Death By Design/The Life & Times Of Life & Times
(Documentary/Science)
Picture: C/C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Documentaries: C+/B
First Run has combined two short documentaries on science
together on one DVD. Death By Design
(1995) runs about 75 minutes and is maybe over-obsessed with cells, dying cells
and cell suicide. The information
presented is interesting, but it often feels like the producers were padding
the project to give it a longer running time.
The Life & Times Of Life & Times (1998)
fares much better in under an hour, examining and rethinking the idea of
aging. If we could break the genetic
code for this least studied of biological subjects, people could live longer,
healthier, and better. Health care
could become more affordable and steam cell research is not mentioned once in
the entire program. Instead, some of
the top experts in the field discuss the possibilities of the why and what
could be done to change that. There is
also the disturbing possibility that some idiots, as noted more kindly in the
piece, could say doing this is “immoral” and stop it. That would be a grave mistake, but other aspects of that are too
much to go into for this review.
Even though I liked the latter better than the former,
there is still more than enough good information here to recommend the entire
DVD. The 1.33 X 1 image on both
programs are not the clearest, but Death By Design is simply
fuzzier. Both have Dolby Digital 2.0
sound, which is barely stereo at best, but is adequate for what is here. Extras include text biographies of the
filmmakers, the Mana – Beyond Belief trailer, trailers for five other
First Run releases, a PDF DVD-ROM file essay Suicides Without Sadness. Be sure to see this one for yourself and
decide what you think.
- Nicholas Sheffo
