Man in the Chair

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2007. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit organization that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture "…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life."

This is a story of two unusual and non-conformist people. The first is a curmudgeon or surly old man, played by Christopher Plummer, and the second is a troubled high school junior. What they have in common is that they live in the same neighborhood in L.A. and they love movies, especially old classics.

The old man used to be a gaffer or electrician and made many movies at Hollywood studios, but now he is alone in the Motion Picture Residence of the Elderly. He is scruffy, a drunk, cynical, sarcastic and loudly and proudly acts badly. After he gets into an argument with patrons at a movie theater proclaiming, "I made more movies than you've been to", the junior follows him to his old age home.

The junior wants to submit a short film to a contest that hopefully can get him a college scholarship. So he begins his quest to get help from the old man. The junior has serious adjustment problems. He challenges a high school gang leader and continually gets in trouble with the law for fighting and stealing. At home, he has a terrible relationship with his stepfather.

However, there is a goodness and decency in these two people and they slowly and painfully bring out the best in each other. For them, the journey is more important than a successful outcome. They simply both need a purpose to their lives.

The acting is remarkable and not just from Christopher Plummer, who dominates the movie. M. Emmet Walsh and Robert Wagner are particularly convincing. There are unusual, funky visuals and a hip sound track throughout the movie. They really work to hold your attention because they are such a contrast to the many elderly characters. This is a very different and very good movie.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

This is an incredible film. Please let every one know, especially if you're in the industry, what an incredible performer Christopher Plummer is. He provides an Oscar quality performance. M. Emmet Walsh is also outstanding.

Americans in general, and Hollywood in specific have been reluctant to vocalize the challenges of aging in our society. It was wonderful to see this issue handled in such a positive fashion. The supporting cast more than compliments this picture and demonstrates the existing talent in Hollywood's elderly community.

Highly recommended.

As a member of the cast as well as an Academy member, I just loved the theme of "Man in the Chair." It develops a bond between a lost teenager and an alcoholic septuagenarian, magnificently connecting them to the making of a socially relevant student film while surrounding them with a bevy of older, former filmmakers in the screen actors' home in Woodland Hills. The writer/director, Michael Schroeder twists and turns this very human story that is kept lovingly together by a staggering performance by the amazing Christopher Plummer. As I left the Academy screening, several of my friends stopped me in the hall to say, "He's got my vote," and of course he has mine. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house.Finally,both young Michael Angarano,and the daring Emmet Walsh create a flawless sense of reality that help the film to be deeply touching.

Saw this film at the Stony Brook Film Festival where my short film preceded it to an audience of about 1000 people! No surprise that it won Audience Favorite for feature films there...the whole theater gave filmmaker Michael Schroeder and actors Christoper Plummer and M. Emmett Walsh a standing ovation! A wonderful film of a crotchety old gaffer living with other retired film people in an LA nursing home for industry people, who comes alive when a young film student enlists him for film-making advice, and then actually making something.

I can easily see Christopher Plummer get Oscar and other nominations later this year...and I also hope that M. Emmett Walsh gets noticed for Best Supporting. He lights up the screen when his love for writing in the film gives him a new purpose later in his life.

I'd heard some good things about this film but not from trusted sources and having seen it i can't agree. Man in the Chair is a very average film. It is not terrible compelling to watch and is very obvious in its plotting. The dialogue is also often laughably bad and the awful caricature performance it features representing Orson Welles is insulting both to Mr Welles and to the viewer's intelligence.

It sets the tone for narrative drag immediately with an extended clip (first heard off screen and then shown) clip from Howard Hawks' superb comedy His Girl Friday, which serves no real purpose in the story other than to establish 'Flash' Madden goes to see old movies! Great insight! A piece of info that is perfectly well introduced with a later seen at the same theatre showing Touch Of Evil which serves a narrative purpose both in its introduction of the two lead characters to each other; their similar tastes; and the link to Welles whom 'Flash' has worked with on Citizen Kane. The use of His Girl Friday however is entirely unnecessary and too lengthy; and as with most of the other films it references, only highlights the fact that the writer can recognise a variety of well-written great films - making it the more perplexing that he has no ear for how staged and hammy his dialogue is.

Plummer is solid as 'Flash' but loses his way here and there in stereotype and overplaying - a fault of the script not his, but an actor of his skill should have been able to instruct the director/writer better on how to play it. Given how extraordinary Plummer can be - just watch his Mike Wallace in The Insider - i expected better. Michael Angarano is fine but is again saddled with a poorly written role that makes him a rebel that he never seems and then connects him to 'Flash' in the most tenuous way.

M Emmet Walsh however is marvellous in a supporting role and while i'm sure the average standard of the film and the grandstanding of Plummer in the lead will cause him to be overlooked it would be wonderful and justified if this great character actor saw a supporting actor nod at the Oscars.

Overall the film is inoffensive and has a noble heart and message but the script is lacking in substance and drive. A Sunday afternoon on the TV type of watch.