Re "The Man From Earth" I saw this on a top 100 list and watched it. I thought it was pretty interesting. Anyone else seen this film?
I agree that the idea was quite interesting. The movie itself–no accounting for my taste–was rather boring.
Most boring piece of crap I’ve seen an a long time.
The author actually did a better job with his first treatment - TOS’s *Requiem for Methuselah. *
Also there was a similar idea explored in the Twilight Zone - Long Live Walter Jameson.
This movie makes My Dinner With Andre seem like an action film.
Trust me, and don’t waste your time on this movie.
I liked it…
It certainly suffers from the problem of there not happening very much on screen – but at its heart, it’s truly what good sci-fi is meant to be about: to take one paradigm-changing idea and re-explore the world from a thus changed, new perspective, and it does, story-wise, a great job at this ‘what-if’.
There’s been little in the way of good science fiction movies lately, and this provided a well thought through alternative to starships and lasers and things blowing up in space.
I liked it. I wasn’t thrilled with the acting (it made me think that the actors were used to performing on stage rather than in front of a camera), but it was ok.
I loved the concept of the movie and the John character but it felt slow. I wished they would have ended the movie with him setting up in his new environment instead of just gettin gin the truck and driving away.
I felt as though the movie would have been complete if they showed us him interviewing for a new teaching position and setting up a new house or apartment. I think it would have felt like we got to see an ending to a chapter in his interesting life instead of just one night of him hanging out with his friends,
I agree with both bauble and Tahssa. I wasn’t blown away by any of the acting, but I wasn’t disappointed by any of them either. Same with the ending, it didn’t quite leave me thinking that there needed to be more, but certainly wishing there was.
Overall I really liked it. Of course all of my favorite movies are almost entirely dialogue based with little to no action, so it fits in with my preferences. I can certainly see how it would not be for everyone.
Could you post a link to the top 100 list that you saw this in? If it’s not online, could you give us a reference to the book, magazine, or whatever that it appeared in? I collect movie lists.
I’ve seen it. It is interesting, low–budget, zero F/X science fiction by, IIRC Jerome Bixby – about the last thing he did before he died (I can’t open your link for some reason). Bixby did some pretty good stuff – most memorably “It’s a GOOD Life!” that was made into one of thgose Twilight Zone episodes everyone remembers, three interesting little SF films in the 1950s – the even more obscure The Lost Missile, The Curse of the Faceless Man, and the excellent It! The Terror from Beyomnd Space, from which Alien was ripped off. In the 1960s he rewrote the script for Fantastic Voyage and did some Star Trek episodes.
“The Man from Earth” is, in my opinion, not his best stuff, but it’s surely far better than most of the stuff calling itself “Science Fiction” out there.
I’ll have to find out how that rating system works. Any rating system in which Forbidden Planet isn’t even in the top fifty (and Battlefield Earth isn’t in the bottom ten) is screwed up.
I saw it and loved it. I agree with what Half Man Half Wit said about it – what good sf is supposed to be. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no snob. I was blown away by the original Star Wars and am a huge fan of all of the special effects they’re coming up with. And I enjoy action movies, even when many of the effect-laden scenes are of the kind that make my eyes roll wildly in disbelief. But I like them because they don’t require a lot of thought. I loved The Man from Earth because it did require some thought.