Comic Book Heaven
2014 · 12m · USA
Directed by E.J. McLeavey-Fisher
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
An 81-year-old Joe Leisner, the charming proprietor of Comic Book Heaven in Sunnyside, Queens, reflects on six decades behind the counter as he weighs the fate of his shop, the changing comic-book industry, and his own future.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a weepy nostalgia trip about a dying business, but McLeavey-Fisher just... lets Joe be funny and deflecting about it, which is way more subversive than manufactured pathos—though honestly this is probably too warm-hearted for my actual taste.
A classically composed elegy that trusts the documentary form's oldest gesture: sit with a subject long enough that time and change become visible in a single room, and Joe's wry deflections become the formal language of the film itself.
The entire emotional architecture rides on McLeavey-Fisher's decision to never cut away from Joe's face during his digressions—that stillness while he talks around the hard stuff is what transforms a local interest story into something that actually breaks you.
Reviews
It's difficult not to be won over by the charm of both Joe and his store.
A short documentary about an old school Queens comic shop owner.
Festivals
- Brooklyn Film Festival 2014
- Queens World Film Festival 2014