Mioch versus Goderie

Holland's leading (and only) TV movie critics team up Siskel and Ebert style in a last attempt to return to mainstream television with this film review show. René Mioch began his movie reporting career on Veronica television in 1985, and immediately began to attend as many Hollywood press junkets as possible. He must have had a second home in the states or something, as he never seemed to miss a single one. Each time he got to interview biggies like Arnold, Bruce and Mad Mel, he made sure to remind them exactly how many times they had met before. And the actors, only there to promote a film in 5 minutes or less, eagerly obliged him with a smile and the pointed finger of recognition. It was not until about the tenth season or so of "Veronica Film" that Mioch actually dared to comment on the films itself and rate them by way of a so-called "Mioch-Meter". Before that he just loved them all, especially the ones that involved Dutch pride Paul Verhoeven and/or Jan de Bont. He even invented his own peoples choice award, the "Rembrand" (voted for by Verenocia Magazine readers) and had the balls to give one of these little bronze painters to Mel Gibson after he had just won two academy awards for 'Braveheart'.

On the other hand, Jac. Goderie is the complete opposite: starting his television career on a local Amsterdam station, his "Filmspot" relied only on promotional material and Goderie's biting judgment. "De Dikke Doei" (his catchphrase) was never afraid to show his dislikes, although he did have a soft spot for anything animated and of course automatically loved Woody Allen. As far as meeting Hollywood stars was concerned, the show never got any further than Cannes, ones a year. The local Filmspot did get a chance to be seen nationally for a while during the mid nineties on Avro Television, but this was not to last. So instead he became chief editor of "Preview" (a movie magazine distributed freely in cinemas) and went back to being broadcast regionally. On the other side, Veronica finally pulled the plug on Mioch's show after several name changes ("Films en Sterren", "Starring"), because of rapidly plummeting ratings and for a while it seemed these two men were only allowed to show their faces once a year to do their Oscar predictions (which Goderie somehow always manages to guess 100 per cent wrong).

To Hilversum's great surprise, the fall season of 2004 on commercial channel RTL5 brought these two opposites together in a blend of their usual formats. The bulk of the show had them sitting at a table, discussing the latest releases (often in disagreement). Mioch still provided some press interviews, including one memorable moment from the first episode, in which René took Jac. along to meet his favorite actor, Tom Hanks. It immediately became clear this was a mistake, as the usually steadfast Goderie immediately became a star struck fan and started blabbing about how much he loved "Philidelphia" (Jac. is incredibly gay).

Each installment of Micch vs Goderie had to end with them interviewing a guest from the Dutch Film Industrie (as they were one of the program's largest financial backers). This was usually the funniest part, as the guest(s) had to squeeze in between chubby cheeked Mioch and beer bellied Goderie on a two seat couch. Less amusing were the little trivia games they played to lead into the commercial break and the MTV style editing that had clips of movies they were not even discussing inserted at random.

Mioch vs Goderie was not picked up for a second season. Once more it seemed that while the Dutch public obviously likes to watch movies, most of them want to make up their own minds about them, and just don't like hearing negative things said about films in general. What really killed the show however was it's time-slot around midnight on Friday, when most movie lovers are out at the cinema, instead of early Thursday (when films usually premiere in the Netherlands). Also, each week M. vs G. was shuffled in between a blockbuster film and a soft-core erotic "Red shoe diary", meaning it was never on at the same time twice (Mioch and Goderie did start commenting on this after a while during the end credits). At least the title of the show was pretty inspired, for these men have always been perceived as professional rivals, but the shots of them pointing their fingers as if they were guns at each other during the opening credits always felt a bit uninspired to me. They should have dressed them up as Mothra vs Godzilla. Then they would have been an instant hit.

7 out of 10