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As Good As It Gets

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The first ten minutes of this painful documentary goes beyond any justice. The scientists involved in this corrupt and mindless experiment should be tried by a court of law for intentional cruelty and torture. If my tax dollars paid for this experiment then our government is corrupt with eyes wide shut. A Mother is systematically tortured by having 6 two week old infants chimps taken from her. The 6th being the title character. What was gained here was pure psychopathy. There was no need for this experiment except for vain exploration. This film gives every reason why science needs regulations. However, since this is not going to happen then will someone please point to the red button so I can give it a huge push. This is perhaps the most horrifying film I have ever seen. What were these scientist hoping to accomplish; to raise a chimp to be human? For what purpose? To serve humans? To be slaves? To fill a void? We have to be a mutation in the gravest form. I want these scientists prosecuted.

This James Marsh (Man on Wire) documentary examines the life of Nim Chimpsky who was raised in 70s as an experiment to show chimps can think like man. They taught him to sign, and raised him as a child with a human family. At first, it's hailed as a success. But he soon became too powerful to handle and more and more he is institutionalized. The professor finally ends the experiment sending Nim to a medical research facility. The film interviews all those people who interacted with Nim.Sure it has a fascinating subject in the chimp Nim, but the more fascinating subjects are the humans who inhabit his life. From the professor who never saw Nim as any more than a subject. To the family who yearn to reconnect with him. And finally people who would rescue him from isolation. The camera really turns away from the animal back to all of us as a species.

A great and detailed recollection of the life of Nim Chimpsky, the famed chimpanzee, who was brought up amongst humans and taught sign language in order to assess the cognitive abilities of primates as well as to research into the evolution of man. Shown through the use of talking heads, vast archive footage and some very well made reenactments, "Project Nim" breathes life into the Nim in ways, which would be impossible to achieve through a normal narrative feature.Ripped from his biological mother just weeks after birth (in the first tear-jerking scene, where the chimpanzee attempts to protect her infant from the inevitable separation), Nim initiates his life as a 'project'. The movie title rightly classifies him as such, as the animal's life is severely stigmatised by the fact, that almost no-one in his tragic life treated him as anything other than a objectified research tool, instead of what he really was: a complex, multi-layered animal with warmth, feelings and - also - layers of anger and resentment. Nim functions within the confines of human cruelty and lack of empathy, first stolen from his true mother, than abruptly taken away from his surrogate mother (when the 'experiment' is deemed to be going awry). This detachment from a loving environment brings him into hasty changes in relations between him and his human 'teachers' or caretakers. The project continues in a vast country villa, where Nim is cared for inasmuch as he serves his purpose as a subject of research: long hours spent in closed surroundings while being taught sign language and 'proper behaviour'.When Nim's aggressive behaviours increase the project is terminated, thus again throwing Nim into a new home, this time with the company of chimpanzees and - thankfully - the only human being who can truly be called his friend: Bob Ingersoll. Despite various turns for the worse in Nim's life, Bob was the only human being never to leave him, saving him from a research facility and having his immense role in offering Nim the best possible conditions for living out the rest of his tragic life."Project Nim" attempts to detach itself from overly creating the narrative, instead letting the people involved in the experiment speak for themselves. And they do so with devastating effect - one by one presenting themselves in extremely negative light, especially prof. Herbert Terrace coming off as a terrible research-crazed individual lacking empathy to understand the extent of harm he caused on Nim. Despite the project's intention to bring up Nim as a human being, the chimpanzee is ripped away from two mothers, but never once is his aggressive behaviour attributed to his dysfunctional upbringing - with no mother, no caring family and a growing sense of abandonment. Non-surprisingly Bob Ingersoll, the only person to remain true towards Nim, was the sole interviewee never to complain about Nim's 'animal' side. Much as a small child who bashes out in mindless anger, there is always a reason behind such actions. However no-one from the research crew even thought about taking this into account, instead blaming it on the 'brute animal' hidden inside Nim.Director James Marsh presents a heart-wrenching and damning insight into the concept of humanity, questioning whether the meaning of the words 'humane' and 'inhumane' are wrongly attributed and a reversal seems to be in order. Given the majority of people involved in Nim's life were destructive, inconsiderate and with the loyalty of a fly, it would seem more suited that Nim's only true friend Bob Ingersoll be called inhumane - the only person who did not act like a typical human being. Up yours humanity!Required viewing for the betterment of our human nature. And hopefully for the betterment of the fate of animals world-wide. Should be required viewing in every school everywhere.

From the DVD cover (not the one shown at IMDb), I thought NIM was a horror film, probably about an Ebola outbreak in the Congo. During the first ten minutes of the film, I thought it was fiction, masquerading as a documentary with film footage from the 70s narrated by the same people 30 years later. Then I realised it was indeed a actual documentary. It mostly about the people around Nim the chimp and their petty interactions and petty and self-serving justifications for their behaviour. It is also about their strange attempt to raise a chimpanzee in isolation as a human child with middle class American values in sterile rooms made of cement blocks. They seemed shocked when Nim grew up and ceased to be compliant. Surely they had seen that happen thousands of times before. This film some day will be used to illustrate human cruelty, folly and self-deception.