The Man from Earth: Hollow, Pretentious, and Poorly Directed

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard!  

Shirleon joins Melvin to discuss a movie neither of them had heard of before: The Man From Earth! John Oldman says he’s lived for 14,000 years, but his coworkers aren’t so sure. So ensues a film of debate regarding time, materialism, and spirituality. Philosophical pretention abounds! Strap yourself in and tune in now!

Topics:

• (PATREON EXCLUSIVE) 34-minutes discussing a series of Summer Blockbusters that may or may not be – as Melvin puts it – “Not”busters, or films that flopped at the box office in contrast to their exorbitant budgets, and why that may be. (PATREON EXCLUSIVE)
• Shirleon, “There [are] a few moments where, like, it’s charming.”
• Melvin, “Let’s just get out of the gate. Like, this is a poorly directed film.”
• There are many interesting things within the film, but the package fails to bring anything together.
• Shirleon and Melvin discuss other movies set in one room that are more visually stimulating and offer better performances.
• Pretentious is a weighty word to use in art criticism, so Melvin first colors what he considers “pretentious” as it relates to film-making before, then, calling The Man From Earth pretentious.
• Discussing the depiction of materialism in the film, and Shirleon does some live fact-checking.
• How the film dives into religious concepts but continues to have nothing to say about humanity, truth, or anything of importance.
• Melvin shares his one note-header, “Athiests make bad movies to!”.

Recommendations:

• The Fast & Furious Franchise
• Stopmotion (2023) (Movie)

The Man From Earth is Not Rated. It features David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, Annika Peterson, William Katt, Alexis Thorpe, and Richard Riehle. Directed by Richard Schenkman. The Man From Earth is available here.

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Melvin Benson is the Founder, Editor-In-Chief, and Lead Host of Cinematic Doctrine. Whether it’s a movie, show, game, comic, or novel, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s rich, he’s ready and willing to give it a try! His hope is to see King Jesus glorified as far as the east is from the west!

Cinematic Doctrine is available on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and other major podcast apps.

Serial Experiments Lain – w/ Beneath the Tangles on Loving Lain – Cinematic Doctrine: A Movie Review Podcast Hosted by Christians

Send us a Question!TV-SHOW DISCUSSION: Beneath the Tangles: Instagram // YouTube // X // WebsiteTwwk (Charles) from Beneath the Tangles joins Melvin to discuss a massive cult-classic sci-fi anime: Serial Experiments Lain! In this incredibly dense episode about an incredibly dense show, the two explore transhumanism, self-sacrifice, predictive fiction, and the show's wildly popular opener song, 'Duvet' by Bôa! Topics:Editor's Note: No Patreon Exclusive discussion! But, I do intend to trim this episode down from its original 1:46:37 length, so if you want to hear the UNCUT version, tune in on Patreon here!Charles catches Melvin up with his appreciation for Makoto Shinkai, Beneath the Tangles new interview series 'Something Genuine', and his thoughts on AI (LLMs & AGI).The two remark on the plethora of ideas the show covers in it's 13 episodes.Serial Experiments Lain feels intentionally confusing at times.Reflecting on the changing Anime landscape and asking, "Are there any Seinen Anime coming out?"Melvin feels Serial Experiments Lain is predictive fiction in its exploration how impressionable minds engage the internet; among other things.Talking about the opening of Serial Experiments Lain.Is love, or loving one another, the next step in human evolution?How transhumanism is a delusion antithetical to the Gospel, and therefore antithetical to loving others.Recommendations:Needy Girl Overdose (2026) (Anime)Audition (2000) (Movie) Support the showSupport on Patreon for Unique Perks! Early access to uncut episodes Vote on a movie/show we review One-time reward of two Cinematic Doctrine Stickers & PinsSocial Links: ThreadsWebsiteInstagramLetterboxdFacebook Group 

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