Oscar winner, The Cove

I'm excessively tired just now, but I have to say a few words about "The Cove", which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2010.  The direction is so exemplary--it's a thriller.  A thriller about Japan's decimation of dolphins without the approval of the Japanese people.  It features a perfect mix of a very human story about a man who changed his mind:  a dolphin trainer (the trainer of Flipper) who has an epiphany, almost overnight, and launches an immediate (like, the next day) crusade to save dolphins from the selfish and savage vagaries of man (well, vagaries may be too soft a word).  The doc follows him and the recruitment of the producer/director (I forget his name) who, along with others (like Sea Shepherd, and Surfers for Cetaceans), attempt to film the "killing cove"--an out-of-sight, remote cove on the Taiji Island of Japan where 23,000 dolphins a year are separated from their young (remember, they're mammals like us), and speared repeatedly until the cove waters run red with their blood. The International Whaling Commission is shown to be ineffectual in stopping Japan from this annual savage slaughter whose gain goes to dolphin shows and zoos--like SeaWorld and the like, which we, Westerners, pay to enjoy, unaware of, or indifferent to, whether the dolphins amusing us are content, healthy or adapted to what is clearly not their natural environment.  The most recent newsletter of the Sea Shepherd features their presence in Taiji, and I'll have a direct website addy for you shortly.  In the meantime, if "The Cove" is showing on TV or anywhere else in your neighbourhood, make a point of seeing it.  I guarantee it's got more action than "Lethal Weapon" and the screaming of the dolphins being sloppily and randomly speared will stay with you...through the night.