Nevertheless, as soon as The Cove was released on DVD, I put it in my Netflix queue and waited for it to become available. (Winning that Oscar meant there was a bit of a waiting list.) Then I got the notice that it was on its way to me and I steeled myself. But I have to give it to the filmmakers; they were smart. They took a very difficult to present subject and wrapped it in a very hip espionage thriller, making the horror part of a wider, more palatable story.

The main character of the film is Ric O’Barry who is in large part responsible for the world’s love of trained dolphins. In the 1960s he captured and trained 5 dolphins to perform in the TV show Flipper. He also played the Dad on the show. Only later did he come to understand what intelligent and sensitive creatures they are, and how cruel it is to capture and imprison them. This realization turned O’Barry into the world’s biggest dolphin advocate, and now he regularly takes on the Sea Worlds and international aquaria over their treatment of the animals. So when he finds out about Taijii, a small town in Japan, where they corral, cull and kill dolphins, he sets out to expose them.

But Taijii is prepared for O’Barry. In fact, the whole town is involved in covering up what is going on. The police keep him and his crew under constant surveillance. The local fishermen physically intimidate anyone with a camera. It is impossible to get to the hidden cove where the annual slaughter takes place. And so O’Barry puts together a team of high tech professionals who use hidden cameras, decoys, night vision goggles, all the tricks of the spy trade to get the story. And this is what makes this film worth watching. You are on the edge of your seat hoping they get the footage that will stop the dolphin slaughter.

Along the way, if you aren’t already, you fall in love with these beautiful creatures. And you thank God for people like O’Barry who cared enough to push the limits and get this tragedy into the public consciousness. The Cove is a rare documentary that has already made activists of a lot of its viewers. I recommend everyone see this film. Sure, there are some hard to take images, but it is an extremely well made movie about a very important subject.

The script for this film is very smart and very subtle, and the thing that makes this movie work is Ulhrich Muhe playing the character of Agent Wiesler, the Stasi officer in charge of this operation. Wiesler starts out as one of the bad guys, a cog in the police state machine, eager to put away anyone who says anything vaguely anti-socialist. But as this particular surveillance job continues, he develops a sympathy for the couple and when information that might be very damaging appears, he begins to alter his reports to reflect a more mundane cover story. The tension this creates is amazing. You’re not sure if he is playing a game. Will he decide to turn them in? Or will he get caught for his deceptions and thrown in jail himself? In the film’s opening, the audience is told that the East German secret police employed a network of 100,000 staff and 200,000 informants to spy on its own citizens. The motto of Stasi was the “Shield and Sword of the Party” and its stated goal was to “Know everything”. The feeling that everyone in the whole country is under surveillance and the pressure that it exerts on every moment of your everyday life is the creepiest part. By the end of the film, the Berlin Wall has come down and you really understand what a momentous occasion that was for these people in a way I never had before.

I highly recommend The Lives of Others for anyone who appreciates a great drama, with a great script and excellent acting. It is, of course, subtitled, but I was glued to it start to finish. And I cried, so bring some tissues.

(Upcoming note: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s second feature is The Tourist, filming now with Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany and Rufus Sewell)

What sets this movie apart from most other “war films” is the silence. Instead of loud testosterone-driven battle scenes, The Hurt Locker is about the quiet, intense moments that are the norm for an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit (EOD), a squad charged with finding and defusing all kinds of bombs in Iraq. It is a three-man team and the film begins with one of their own getting blown to bits. This clears the way for SFC William James (Jeremy Renner) to take his place as the bomb-defusing specialist on the team. The two other men on the team (played by Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty) are there to provide him cover and are counting down the days until they get to go home, doing their best not to get killed. Sgt. James is not the same kind of team player that his predecessor was; he’s a lone wolf adrenaline junkie who collects souvenir scraps from all the bombs that he defuses and does not yearn to return to a quiet life stateside with his wife and kid.

Screenwriter Mark Boal’s experience as an embedded journalist in Baghdad serves him well in writing this story. And Director Kathryn Bigelow delivers some of the most tension filled scenes I’ve ever seen — not only when James is defusing bombs but also when the squad is searching for unexploded ordinance and watching out for insurgent bomb builders in a huge warehouse. There is only one real firefight which takes place in an isolated patch of desert, and it felt more real than most other movie shootouts in that our Army hero sharpshooters do not hit every shot. The three guys do ultimately bond and there is definitely some macho posturing, but it serves to define their individual characters.

As good as the other actors are, this is Jeremy Renner’s movie. It is about his journey and his Sgt. James sneaks up on you. He is more complex that you initially feel and by the end you sort of get him, despite his love of this life and death existence. This is not a movie for the faint of heart. Roosters will be into it for the bombs and buddy stuff. Chicks who enjoy a good character piece and who like edge of your seat well-crafted movies will appreciate it, too. I liked it because it was a story that takes place during a war, but was not about winning or losing. It was about the people who do the work.

Here’s a cool article about a unit in Afghanistan that does this kind of work.

Léa has just ended her last affair and is contemplating leaving the courtesan life behind and retiring in great style. She invites Chéri to come to her house in Normandy to get away from it all with her and they fall in love. He stays with her for six years until his mother, wanting grandchildren, arranges a marriage with the daughter of another courtesan. Being ripped apart sends them both into despair; Léa heads to Biarritz to try and move on while Chéri is on his honeymoon in Italy, but neither can get over the other. When Léa finally returns to Paris, Chéri comes to her, but only for her to talk him into doing what must be done and return to his marriage.

Chéri is adapted from the novel by the Colette, who no doubt based it on her own scandalous affair with her stepson. The period it is set in is one of great excess where the “famous” courtesans lived a life that makes the celebrities of today look downright modest. The clothes, houses and locations in the movie are gorgeous, especially Léa’s Art Nouveau home in Paris.

Directed by Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters), Chéri is both very funny and quite sad, just the right balance for a romance. Rent it and stay in with a nice bottle of French wine.

Chéri was released in 2009.

The mark for this con is Penelope Stamp played by Rachel Weisz. Penelope is a kooky heiress with way too much money and time on her hands. She is a quick study and can teach herself anything that catches her fancy; she plays dozens of instruments, speaks dozens of languages, and yearns for adventure. And so engaging her in their elaborate con is not a problem. The con itself has to do with an extremely rare book in a library in Prague that will be stolen, smuggled out of the country and sold to a third party for an exorbitant sum.

But of course, Bloom and Penelope become romantically attached to one another and it becomes more and more difficult to discern whether Bloom’s actions are part of the con or real life. There are lots of twists and turns and I won’t spoil it by detailing them here. The Brothers Bloom is a surprising adventure, with lots of beautiful European scenery, a fun soundtrack, solid performances all round and a nice love story. Rent or buy it now.