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Feb 08 | While his "Lost" co-stars prepare to pack up and leave Hawaii, Daniel Dae Kim can plan to remain there for at least a few more months. Mr. Kim, who plays the time-traveling tough guy Jin on "Lost," has been the first actor cast in a coming remake of the crime drama "Hawaii Five-O," The Hollywood Reporter said. He has been cast as Chin Ho Kelly, a detective played by Kam Fong in the original series, which began in 1968. The "Hawaii Five-O" revival is being developed by the screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ("Star Trek," "Fringe") and Peter Lenkov, an executive producer of "CSI: NY."
Feb 03 | William Shatner has paid tribute to his former Boston Legal co-star Justin Mentell, who died in a freak car accident on Monday. The 27 year old was thrown from his Jeep after swerving off the road near Madison, Wisconsin and died at the scene of the tragic crash. The Star Trek legend was saddened to hear of Mentell's passing - as he's convinced the actor was destined for a glittering career. In a post on his Twitter.com page, Shatner writes, "I'm deeply saddened to hear about Justin Mentell. There's no telling how far up the ladder he may have climbed. My sympathies to his family."
Feb 01 | Journalist Edward Gross posted an article at SciFiTVZone.com called "The Making of the Star Trek Pilots, Part 3: "Assignment Earth"" which takes a retrospective look at the making of the Gene Roddenberry unsold TV pilot "Assignment Earth" filmed at Desilu Studios as a second season Star Trek episode. The article feature rare interviews - including authors involved with the character of Gary Seven in comics and in novels.
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By O. Deus / 07:56, 3 January 2008 / Reviews - Products
The Man From Earth
Three men and two women gather to bid farewell to a man who is leaving them without telling them where he is going or why. Dr. John Oldman is departing the college where he has taught for ten years and only reluctantly does he agree to stay and attend a farewell party with his colleagues. Over the next few hours a story unfolds that stretches from the ancient world to the new, covers religion, politics, violence, death and all of human history leading up to an unbelievable ending.
The Man From Earth is the work of Jerome Bixby ("Mirror Mirror," "Day of the Dove") and almost half a century after he began work on it, his screenplay The Man From Earth has been resurrected posthumously as a movie. Produced by his son, acted out by a cast tied to Star Trek and even referencing Star Trek, it is an appropriate enough tribute to Bixby whose most enduring work may have been Star Trek's evil alternate universe in "Mirror, Mirror";
The Man From Earth is a Science Fiction movie but one made on a budget and accordingly takes place entirely inside a cabin's two rooms and the land around it. It sounds claustrophobic but it proves that you can duplicate the impact of the Twilight Zone's stilted bottle episodes even today. The Man From Earth is certainly stagey, not only because of the confined quarters but because the dialogue and the action is very much a product of the theater, the key sources of action involve revelations about the characters and members of the cast entering and exiting the room. At one point a gun is waved around but proving Chekhov's truism wrong (no not that Chekhov) no one gets shot with it.
Despite its confined space, The Man From Earth is a quiet intelligent piece of storytelling that is well worth seeing. In part that is because of the cast, Star Trek Enterprise's Dr. Phlox, John Billingsley appear as a jokester biology professor not too far afield from the actor himself, Tony Todd (Captain Kurn) plays a soulful anthropologist and Richard Riehle ("The Inner Light," "Fair Haven," "Cold Station 12") plays Dr. Will Gruber, a volatile psychiatrist with a bitter secret. David Lee Smith plays Dr. John Oldman as part philosopher, part savior and part innocent. The rest of the cast is filled out by Annika Peterson as Oldman's colleague and girlfriend, Ellen Crawford as a rather cliched biblical literalist, William Katt as an equally cliched evocation of a mid-life crisis in progress and Alexis Thorpe as his student slash girlfriend.
If none of this sounds like Science Fiction yet, that's because The Man From Earth is not your conventional Science Fiction movie. There are no special effects or beam outs or technological weapons of mass destruction or aliens. There is only the incredible story of a single man and the question, how prepared are you to believe in the seemingly unbelievable? That over the course of the movie is the question that the characters must face and the question that the audience faces as well. In Hollywood Science Fiction tends to mean creature features but The Man From Earth is a reminder that a Science Fiction story is primarily about the sense of awe at the vast possibilities of the universe. Stripped of special effects and a large budget, the cast of The Man From Earth are forced to maintain the suspense and the believability of the story on their own. In feebler hands, The Man From Earth might have easily become a horror story, instead it's a testament to the potential of humanity and the human spirit.
The Man From Earth dates back to the sixties and the screenplay is dated by its fascination with a species of popularized anthropology and the Buddhist origins of Christianity but the brilliantly simple concept of the story still holds its sway until the closing revelation and the closing minute. This is not a movie recommended for those who want their Science Fiction only when it's flavored with cyborgs and spaceships, but those who have stayed up late watching Twilight Zone marathons and reading a more thoughtful brand of Science Fiction, this is a movie well worth watching and well worth supporting.
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