Man of the Year (2002)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

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

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I thought the unique format would be distracting but it added to the character development and to the complexity of the story. Really good movie. Entirely satisfying. Ritter was great. The film had a 'real' and spontaneous feel to it.

I recently attended a screening of MAN OF THE YEAR, starring John Ritter. Here is a movie which was shot on something like 22 cameras at once. On a multi-split screen, we view the action of several stories simultaneously. Naturally, all of the stories eventually dovetail into one story. I found it to be totally engaging.It's the kind of concept that could either really work, or really fail. This movie works. I enjoyed the sort of voyeuristic thrill of watching these characters interact in a way that felt totally candid. As it turns out, their stories were scripted, but the performances were all improv.It was incredibly well done. I hope to see more from this filmmaker in the future, and from John Ritter, who was actually amazing as a totally sleazy oil executive.Hopefully, this picture will play at the multiplexes one day. It's a refreshing break from so much of the unoriginal, formulaic stuff Hollywood asks us to digest.Go and see it.

Man of the Year was a great ride. I was captivated from start to finish. The bird's-eye view of each character's storyline was cutting edge and enabled the audience to feel like a fly on the wall observing the sordid lives of the elite party-goers. Loved the fact that it was shot in twelve hours with most of the dialogue unscripted. "Man's" fast pace kept the audience laughing and empathizing with all of the characters, especially John Ritter. The maid was hysterical. This movie is a must see.

This is one unique movie. The use of split screens throughout makes for non stop action that keeps the viewer's eyes glued to the screen. An interesting premise that's fully realized. It's truly unbelievable that the entire dialogue was improvised...it sounds as if it was shot from a script. The actors are uniformly excellent. Hats off to John Ritter for a sensitive, groundbreaking performance. And Lin Shaye is laugh-out-loud funny, too.