rbverhoef

'Man of the Year' has a lot of ideas thrown into a glass bowl. We see all those ideas through the glass, and then some are picked out. Some of them turn out to be too hot (or actually hard) to handle so they are thrown back. We are left with an unsatisfying movie which could have been a great satire, a funny comedy, a weird romantic film, or maybe even a working thriller (although I do doubt that).

Robin Williams is Tom Dobbs, a host of a television show not unlike Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show'. He runs for president as an independent in only thirteen states, wins in all of those, and gets enough votes to become the next president of the USA. I would say, take it from there. But then it is apparently necessary for Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) to discover the computer voting system had a glitch which caused Dobbs to win. Nothing was done about that for financial reasons. It also throws in cigarettes, or at least what it can cause. Christopher Walken takes care of that part.

That 'Man of the Year' never finds its focus is not really my problem. But that the film therefore becomes a waste of time kind of is. Robin Williams has the opportunity for improvising and great one-liners, but none of them delivers. His jokes are too much on the territory of a teen comedy, often close to annoying. The thriller part enters with Linney who wants to tell Dobbs about the glitch, and Jeff Goldblum desperately trying to prevent that. It all seems silly.

The film should have followed the "Oprah for President" storyline, without any computer glitch. Since popular faces on television are actually able to win elections, why not have some fun with that. The trailer showed something I was really looking forward to, the film itself is something I have seen before, only better. That said, the jokes in 'The Daily Show' are a lot better than the those heard in the fictional program in this film. Even if you don't like 'The Daily Show' you will see that. The show and this film have Lewis Black in common. They should have had some of the writers in common.

'Reno 911!: Miami' is based on the Comedy Central television series and unfortunately I have never seen a single episode. If I had I would have liked this film a lot better I guess. For those like me, 'Reno 911!' is 'Police Academy', only a lot smarter. Throw in a little 'Super Troopers' and you understand what I am talking about. The camera is used as in the reality shows, following our characters on the missions. Those are in Miami by the way, and they are the only available cops. Why and how is not that important.

There are some hilarious moments, great ideas, a lot of fun, but for some reason it never really worked for me. I had a good enough time, and I am sure fans of the series will love the film as well, but in my opinion there could have been more. The first twenty minutes the film has trouble finding its way with only the occasional laugh. Once they are in Miami it gets better, but seems uneasy about the fact it has to fill an entire film, not just a 20-minute episode. The great ideas take too much time to build, leaving us with little to laugh while we are waiting.

In the end I had a pretty good time watching 'Reno 911!' and it made me quite curious about the series. That alone is reason enough for me to recommend this if you don't really want to see a masterpiece. On the other hand, for those not familiar with the series I could recommend better and funnier films. May be 'Super Troopers' to start with.

'Inflation' is a short film depicting Germany's inflation between the two World Wars. With quite some special effects, director Hans Richter compares the US dollar with the Deutsche Mark and shows that in a short period of time the dollar is equal to 50.000.000 DM. The story in this film, which could be seen as a documentary, is just that.

The film is interesting from a technical point of view. The somewhat surrealistic images are created through various kind of special effects and although dated, they still look pretty nice. Although I would sooner recommend a Dziga Vertov film (same time, more different techniques), 'Inflation' is still well worth seeing. After all, it only takes a couple of minutes.