Tl;dr – The Cove is “Bowling for Columbine” for dolphins.
Okay, here we go. Every couple of years, a documentary comes around that is touted as “important” – a word that in the film industry is code for “soul-crushing”. In 2009, that movie was The Cove. To no one’s surprise, it won the Oscar for Best Documentary and, like most “important” documentaries, large-toothed men in non-black suits and cowboy hats accused it of being fabricated propaganda. But all that is neither here nor there.
What is both here and there is that you should really probably watch this movie.
First, a little clarification: I wouldn’t call myself a “dolphin-lover”. I don’t own a sweet-ass dolphin necklace or a poster or a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper. I’ve never even been to Sea World. In fact, when I think about dolphins, the first thing that comes to mind is this bizarre half-formed memory of being sick and shitting my pants while watching Flipper when I was little (it was last week). This is not to say that I’m dolphin-ignorant. I’ve seen Planet Earth. I’m fully aware that dolphins are one set of thumbs away from sending us back to the fuckin’ trees. I guess I’d describe my emotional relationship to dolphins as one of cautious respect.
That being said, The Cove straight fucked me up. Plus, now I’m totally gay for dolphins.
Here’s the skinny: In the 1960s a dude named Ric O’Barry captured and trained the dolphins that played Flipper (ugh…there’s that feeling again…gross). Basically, Flipper did for dolphins what the Taco Bell dog did for chihuahuas – people went batshit. So insatiable was the public’s appetite for frolicking, subservient dolphins that the marine entertainment industry exploded overnight.
Fast forward a few years. After some incredibly uncool shit goes down (which I won’t spoil for you), Ric O’Barry comes to the realization that this multi-billion dollar industry that he had a hand in creating is completely fucked up on every level imaginable so he does what anyone would do – he becomes a crazy-ass activist.
Director Louie Psihoyos and a group of guerrilla filmmakers team up with O’Barry and head to Taiji, Japan – the hub of the dolphin industry where every September, during their migration, dolphins are herded into a “secret cove” and captured by local fishermen. Some are sold to trainers and parks and some are sold for food. And according to O’Barry, shit gets pretty fucked.
In a shocking twist, O’Barry is not an insane person. Everything he said is true. After infiltrating the cove under the cover of darkness and setting up hidden cameras, the filmmakers capture events so flat-out abhorrent, they must be seen to be believed.
Ultimately, my list of reasons you should watch The Cove reads a lot like a list of reasons not to. I’m not going to lie to you – it’s a huge fucking bummer. But it’s an important bummer. You should really watch it.
I give it 5 out of 5 perfect spirals from Dan Marino. (Get it? He played for the Miami Dolphins. I’m trying to butch up after this teary sniffle-fest.)
Not since 
Did everyone have a happy equinox? I know I sure did…and if the 50 drained pig carcasses on my back yard altar are any indication, I’m gonna have one bountiful-ass harvest. (Much different from a bountiful ass-harvest. Hyphens are powerful things.)
- Stranger in a strange land
Looking at the movie poster for “Teeth” with its artful use of negative space and understated Sundance Special Jury Prize, you may get the impression that someone “finally got it right”. But don’t be fooled – “Teeth” is just another cookie-cutter, film-by-numbers, money-making juggernaut in the tired and worn “Girls With Teeth In Their Vaginas” genre that has dominated theaters for the last decade.
For years now, people have been trying to get me to watch this film. I honestly have no idea why I’ve been so hesitant – it may have something to do with the fact that a cube killed my family and that I’m allergic to movies, but I’m probably reading into it too much. The point is that last night I finally gave in and quite frankly, I wish I’d folded sooner. Had I seen Cube thirteen years ago when it was released, I’m pretty sure it would have blown my mind and changed my life forever and honestly, there’s no telling where I’d be now. Senior Advisor to the President of Space, perhaps? A debonair Private Eye? A jackass with a Cube poster on his wall? The possibilities are endless.
But Cube isn’t just one brutal death scene after another. That opening sequence just serves to show you what this place is capable of. The rest of the movie follows six other (slightly more cautious) unwilling participants as they wander about the Cube, looking for a way out whilst trying not to get dead in the process. No one remembers how they got there and each person seems to have been selected randomly, but as the “prisoners” get to talking (as prisoners do), they begin to discover that perhaps each other’s presence there isn’t so random after all. That’s when the paranoia and self-preservation kick in and the whole thing turns into “Survivor: Death Cube” (Dude I would watch the SHIT out of that for realsies).
While I can understand the paranoia and fear in a situation such as this, I have a hard time understanding the open hostility that everyone shows to one another. Now maybe I’ve just been lucky in that all my death cube experiences have been with the even-tempered and polite, or maybe these folks need to slow their goddamn rolls for a second or two. These constant strange over-reactions by a couple characters are the only moments that the film loses steam for me, and really, if that’s the worst thing you can say about a movie, it ain’t half bad – especially if it was made for only $365k…which it was. And that’s Canadian dollars, motherfucker. So that’s like six bucks U.S. which is super impressive.
“JCVD” is not the typical high action, low budget, straight-to-DVD, movie we’ve all come to expect from Jean-Claude Van Damme. In fact, with the exception of one of the greatest credit sequences in movie history, JCVD doesn’t deliver much in the karate department. But what the movie lacks in martial arts, it more than makes up for in cinematic arts. This isn’t an action flick, it’s a moving and intimate portrayal of an actor turned industry joke. During Van Damme’s 25 year career in Hollywood, he has been consistently typecast, labeled a one-trick pony and found himself at the center of drug and relationship scandals. Jean-Claude Van Damme could have easily rectified his problems with karate chops, but in JCVD he faces all of the criticisms without resorting to violence, and in the process displays more vulnerability and humanity than any other actor in Hollywood to date.
I know that this all seems like the perfect formula for action but as it turns out, it’s actually the perfect formula for exposing the human flaws within Jean-Claude Van Damme. Between the scenes inside and outside the bank, there are vignettes which reflect JCVD’s deteriorating situation. These scenes expose his failed marriage, the rocky relationship with his daughter, and his ailing movie career. Once all of these elements come together, why JCVD doesn’t simply clobber the bad guys is understandable; he’s no action hero, he’s just a has been and he knows it. So he doesn’t save the day with extreme prejudice, instead he does like all of the other hostages and obeys commands in order to walk out alive.
For the few of you who are unfamiliar with the “Universal Soldier” franchise (shame on you) let me bring you up to speed. So the story goes two badass soldiers die in Vietnam, and the US military (in their infinite wisdom) decides to use the dead bodies to create an army of unstoppable (though brain-dead) killing machines. Luc Deveraux (JCVD) and Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) are the first two “UniSols” created to combat terrorist threats. The situation eventually evolves into good Unisol vs. bad UniSol when Deveraux begins to remember his past life, and Scott attempts to stomp Deveraux out of existence. Then Luc Deveraux returned for the 1999 flop, “Universal Soldier: The Return.” This was a terrible movie and most likely the reason you haven’t seen “Universal Soldier: Regeneration” yet. Well friends, when it comes to “Universal Soldier: Regeneration” let me tell you this: last night I dreamed that I punched a man to death. A man head-butted me, and I punched him in the face until he was dead. This was no coincidence. Universal Soldier: Regeneration, you made your point.
