Barry Crimmins

Recently we had the pleasure of attending the Provincetown International Film Festival with our latest feature, Ten Thousand Saints. At a dinner party, Christine Walker — the festival’s executive director, who was also a producer on our filmAmerican Splendor — was eager to introduce us to Bobcat Goldthwait. Bobcat was there with a documentary entitled Call Me Lucky, which included an interview with Harvey Pekar’s widow, Joyce Brabner. Since Harvey’s untimely death in July 2010, we’ve remained friendly with Joyce, so we were naturally curious about the film and the filmmaker. Although it was a brief confab, we had the pleasure of sharing a couple of Harvey stories with both Goldthwait and the subject of his movie, comedian Barry Crimmins. Later in our room, we both commented on how Crimmins’ animated face and wild eyes oddly reminded us of Harvey — a man we both adored and greatly miss. Although we didn’t have the opportunity to see Call Me Lucky in Provincetown, we were excited to catch up with it back home via a screening provided by Talkhouse Film. All we knew about the doc was that it profiled a cult comedian, but the film we ultimately discovered delivered quite an unexpected punch in the gut.