Weekend Movie Forecast: The Cove or Funny People

Everyone's talking about Judd Apatow's "mature" dramedy Funny People, but what we're really anticipating this weekend is The Cove. The documentary follows Louie Psihoyos, leader of the Ocean Preservation Society, and Richard O'Barry, a dolphin trainer and activist best known for his work on the 1960's TV show Flipper, as they infiltrate a small seaside Japanese village where tens of thousands of dolphins are secretly slaughtered every year. The critical reaction has been stellar, and Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere calls it "easily one of the best films I've seen this year, and without question my choice for the best documentary of 2009 so far. It's this year's Man on Wire—almost certain to keep playing and gathering steam all through the year and into Oscar season.

"No one should get the idea that The Cove is primarily a classroom-lecture piece and an eco-activist movie, although it is obviously those things in a political undertow sense. Because it's first and foremost a very well-made, thoroughly watchable murder-mystery—a gripping and entertaining sit by any standard. (Unless you happen to be, you know, an idiot.) That's right—murder. As in seawater turning pink and then blood red." Here's the trailer: