surface, Crumb may seem like a unique if peculiar individual: snobbish, detached from the outside world, relishing in dressing in anachronistic clothing and listening to old jazz records. Still, the impression was of a kind-hearted individual who found release through art. I did enjoy the movie's inclusion of those who objected to Crumb's art as blatantly pornographic, though my sense is that Crumb's work does not have the mainstream popularity which would make it troubling to society at large, nor the messages in his illustrations singularly sexual, to classify it as straightforwardly pornographic.A solid effort. I highly recommend this film to those who love documentaries.