Death by Design

The human body contains roughly 130,000,000,000,000 cells; the roundworm sports 959. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out which is the easier organism to study if you want to crack the mysteries of programmed cell death. I don't want to put people off their morning coffee here, but over the next hour billions of your cells will essentially commit suicide. What's interesting--and if this doesn't make you want to get in touch with your inner kidney cells, I don't know what will--is that cells die once they stop talking to one another (human relationships also wither due to lack of communication). Peter Friedman and Jean-Francois Brunet's odd film combines interviews with renowned molecular biologists together with a weird pastiche of footage (including film clips from Busby Berkeley numbers) to show the relationship between cells, and the incredible similarity between cell life and people interacting in everyday situations (i.e., Times Square at high noon bears a strong resemblance to a posse of white cells hot on the tracks of an intruder). Although the mix of arty footage and scientific commentary doesn't always work, this is still a pretty exciting look at what your cells are doing behind your back, and would be a fun film for high school students and up. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)