film: the man from earth

[SA]

Film: The Man From Earth

The Man From Earth (2007)

Director: Richard Schenkman
Cast: David Lee Smith, Richard Riehle, John Billingsley, William Katt, Tony Todd

http://www.manfromearth.com/

youtube trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njU5CsrYfKM

On a cold night in a remote cabin, Professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith of CSI: MIAMI) gathers his most trusted colleagues for an extraordinary announcement: He is an immortal who has migrated through 140 centuries of evolution and must now move on. Is Oldman truly Cro-Magnon or simply insane? Now one man will force these scientists and scholars to confront their own notions of history, religion and humanity, all leading to a final revelation that may shatter their world forever. - amazon


In the tradition of such psychologically-charged sci-fi outings as The Next One (1982) and K-PAX (2001) comes the cerebral science fiction opus The Man From Earth (2007). The story concerns Professor John Oldman, a scientist who summons a group of associates to a cabin one freezing night, and strikes them with a fantastic revelation: he is not a traditional human, but a 14,000 year-old immortal, who has survived centuries of evolution from the Cro-Magnon Era to the present. In the hours to follow, Professor Oldman's earth-shaking assertion about himself challenges the men on spiritual, scientific and historical levels. But the most incredible is yet to come - an even more astonishing truth in which the men's discussions culminate. - nytimes

(a small correction to the NYTimes review: they were not all men)

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There is seemingly not much going on in this film. It certainly didn't seem to take a great deal of capital to produce, as it all takes place in one rather desolate cabin. There is plenty of dialogue and monologue, however and that is what will have you drawn in, right to the very end.

I really enjoyed this one. DVD out in a couple of days on the 13th.

 

[Hops]

look very interesting, gonna watch it soon.

 

[wanderlust]

*poll

 

[ego_loss]

I watched this movie last night, and I was pretty impressed.

It was a rather brilliant premise. Rather than trying to show a man living through thousands of years, it instead focused on a group of intellectuals trying to wrap their brains around the concept.

I did have some slight problems with the "convenience" of Oldman's story... namely how he always happened to be in just the right place at just the right time to have met some of the greatest people in human history... but I guess that's a small amount of suspension of disbelief to expect in contrast to the premise it's self.

The best part of the movie is the level of depth it maintained. Rather than dwelling too long on any one aspect, it moved with a steady pace through the various thoughts and discussions... from the theoretical to the biological to the psychological to the theological. It never got too preachy or smug about any of it.

There was even a really nice, fairly significant and wholly unexpected twist to the movie that could have spun it into a completely different film, but instead it just made it's initial direction that much more interesting.

It was otherwise extremely well written. The dialogue, pace, acting... everything.

I give it a solid four stars. A great example of what can be accomplished with one camera, one room, eight people and nothing else.

 

[SmokingMan]

This movie was excellent in all aspects. The writing was great, the story interesting, the acting believable and all of it put together with a good flow.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie and highly recommend it to fans of thinking sci-fi.

 

[tambourine-man]

I'm going to have to be the voice of dissent.

When I read this thread, I downloaded a copy immediately. I got around to watching this last night and, I have to say, I can't rate it any higher than 3 stars.

It's a very interesting premise and an achievement to draw an audience in with only dialogue and theoretical discussion... but the acting and script was very poor in places.

Spoiler: the man from earth

I felt that the film did a very poor job of establishing strong relationships between John Oldman and his friends. They seemed forced and wooden (actually, they came across like a room full of actors). That can be perhaps forgiven when you bear in mind what the film is attempting to achieve and within the financial and resource limits placed on it.

What is less forgiveable, were the VERY hammed-up reactions from each of the characters. These so-called 'friends' of Oldman's began to throw the most absurd tantrums over the slightest revisionism (whether it be about Jesus, history, biology). Sure, if someone was suggesting something so off-the-wall, you'd perhaps react in a less-than-normal manner, but the anger and tears were misplaced (not to mention the psychiatrist pulling a gun and threatening to have him committed... what the fuck was that about???)... so much so, that his friends appeared more guilty of psychological imbalance than what they were accusing him of.

For someone with 14,000 years of human relations under his belt, John Oldman sure chose a bunch of tight-arses as his friends.

I think some of that blame has to be put on the scriptwriter, but both Ellen Crawford and William Katt made a bad situation worse and effectively made the characters authenticity suffer - something that you can't afford to let happen in high-level sci-fi that deals with an already credulity-stretching subject matter.

In short, a nice way to spend a few hours. Perfectly enjoyable and well worth watching just for the concept... even if the poor emotional acting will grate on your nerves.

Great idea, but it really highlights the benefits of having someone proof-read your script before you film it.

 

[MrMoss]

I had watched Die Hard 4 , The Last Legion and Rescue Dawn the night before. The first needs no comment, the second was a bad joke and the third I had to switch off half way through .. dire indeed.

So finding The Man from Earth was a veritable joy I was a tad stoned when I watched this which generally means I'm far less critical. 4 stars as I really enjoyed the premise but I did wish that it was explored further and considered it could have been a box office smash had it more money thus a far superior team behind it.

As an Indie on a very low budget I can easily forgive it's shortcomings moreso when drawing comparisons with many [95%+] mainstream mega-budget waste of yet another 2 hours utter gash we are fed

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