Man of the Year

Rating:
Summary: Bomb of the Century
Review: A tasteless and offensive film that ultimately proves to be a cynical joke played by writer-director-star Dirk Shafer against his audience. Shafer was the 1992 "Playgirl" Man of the Year centerfold who (supposedly) represented the ultimate object of desirability for the magazine's (supposedly) heterosexual readership, but is in reality a gay man. Having played the role of a straight man in life, Shafer went on to make this film, a fictional documentary about his secret life during the year of his "reign". He's a gay man who pretended to be a straight man who is pretending to unmask himself as a gay man ... get it? Ha, ha. Ha.

Very (yawn) funny, except that during the course of the film Shafer keeps touching on some very unfunny subjects: a best friend dying of AIDS; homophobia; gay self-hatred; celebrity stalking; etc. The big punch line comes at the end of the movie when Shafer confides that his overall objective in making the movie was not to reveal himself, but merely "to direct"; i.e., to con the viewer into paying to see yet another false presentation of himself. What an ego! The film might have had some redeeming quality if only Shafer had been graceful enough to laugh at himself, but he doesn't. Trust me, there's less to him than meets the eye. Not even worth a look for Bill Bochtrup ("NYPD Blue") as the friend dying of AIDS or Mindy Sterling (the Austin Powers movies) in a brief bit as fictional talk show host Cindee.

The DVD includes the theatrical trailer which is presented in widescreen. The film itself is not presented in widescreen. Not that you should care one way or the other.

Rating:
Summary: Bomb of the Century
Review: A tasteless and offensive film that ultimately proves to be a cynical joke played by writer-director-star Dirk Shafer against his audience. Shafer was the 1992 "Playgirl" Man of the Year centerfold who (supposedly) represented the ultimate object of desirability for the magazine's (supposedly) heterosexual readership, but is in reality a gay man. Having played the role of a straight man in life, Shafer went on to make this film, a fictional documentary about his secret life during the year of his "reign". He's a gay man who pretended to be a straight man who is pretending to unmask himself as a gay man ... get it? Ha, ha. Ha.

Very (yawn) funny, except that during the course of the film Shafer keeps touching on some very unfunny subjects: a best friend dying of AIDS; homophobia; gay self-hatred; celebrity stalking; etc. The big punch line comes at the end of the movie when Shafer confides that his overall objective in making the movie was not to reveal himself, but merely "to direct"; i.e., to con the viewer into paying to see yet another false presentation of himself. What an ego! The film might have had some redeeming quality if only Shafer had been graceful enough to laugh at himself, but he doesn't. Trust me, there's less to him than meets the eye. Not even worth a look for Bill Bochtrup ("NYPD Blue") as the friend dying of AIDS or Mindy Sterling (the Austin Powers movies) in a brief bit as fictional talk show host Cindee.

The DVD includes the theatrical trailer which is presented in widescreen. The film itself is not presented in widescreen. Not that you should care one way or the other.

Rating:
Summary: A one trick pony, but a fun ride
Review: Cliche-riddled? Yes. Superficial? Mostly. Narcissistic self-indulgence on the part of director/star Dirk Shafer? Most definitely! But in this age of "Judge Judy" and "reality tv," this type of "mocumentary" is an interesting genre to follow. What is truth? What is distortion to serve a dramatic end? These are the kinds of questions that come to mind when I watch MAN OF THE YEAR. When the subject is the teller these distinctions become fuzzier and fuzzier. Clearly the tv clips from the Donahue show when the Playgirl "man of the year" fails a "best buns" contest was authentic. The nightclub stripper who became Shafer's stalker and the therapist who diagnosed Shafer as a "passive-agressive latent exhibitionist" are clearly fictional. The best female friend posing as his on-air girlfriend falls in the gray area somewhere between the two.

Recent films that fall into this category that I enjoyed (but also felt frustrated with) are: THE LARAMIE PROJECT, BEST IN SHOW, the hilarious THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE, and THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (though this last one is usually considered a documentary, Tammy Faye's full-blown participation in its making pushed it beyond the realm of objective reportage, something you expect from a documentary). These are the film equivalents of Capote's IN COLD BLOOD and Mailer's ARMIES OF THE NIGHT. History posing as fiction or fiction posing as history? What I like about this genre is that they seem, in a very post-modernist way, to blithly accept that these distinctions are either irrelevant or cannot be made with any assurance.

The problem for many viewers is likely to come when the film touches upon "serious" issues, like homophobia (including internalized homophobia), the practice of "outing" public figures, and AIDS. The death of Shafer's friend from AIDS (clearly a fictionalized component of this film)is treated with the same light touch as the "best buns" contest. This is quite disconcerting and feels like an insult to people who suffer from this frightful disease and to people who really have lost friends to AIDS. My sense, however, is that life is made up of these kinds of jarring juxtapositions of tragedy and shallowness. Blocking out one reality to more fully experience the other seems arbitrary and artificial. This realization does not lessen the oddness I felt watching MAN OF THE YEAR, but it does help me to accept it.

Overall, I felt the production values were good...as was the acting (catch Robert Goulet as Shafer's father). It's worth a rental if you don't want to cough up the full purchase price.

Rating:
Summary: no pay off
Review: The premise of this movie looked mildly interesting, but in fact what could have been a decent film was botched by it's attempts to bring a touch of seriousness to an otherwise humorous "mockumentary". I have seen well done films of this type, and this was anything but. The more the characters in this film portray the protagonist as a "likeable, non-egotistical" person the less the viewer believes he is, especially in light of the fact that Dirk Shafer wrote and directed this film. The movie leaves the viewer confused, bored and uninterested. It was not worth my attention, and is not even entertaining as a bad movie.

Rating:
Summary: Good film, average disk.
Review: This documentary-like movie is about Playgirl centrefold Dirk Shafer and him being gay. Through interviews with poeple around him( frineds, parents, Playgirl editors...etc), we are shown about how he became the *Man of the Year* and how he got fired because of his sexual orientation.To be honest, I didn't expect too much from the film. I thought this was just some cheap low-budget film. But I was wrong! It turned out to be rather well made, very heart touching and funny at times. The only complaint I have is the DVD disc. The transfer is not all that good, and there is no extra materials. In conclusion, this IS a good film, but not a good DVD disc though.

Rating:
Summary: rent it, don't buy it
Review: This is an interesting movie about an interesting subject, but done in an odd fashion. I'd hesitate to even call this "mockumentary" in the sense of the Spinal Tap/Waiting for Guffman sense, but it is indeed done in that tongue-in-cheek documentary style. What makes the film uncomfortable is the blurred line between reality and exaggeration for the sake of story telling. Also you get the feeling from the interviews that this story is one of the most important events of the millenium. It tends to drag a bit toward the middle, but like I said, the subject is interesting, and while there may not be a distinct theme, this film was in fact informative and told not only another coming out story, but also some of the goings on in Dirk's line of work. So rent the movie because it's worth seeing, but if you buy it, you'll probably never watch it again.

Rating:
Summary: rent it, don't buy it
Review: This is an interesting movie about an interesting subject, but done in an odd fashion. I'd hesitate to even call this "mockumentary" in the sense of the Spinal Tap/Waiting for Guffman sense, but it is indeed done in that tongue-in-cheek documentary style. What makes the film uncomfortable is the blurred line between reality and exaggeration for the sake of story telling. Also you get the feeling from the interviews that this story is one of the most important events of the millenium. It tends to drag a bit toward the middle, but like I said, the subject is interesting, and while there may not be a distinct theme, this film was in fact informative and told not only another coming out story, but also some of the goings on in Dirk's line of work. So rent the movie because it's worth seeing, but if you buy it, you'll probably never watch it again.

Rating:
Summary: rent it, don't buy it
Review: This is an interesting movie about an interesting subject, but done in an odd fashion. I'd hesitate to even call this "mockumentary" in the sense of the Spinal Tap/Waiting for Guffman sense, but it is indeed done in that tongue-in-cheek documentary style. What makes the film uncomfortable is the blurred line between reality and exaggeration for the sake of story telling. Also you get the feeling from the interviews that this story is one of the most important events of the millenium. It tends to drag a bit toward the middle, but like I said, the subject is interesting, and while there may not be a distinct theme, this film was in fact informative and told not only another coming out story, but also some of the goings on in Dirk's line of work. So rent the movie because it's worth seeing, but if you buy it, you'll probably never watch it again.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible, Wretched, oh my g--
Review: This is the type of video that makes you wish you could have your precious time back.

It is so horrible, boring, uninteresting. Could the people actually involved in it sit through it?

I strongly advise everyone out there to do something better with their time!

Rating:
Summary: A gay "Truth or Dare"?
Review: This mock-"documentary" is cleaver in that, I'm assuming, it does tell a somewhat truthful story overall. The problem with this video is that is doesn't know whether it should be funny or serious and this is definately a huge mistake for this kind of project/subject matter. I personally LOVE dark humor......but this aint it!!
The best part is the scene in which the "mother" talks about accepting herself as a fit parent while she was dealing with the homophobic father of a dying AIDS patient on the phone. The worst part of this whole video (and frankly I almost stopped watching a few times just because of this), are the "date scenes", in which Dirk is set up by Playgirl to go on a contest winning date with some supposed hick gal who won it. The scenes never feel real and it's obvious that everyone is over-acting during the whole mess.
One thing I noticed is that while it isn't a great film, Dirk isn't a horrible actor and I think he's actually pretty attractive, where as before I just thought he was pretty. Also NYPD Blue fans will recognize the openly gay actor Bill Bochtrup in the role of AIDS patient and "discoverer" of Dirk the centerfold.
I can't recommend this as a great video BUT I was somewhat entertained or I would'nt bother to write about it. Buy at your own risk. Try to get it used if possible and save yourself some money. Do Not buy it if you think it's a sex film or you're hoping for nudity all over the place, there's no full frontal folks....sorry. Peace Out.