The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • N10

N10 Movies Boston Sunday Globe JUNE 7, 2009 An out-of-this-world assignment 9. "ur vi kpliSr.vi Mil NOW PLAYING CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES KJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJrJ fj rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ rJ r- FROM the star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding' PHOTOS together a 45-minute rough cut called "Encounter in Ruwa: The Ariel School Sighting," which he will screen Friday in Cambridge. The screening is a fund-raiser to complete the film. "The consistency of the interviews with these young children that's what impressed me," said Nickerson, who says the film will be both about the Zimbabwe incident and about Mack's work. "You have to be skeptical when you are making a documentary about anything, but you also have to keep an open mind," said Nickerson, who is already planning his next film, on snakes.

"I definitely think something happened there. I don't know exactly what but something profound happened. I'm positive of that." Whatever your position might be on aliens, there's no question that there is consistency in the kids' reports, judging from a short trailer Nickerson produced. Children interviewed by Mack are adamant that a mysterious craft materialized silently near their playground at recess, and that more than one "creature" emerged from it. "They seemed to have stiff necks," one little girl told Mack, matter-of-factly.

"He was just staring at me," said another, "as if he wanted to come and take us." "It's definitely reality," said a third. "We know what we've seen." A screening of the work-in-progress, "Encounter in Ruwa: The Ariel School Sighting," will be held Friday at 7p.m. at 38 Cameron Cambridge, www.38 cameron.com. RSVP to dom call94gmail.com. 617-661-0203.

Also this week Summer Series. The Lowell Film Collaborative and Lowell Communications Corporation are hosting the series "Cinema at Studio Screenings are from June 11 to Sept. 17 at the Communications Corporation operation office; films include independent productions ranging from thrillers to romance. www. lowellfdmcollaborative.

org, 617-306-7556. Spoof on Reality. Shinken Productions, a small independent film company in Rhode Island, will premiere its full-length film "Shanked" on June 13 at the Rhode Island School of Design. "Shanked" is a mockumentary on reality television that explores common stereotypes among young people. Contact Shiona Heru at 401-316-5999.

And on a High Note. The Coolidge Corner Theatre will screen Bellini's "Norma," fresh off the stage from Teatro Comunale di Bologna, on June 14 and 18 in CHECK MOVIE Dl RECTORY FOR Say you're a documentary filmmaker. Someone comes to you with four hours of riveting archival footage LOCAL taken in Zimba-ACTION bwe starring a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist, and asks you to turn it into a film. It involves travel. Investigative work.

A mystery. There's just one thing. The film is about UFOs and aliens. How fast would you run away? Randy Nickerson did not run away when he was approached two years ago by Dominique Cal-limanopulos, a Cambridge board member of the John E. Mack Institute, a nonprofit organization which, according to its website, "sponsors and co-sponsors initiatives that explore the frontiers of human experience." One such frontier is the extraterrestrial one.

The institute is named for John E. Mack, a Harvard psychiatry professor who won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T.E. Lawrence. His interests and passions were prodigious: nightmares, the Middle East peace process, the threat of nuclear war, and, later in life, alien abduction. He believed that aliens from other dimensions visit Earth to communicate with human beings as a response to ecological devastation wrought by earthlings (a belief that did not enhance his academic reputation at Harvard, especially after the publication of his 1994 book, "Abduction: Human Encounters With Mack was lured to reports of alien sightings the way sparkies are drawn to fires.

So in 1994, when he heard a report of an oval-shaped silver spacecraft landing near a playground of a private school near Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Mack took off for Southern Africa, accompanied by Callimanopulos, who was his research assistant, and a South African camerawoman. He interviewed dozens of children who reported they'd seen the craft as well as a couple of strange beings with large heads and big eyes, dressed in tight black suits. But in 2004 Mack was killed by a drunk driver in London. The footage sat in boxes until soon after he died, when Callimanopulos decided she wanted to do something with it. "I was so close to John, his death was such a shock, and I wanted to continue his work in some way," said Callimanopulos, who now directs a philanthropic travel company called Elevate Destinations.

"This was a project we had worked on together and it was really dramatic and impressive and interesting. It made sense to see how we could make i A new documentary shows John E. Mack (top) in 1994 interviewing students in Zimbabwe who claim they saw an alien spacecraft land near their playground. AND AT THEATRES EVERYWHERE For Theatres and Showtimes: Check Iocal Iistin or Text UP with your ZIP CODE to 43KIX (43549) Passes or visit Disney.comUp the footage into a film." Callimanopulos approached Nickerson, an independent filmmaker in New York who was a friend of Mack and who was dating her sister. Nickerson, who had been in the film business in various capacities since he was 18, had recently completed a film about the value of silence and lis FUNNY AND ROMANTIC." LARRY KING in Ruins TH EATRES AN SHOWTIMES THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES vmmmh COURTESY OF THE JOHN E.

MACK INSTITUTE tening in a therapeutic environment. He was curious to see the He was skeptical at first but eventually "was pretty impressed by what was there," said Nickerson, 42, who has traveled to Zimbabwe with the original camera-woman to interview some of the same people Mack did. He's put Family Kids 6 and older Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (PG, 105 min.) Charmless sequel to 2006 comedy "Night at the Museum." As in the first film, there are moments that could be briefly scary, as when the T. rex skeleton roars or the giant squid slithers out of a crate. Up (PG, 98 min.) Kids under 6 may wonder what's going on during the quiet interludes, and there are some scary scenes when fierce dogs chase the heroes.

But "Up" is a near-total delight. The middle ground Angels Demons (PG-13, 130 min.) Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) returns in a film with more violence and disturbing images than its predecessor, "The Da Vinci Code." Dance Flick (PG-13, 83 min.) A stunningly crude, tiresome spoof of teen-focused dance movies from the Wayans family. Gross humor about female body parts, gay jokes, sexual innuendo. Drag Me to Hell (PG-13, 96 min.) A comedy-horror hybrid with classic images that include demons and corpses vomiting maggots, eyeballs and false teeth popping out, and a projectile nosebleed. But most of the effects look deliberately cheesy.

Easy Virtue (PG-13, 93 min.) Mild sexual innuendo, brief seminudity, drinking, smoking, and the accidental off-camera death of a pet dog (we do hear a yelp). For sophisticated teens. high-definition, www.i 617-734-2501. Filmgoer Every Little Step (PG-13, 93 min.) This documentary follows the tortuous audition process for the 2006 Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line," focusing on a few people. Some profanity and discussion of sexuality.

Land of the Lost (PG-13, 106 min.) Sexual innuendo, toilet humor, midrange profanity. Not for grade schoolers because of the sexual content. My Life in Ruins (PG-13, 98 min.) Lame romantic comedy with much sexual innuendo, some of it crude andor homophobic, occasional sexual slang, rare profanity, and drinking. More for high schoolers. Star Trek (PG-13, 126 min.) Recounting of how the young and frisky James T.

Kirk and gang met as junior officers on the maiden voyage of the starship Enterprise. A hint of torture, intense fighting, mild sexual humor and innuendo. Terminator Salvation (PG-13, 115 min.) This new chapter in the "Terminator" series, with its post-nuclear landscape and unremitting mayhem and gloom, is grimly violent, though with relatively little gore. Viewers 17 and older The Hangover (R, 100 min.) A frat comedy that's too crudely sexualized and profane for most under-17s. Rear-view nudity and toplessness, homophobic slurs, toilet humor, drug humor, and a poor joke about a grandmother's "Holocaust ring." Jane Horwitz, Washington Post Writers Group.

Critical Choices Movie reviews from across the nation co 5 lu recommended 5 lu mixed bag 1 cs 0 don't bother Olliizo0 mzi-l-LJ-Jm ANGELS DEMONS ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL THE BROTHERS BLOOM CORALINE iJJr DANCE FLICK DRAG ME TO HELL DUPLICITY EARTH EASY VIRTUE EVERY LITTLE STEP GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST 0 THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE THE HANGOVER HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE IL DIVO LAND OF THE LOST 0 LEMON TREE MONSTERS VS ALIENS MY LIFE IN RUINS MYSTIC INDIA NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN OBSESSED OUTRAGE REVANCHE RUDOYCURSI SHALL WE KISS? THE SOLOIST STAR TREK STATE OF PLAY SUGAR SUMMER HOURS SUNSHINE CLEANING TERMINATOR SALVATION UP VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE mmm Wmwmmt imiiRfUMIilA a SID MARTY KROFFMOSAIC production aBRAD SILBERLING film WILL FERRELL "LAND OF THE LOST DANNY McBRIDE ANNA FRIEL JORMATACCONE "MHAELGIAOND pBDANIEIIUPI JULIEWIXSONDARMODY ADAM McKAY BRAD SILBERLING RYAN KAVANAU6H -SIMffmil SID MARTY KRQFFT SID MARTY KRDFFT'S "LAND DF THE LOST" BMftMariiaiBMiiaiBydlUIIJIS Hj.tel3 A UNIVERSAL PICTURE CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR GL N10 21:08.