Particle Fever *****
Five stars for a 99 minute documentary about science, about the Large Hadron Collider, about the search for the Higgs boson, and about the ‘rivalry’ and lives of theoretical and experimental (?) physicists?
Yes.
And we never would have seen this film if we had read about it in advance.
One of the added benefits of being a member of the DC Cinema Club, where we see about 10-14 films each year (at 10:30 AM Sunday mornings!), is that we don’t know what we’re going to see until we walk into the theater that morning.
I say benefit because at least half of the films we would never see, as they are not ones that would seemingly appeal to us. Yet we have seen two films in the past two months that have been simply outstanding – broadening and inspiring: Particle Fever and Tim’s Vermeer (see my mini-review). The latter one is now in theaters, tho you might have to search for it, and the former will be out starting sometime in March.
Particle Fever is the story, told largely through the eyes of six scientists, about an experiment that involved 10,000 scientists in 100 countries, all in search of further explanations about our universe. Mark Levinson, director and former physicist, and Walter Murch, editor, take a complicated scientific issue and make it (largely) understandable and exciting.
As someone who barely survived Algebra II, kitchen Chemistry, Biology (mostly a course about animals), and very introductory Physics (very introductory), I was able to understand most of this documentary (at least 80%) and found myself clapping at the end.
If you have knowledge of and interest in science, then there is much to admire in this film. If you know little or nothing or think you don’t have much interest in science, you will be pleasantly surprised.
* * * * *
The Lunchbox, a film we saw in the DC Cinema Club and mini-reviewed on MillersTime) received a 91+% positive review (excellent or good) and 96.33% recommend rating by the audience. In many ways, it shows the two Indias that I wrote about recently.
