The Cove (2009), Kiss of Death (1977), My Boys Are Good Boys (1978)

This academy award winning film was produced by Fisher Stevens, the guy who played the Indian scientist in the Short Circuit movies, I know crazy right. It concerns a small cove in Taiji Japan, surrounded by steep rock hills on three sides, in which each year hundred, even thousands of dolphins are viciously slaughtered. Some dolphins are first captured and later sold to Sea World type parks around the world where they can fetch up to $150,000 dollars a head, and are then trained to be trick dolphins.

Excess dolphins especially the young are slaughtered in what turns out to be a horrendously bloody spectacle. A large part of this film is about the efforts of Ric O'Barry, formerly the head trainer on the 1960's Flipper TV show, who became a dolphin advocate after watching one of the 'Flippers' commit suicide in his arms (dolphin breathing is not automatic and they can kill themselves if the chose to stop breathing). Members of the Oceanic Preservation Society mount what is essentially a military style operation to place imbeded cameras, (developed by a movie effects company) into fake rocks and on the bottom of the cove. Again the pictures they come back with are horrifying

Interestingly the slaughtering of the dolphins is said to be for the meat, and though dolphin meat is sold in Japan it is not commonly consumed. The filmmakers ask questions about dolphin meat to Japaneses on a street in Tokyo, and most of the respondents were not even aware people ate dolphins. In addition dolphin meat can contain high levels of Mercury and be unsafe to for humans to consume. While commercial whaling was outlawed by international convention in the 1980's, commercial dolphin hunting is still legal. One of the reasons dolphin hunting is still legal is do to Japanese success at manipulating the International Whaling Commission. The Japanese bribe foreign countries, particularly Caribbean nations, to join the council and vote the Japanese line. However the footage that O'Barry and the OSPs manage to get caused a fair amount of trouble for the Japanese dolphin industry, as they snuck the footage into a IWC meeting and showed it to delegates, the nation of Dominica even left the IWC over that footage. Much remains to be done however and film invites you to get involved through the movies web site.

This is a fascinating, truly engaging film about a little known subject matter. It's beautifully shot, the information not unimportant and many of the figures in the film are quite intriguing, from Ric O'Barry to 'Private Space'.

Grade: A

Kiss of Death (1977)

Before he made theatrical films director Mike Leigh made television movies in his native England. As George Orwell said the working class is underrepresented in English literature and Leigh seems to have made it his goal to make up for this in film. His movies are subtle, underplayed, and narratively unique. Kiss of Death is a fine example of this. It is the story of Trevor (David Trelfall) a twenty something Englishmen who lives at home with his mother and works at a mortuary.

Trevor is a weird dude, and surprisingly complicated. He laughs inappropriately at the suggestion of anything sexual, and is often aloof and a man of few words among his piers; but can be quite conversational with children, and sympathetic to those in trouble (notably the feeble old women whose his would-be girlfriends neighbour). The film of course looks seventies, its film quality is not great and the sound, or more likely the sometimes thick and non enunciated accents of its characters, can make it a little hard to understand at times. At first this seems to be the story of a not particularly deep or interesting fellow, but as it progresses he becomes more and more interesting, though his story like much of life doesn't come to a traditional closing point. Like seemingly all of Leigh's work this is not a story of the traditionally pretty people, but rather the awkward, the marginalized, the complicatedly human.

Grade: B

My Boys Are Good Boys (1978)

Low budget but unusually likable b-film, by far the best movie about a juvenile lead armored truck heist I have ever seen. The movie concerns a group of boys at a California juvenile detention facility, who with the help of one of there members sister, make a brief escape to rob an armored truck and then return to there facility as if nothing had happened. The sequence depicting the pro-longed hold up (there wasn't a lot of money in the truck so they force the driver and a guard (another guard kept tied up as a hostage) to finish there rounds and collect more money) was extremely fun in a childish fantasy way. It felt like one of those child geerd movies I remember watching on Saturday afternoons in the 1980's, but given that it's about a heist I'm not sure it ever was (at least not in Utah or Idaho).

There's also an adult subplot about marital troubles between one of the kids parents, Ralph Meeker (who also produced) and Ida Lupino, both on the old side to playing the parents of a teenager. Lloyd Nolan also appears as the armored truck company inspector who investigates the case. Kind of a guilty pleasure, I can't help but like it.

Grade: C+