28 December 2008

Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth (2007)

Jerome Bixby wrote several episodes of Star Trek (including "Requiem for Methuselah" about a 6000 year old man) and also did an episode of Twilight Zone. This story was originally written in the sixties and would have worked well as an episode of Twilight Zone.

David Lee Smith (CSI Miami) is John Oldman who, at an impromptu gathering of his work colleagues, tells his friends he is 14000 years old. This is a variation of the dinner party movie where, in this case, guests talk, question, and argue the validity of John's statement. Oldman's friends (including John Billingsley from Star Trek Enterpise and William Katt from The Greatest American Hero) are all professors and they question him in their fields of expertise. Oldman himself has 10 doctorates but, "Living 14000 years doesn't make me a genius, I just had time". The film occassionally drifts in to the melodramatic, but always manages to redeem itself and is at its most thought provoking and entertaining when Oldman discusses his experiences with Jesus.

No comments: