Synopsis
He's Yesterday's Answer To Today's World.
Fantasy-comedy about a young man who lives as if it is 1928 or so, and his encounters with modern-day women and modern-day criminals.
Man of the Century
1999 Directed by Adam Abraham
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Alternative Title
Johnny Twennies
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Releases by Date
Theatrical
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USAR
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USA
29 Oct 1999
- TheatricalR
Popular reviews
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Release date: October 29th, 1999
A fish-out-of-water comedy, that will convince you, that we are the ones who are all wet.
A modern screwball comedy, Johnnie Twenties lives his life according to all the 1920s pre-code film-era rules of conduct, but yet this is 1999 in New York City.
Johnnie (Gibson Frazier) happily works his dream job as a newspaper reporter, and his girlfriend Sammantha (Susan Egan), “a modern girl,” works as an art gallery dealer in the 1999 style.
There is no problem too big for Johnnie that a dose of 1920s slang or a movie troupe can’t solve. Did I mention Johnnie is the sole heir to a vast old-world money fortune?
New York City’s new crime boss should have known better. When you live in a Sepia-colored world and the 1920s jazz starts to play, Johnnie Twenties will be there writing tomorrow's headlines about your evil plot and your capture by the police.
A lost classic from 1999
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Briefly praised and then instantly forgotten. This indie comedy stars Gibson Frazier (who also co-wrote the movie) as Johnny Twennies, a newspaper reporter who lives his life like he is in a 1930s wisecracking movie, even though he does all of this against the background of the cynical world that is 1990s New York City. Yet the movie never portrays Johnny as some kind of madman, in fact, he is not even the only person in this film who talks like all of his lines were written by Ben Hecht.
Man of the Century is not merely a farce, it's written with real love and affinity for the art of screwball comedy. The typical rapid-fire dialogue don't feel like a…
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Picked this up hoping it'd be either delightfully goofy or cringingly bad. It ended up just being an inconsistently funny pastiche that never quite rose above its gimmick to be great, but I still enjoyed it! It's well made! It's black and white in the 90s! It's a weird high-concept indie!
Gibson Frazier is Johnny Twennies, a fast-talking newspaperman in 1999 New York who acts like he is (or is? thinks he is?) from the 1930s. His clothes, social mores, interests, and vocabulary are all out of time. Other characters treat him like a bit of an eccentric colleague and mostly just go with it, probably because Frazier, and thus Johnny, is all in on his role. He looks like…
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It’s sad that this has been largely forgotten. This exists at a weird crossroads of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and post-Tarantino indie films and is every bit as annoying as that sounds. But somehow it works!
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-"And how about that Theodor Dreiser? What a writer!"
-"Oh, I know who you're talking about. Theodor Dreiser, he was Dr. Seuss right?"
-"I'm not sure. I don't think he was a doctor..."
A film so hyper-attuned to my particular wavelength, so perfectly "on brand" as they say, that my initial response was to give it, like, a 9/10 rating almost on principle. Alas, the more I thought about it the next day, in a considerably more sober-minded light, I found I really couldn't justify giving it such a high score without losing any vague credibility I might have had as a cinephile, regardless of however much I enjoyed watching it. Not least of the issues is that it's just… -
A fun little farce that survives it's flimsy concept purely on the strength of Gibson Frazier giving it socks in the lead role.
The Artist won best picture, and this wasn't nominated?
How do ya like that?
Where: Home.
Who with: Myself.
Format: YouTube. -
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Despite the lame plot synopsis, this one's a unique treat. The comedy is so low-key or dry that almost don't realize it's a comedy at all. It reminded me most of The American Astronaut, and just like that one, this definitely won't appeal to everybody. At a brisk 77 minutes, this still has time for lengthy scenes of the main character walking up long flights of stairs (with a song about how he's a "dig-dig-a-doo man by nature") and a crazy spontaneous swing number. The soundtrack is all gypsy jazz and scratchy swing, appropriate since the protagonist is a walking anachronism, a guy living in modern times but who roars like he's in the 1920s. He taps out his column…
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A charming farcical love letter to 1920s culture embodied fully by Gibson Frazier, a man who behaves, speaks, dresses and thinks like a leading man from the period only he exists anachronistically in 90s Manhattan. There is never any wonder or game of 20 questions by the characters as to why this guy is the way he is, he’s accepted at face value (albeit many are exasperated by his proclivities and single-mindedness).
Shot in B&W and featuring a great cast, including: Susan Egan, Anthony Rapp, the always fabulous David Margulies, Gary motherfucking Beach, and Frank goddamn Gorshin.
I was expecting something far more twee or perhaps Woody Allen-esque, but this is decidedly it’s own beast.
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Some of the best (and soon to be used by me) comebacks ive heard in a long time.
Id actually never heard of this before, but its pretty great. And a fun “wait whats that guy from?” for the entire cast. -
Despite being internally inconsistent (silent movie twenties but fast talking thirties and forties?) I still am charmed by rapid fire antiquated slang.
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