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watched this movie last night, got a strong emotional response from me.

to summarize, it's the guy who trained flipper the dolphin back in the 1960s... after working with and training dolphins for many years, he came to believe that dolphins are much more intelligent and self aware than widely accepted.

his initial success with dolphin training brought about a multi-million dollar industry for the capture and sale of dolphins for sea parks and "swim with dolphins" programs around the world.

the movie progresses by showing the events of his struggle to ban the capture of dolphins, and culminates at a remote japanese fishing port called Taiji where dolphins are captured and sold; the unpurchased dolphins are slaughtered and sold as meat. the taiji fishermen are suspected of animal rights violations, as well as selling and distributing mercury saturated meat (dolphin meat was served as part of the childrens school lunch)

its a very sad movie, and a very graphic one. excellent documentary. if you really like dolphins, or are squeamish about lots of blood and death screams, then you might want to avoid this one.

Yeah i totally know this movie but decided not to watch it cause i cant digest movies where animals are abused.

probably a good call on your part then.

but seriously, theres really nothing to stop us from taking a plane over to japan, going to this cove, and beating these guys up

im not sure if that was the point of the movie but i've been thinking about it ever since i saw it.

I'm sure that it was sad to see them doing all of that stuff, but I'm not really into save the dolphin movies. I doubt that the gore and death screams would get to me, if I were to watch this movie. I've watched plenty of horror movies and am relatively unaffected accept for when some gory creature pops up out of nowhere and makes a sudden loud noise. That is kind of annoying too.

I recently watched a movie called Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood as the main character that I really enjoyed. Clint Eastwood played the role of a Korean War vet and retired autoworker who doesn't like how life in his neighborhood has turned out. The doesn't like his next door neighbors, Hmong immigrants, but ends up making friends with them and protects them against a violent gang. There are a lot of very sad events that happen in this movie, but I really like some of the characters and Clint Eastwood does an awesome acting job as always.

i think for me that most shocking part wasn't the killing of the dolphins, but the disgusting attitude shown by the fishermen and the ambivalent attitude / lack of knowledge shown by the world as a whole towards the situation. i could go further into it, but it'll be pretty obvious if you watch.

gran torino was great, i liked it a lot too... grew up watching "the good, the bad and the ugly" etc so it's very interesting seeing eastwood in roles other than a grizzled wild-west type (although somehow he always brings it into his roles)

interesting story; a good movie about "what defines a family" in my opinion... was great to see at the end when they read his will :D (at risk of putting a spoiler here)

they didn't pull any punches with the racism either which gave the whole flick and its context a very authentic feel.

I think that it's really messed up that the people are eating toxic levels of mercury.

I dont think grand torino can be compared to the good the bad and the ugly...That is a classic slapstick western,probably the best.
Gran Torino really didn't feel natural to me,like a giant cliche.

The macho angry guy who is actually very kind inside and ends up giving his life for the people he presumably disliked thereby showing that its all about being good or bad and not about color or nationality...

Actually I think Clint played a very similar character in some other movies.

Gran Torino was terrible and the child actors abysmal

I'm already aware of what is happening and I already oppose it, but I don't feel strongly enough to make it my life's calling, there's not that much more I can do. I'm not at the point where I can donate any funds or time to any organization tackling this issue.

If they can handle it though, get your friends and family or anyone you suspect of being unaware of the issue to watch this film. The more people are aware of the issue the easier it will be to broach a solution that is acceptable to all parties.

Speaking of screaming animals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK0gRFvFjZ8

LOL! he's like a windup toy... whizzzzzzzz

but yeah. i dunno. gran torino was pretty basic; the acting i suppose wasn't that great... but then i think about the plethora of films i've seen that have been so much worse...

to derail somewhat onto the "bad but good movie" tangent... starship troopers? that movie is horrible in terms of plot, acting, storyline, and even special effects. but awesome? i think so. (gran torino is no starship troopers. just trying to justify myself here lol)

KaiserJ wrote:starship troopers? that movie is horrible in terms of plot, acting, storyline, and even special effects. but awesome? i think so.

That's because Paul Verhoeven didn't mean his movie to be taken at face value.

The movie needed more facism. Anyone watched the sequels? II was crap but III was surprisingly good if you can forgive porn acting.

Starship Troopers was pretty good.
I didnt bother with part 3 until lately because 2 was so meh. But 3 really was ok. Better than for example the AvP movies that are just bad without any "its so bad its cool" factor or anything.

KaiserJ wrote:LOL! he's like a windup toy... whizzzzzzzz

but yeah. i dunno. gran torino was pretty basic; the acting i suppose wasn't that great... but then i think about the plethora of films i've seen that have been so much worse...

to derail somewhat onto the "bad but good movie" tangent... starship troopers? that movie is horrible in terms of plot, acting, storyline, and even special effects. but awesome? i think so. (gran torino is no starship troopers. just trying to justify myself here lol)

I thought that the acting was alright and it doesn't bother me that Clint Eastwood put his own cowboy flair in it. What was it that you didn't like about the acting. The kids seemed like they did a descent job for kids. I don't really pay a lot of attention to child actors because they aren't in most of the movies that I watch, so I would like to know what your opinion is.

SwiftSpear wrote:I'm already aware of what is happening and I already oppose it, but I don't feel strongly enough to make it my life's calling, there's not that much more I can do. I'm not at the point where I can donate any funds or time to any organization tackling this issue.

I agree, and the same goes for me. I also hope that people over there aren't starving or becoming ill from eating all the mercury. Mercury poisoning could cause brain, kidney, and lung damage and I doubt that the fishermen will just stop fishing if that's their main source of food and selling the dolphins is their only source of income. They're in a park, so I think that an environmental protection agency should look into it more and it's strange that their doesn't seem to be any human rights groups interested. Maybe they don't have any organizations that are that concerned about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bE3KAuWaz8

http://www.takepart.com/thecove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k62kc07m1Dc

human rights groups don't usually take on dolphin rights issues... but there are still groups flying the banner.