The Man From Earth

Has anyone here seen this movie? I doubt it. Because it's a 2007 movie, and as of now it's got a whopping two reviews posted at Rotten Tomatoes. Apparently almost no one saw it, it got now kind of buzz or promotion, it's just a movie.

Anyway, I just watched it, and it's a pretty cool movie. Basically, the premise is that in the first minute of the movie, some friends and colleagues arrive at this proffessor's home as he's clearing out his stuff. He announced that he was leaving, he ducked out of the farewell party that was being thrown for him, and a few people go to his home to say goodbye. They find him as he's packing his stuff, and he invites them all in. They pressure him into revealing why he's leaving for no reason. After all, he's young (about 35), has a good job as a college professor, and was high in the consideration for a very prestige job. At which point the guy admits that he's leaving because he's a 14,000 year old caveman who doesn't age.

And that's why this movie has absolutely no mass appeal. The entire movie is just about 6 or 7 people sitting in a dude's living room while they all discuss his claim that he's a 14,000 year old caveman. Some of them are skeptical, some of them are worried that he's going insane, there are discussions about why he's pulling this kind of prank on his friends and colleagues, but the entire movie is basically just a series of questions designed to give one guy a chance to just talk about **** for an hour and a half.

And I'll be damned if it wasn't highly interesting and entertaining.

Anyway, in addition to the point about how it has no mass appeal, it also looks pretty bad. A lot of the time the shooting looked pretty unprofessional. Hell, at one point, during the emotional climax no less, two people are talking and one of them is in shadow. So you have a guy talking to a silhouette, and furthermore the silhouette has freaking zombie green eyes because of the damn lighting. But in all fairness, this movie was clearly shot on a budget of about $300, and I hear that the whole ****ing movie was shot in about ONE DAMN WEEK. So I can actually expect that such a movie would sort of look like ****.

But honestly, I liked it a lot. It looked bad. No explosions. No lasers or aliens. ALL it was was a bunch of people sitting around in somebody's vacant house (sure, the house was pretty bare because the guy had most of his stuff packed, but I'm also sure that that was convenient since a house with nothing in it costs less than renting a home for a week and then furnishing it just to shoot a damn movie).

But yeah...as crappy looking and "boring" as this movie was, it was pretty damn cool. It's like the Clerks of the science fiction genre. It's a bareboned science fiction/drama stripped down to the essentials with no fluff. If science fiction is mostly about IDEAS, then that's just about ALL that this movie was. And somehow it worked. And in some ways it's a lot like Clerks. Can't afford to actually have your characters DO stuff? Then work on the writing, and have them TALK about doing stuff.

So...I recommend this movie to all people. But I also more specifically highly recommend it to people who want to make movies but don't have money. If you want to make a movie but don't have money, work on the WRITING, and write a movie that can be shot cheap as hell in your parents' basement. This movie was borderline science fiction, and it didn't have ONE special effect or cool shot of an alien or a robot or something. The WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE was just people hanging around in a room talking and occasionally drinking a cup of Johnnie Walker.

Hell, the filmmakers couldn't even fit GLASSES into the budget. If you have your characters drinking liquor and can't afford glasses for the characters, then buy 100 plastic cups at Wal-Mart for a dollar, and then somewhere in the script why they are drinking liqour out of cheapass plastic cups.

It's like the Clerks of the science fiction genre.

MrGeezer

Im sold.

I made a thread about this movie earlier this year or late last year, can't remember exactly. It was a great movie imo. And the producer actually wrote thanking pirates. He said that, were it not for pirates, his movie would never have gotten the exposure it got. Let me find the link. Found it, its from Wiki. Anyways, its a great sci-fi movie, more intellectual than action. Everyone should watch it.

In what may be an unprecedented move, the producer of this film, Eric D. Wilkinson IMDb, has publicly thanked users of BitTorrent who have distributed the movie without express permission, saying that it has lifted the profile of this product far beyond the financier's expectations.[15] Producers Schenkman (sellingrs), Bixby (Emerson_Bixby) and Wilkinson (EWilkinson100) have all written comments on IMDb forums and responded to questions from fans.Wikipedia

I made a thread about this movie earlier this year or late last year, can't remember exactly. It was a great movie imo. And the producer actually wrote thanking pirates. He said that, were it not for pirates, his movie would never have gotten the exposure it got. Let me find the link. Found it, its from Wiki. Anyways, its a great sci-fi movie, more intellectual than action. Everyone should watch it.

[quote="Wikipedia"]In what may be an unprecedented move, the producer of this film, Eric D. Wilkinson IMDb, has publicly thanked users of BitTorrent who have distributed the movie without express permission, saying that it has lifted the profile of this product far beyond the financier's expectations.[15] Producers Schenkman (sellingrs), Bixby (Emerson_Bixby) and Wilkinson (EWilkinson100) have all written comments on IMDb forums and responded to questions from fans.II_Seraphim_II

I haven't seen the movie and I don't think I will.

I liked it too. As you said it looked very low budget but it really has some interesting ideas and it tried to do something with the budget it had. Sci fi is a hard genre to do well these days, some films like Sunshine start well but get more and more ridiculous as they go on. Another interesting low budget sci fi is Primer. It is a film about some people who create a time travel machine.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/

Like Man from earth though it's low budget is very easy to see. Still though it is one of the better sci fi films of the decade.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a very good movie. An ageless caveman in modern times? Pass.

i just had this big problem with the movie that i think prodeucers abused our eagerness for sci-fi's to challenge our interpretation of history,religion and morality,which weren't what i wanted to see in a sci-fi,after watching it i just felt i'm feeded with deliriums of a bunch of proud atheists.

I liked it too. As you said it looked very low budget but it really has some interesting ideas and it tried to do something with the budget it had. Sci fi is a hard genre to do well these days, some films like Sunshine start well but get more and more ridiculous as they go on. Another interesting low budget sci fi is Primer. It is a film about some people who create a time travel machine

Like Man from earth though it's low budget is very easy to see. Still though it is one of the better sci fi films of the decade.

Film-Guy

I've seen Primer, great movie! I think 1 thing that may attract some people and push away others is it's unapologetic science. They don't try to dumb down anything, the characters talk as 2 scientists would, in highly technical terms and about highly sophisticated ideas. There is no obligatory "dumbed down" explanation which practically every hard sci-fi show or medical drama has. This may annoy some people and leave them confused. As for me, I've always wondered why Dr. X has to explain to Dr. Y what Lupus does. Aren't they both doctors? didn't they both go to medical school? shouldn't they both know already? With that in mind, I rathered enjoyed the lack of explanations...made the conversations feel more authentic.

There was another low-budget sci-fi movie about time traveling that was filmed in spanish. Can't remember the name, but it was also very good. Oh yeah! It's called "Los Cronocrimines" or translated into english "Time crimes". This movie was also superb and makes the whole time travel aspect interesting again. Rather than it be some action movie with time travel as a plot device, Los Cronocrimines deals more with time paradoxes and the inherent complications of time travel. I suggest anyone who likes movies like Primer and Man from earth check out this movie.