HOT SCIENCE
X-Men: First Class ;;;; ;;;;;;; ;;;/ ;;;;;;
CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEF T: WE TA; MURRAY CLOSE/20 TH CEN TUR Y FOX; HARR Y BENSON; JAY MAIDMEN T/MVL FILM FINANCE; COUR TES Y PARAMOUN T PIC TURES. OPPOSI TE, FROM TOP: DOUBLE NEGATIVE/UN; FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/DC COMICS
Rise of the
Planet of the Apes
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Whoops: A genetic engineer (James
Franco) trying to cure Alzheimer’s
inadvertently sows the seeds of
humanity’s downfall. No actors
in rubber monkey costumes this
time around. ;e superintelligent
primates were generated by Weta
Digital, hailed for its special-e;ects
work on Avatar. Opens August ;.
;e ;fth installment of the
mutant-human franchise
brings us the telepathic
Professor X and Magneto
(left), master of magnetism, as young men. Not
only is it a prequel to the
;rst three X-Men movies,
but its makers envision it
as Part One of a new trilogy.
Got that? Now playing.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT It is not all fluff at the multiplex this summer. Several
serious documentaries will also be competing for moviegoers’ attention.
Super 8 ;;;;;;;;; Weird events unfold in a small Ohio town. Could they have
something to do with the bizarre
creature that escaped after a train
crash? From über-producer Steven
Spielberg and director J. J. Abrams,
paying homage to their own E. T. and
Lost. Now playing.
Captain America:
The First Avenger
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More games with biology: “Super Soldier Serum” and “Vita-Rays” transform
a sickly army reject into a crime ;ghter
with superior human (though not
superhuman) powers. Opens July ;;.
Project Nim
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Nim Chimpsky became a science celebrity in
the 1970s as the focus of linguistic research
by behavioral psychologist Herbert Terrace
at Columbia University. A chimp raised in a
chaotic human household in New York, Nim
(below) is now the centerpiece of a stirring
documentary by James Marsh, the Oscar-winning director of 2008’s Man on Wire. Using
archival footage, the film traces Nim’s life with
his human mentors as they teach him sign
language and explore the limits of his ability
to speak. We see a cute pet—at one point
madly wheeled about in a stroller by his human
toddler “brother”—grow into a strong, willful
creature whose desires do not always coincide
with those of his grad-student handlers.
Nim does learn to sign and develops an
impressive vocabulary. But when the project concludes in 1979 and he is essentially
discarded, the film turns to darker issues: What
is a scientist’s ethical obligation to experimental
animals? How much can we understand “the
other” in nature? Is it scientifically valid
to try to re-create other animals
in our own image? As Marsh
confronts these questions,
what starts off as an
entertaining romp
ends in desolation.
Opens July 8.
The Last Mountain
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Early in this quietly angry film, aerial images of
the verdant hills and hollows of Appalachia are
shattered by violent explosions as chunks of
mountain are blasted to bits to expose the coal
deposits beneath. Massey Energy, the primary
operator in the area—and a major employer—is
cast as the villain in this plea for an end to
mountaintop-removal mining. The victims are
the folks living near West Virginia’s Coal River
Mountain, who endure floods, fouled water and
air, and spikes in disease. We hear from many
of them and also from activists, scientists, and
environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr. “If
people could see it, there’d be a revolution,”
Kennedy says of the devastation. There has
been no revolution yet. But as long as dirty
mining practices go on, we will need documentaries like this one. Now playing.
