It’s that time of the year.  On March 7th the 82nd Academy Awards will happen.  I have to say I’m not a big awards show person.  They’re boring, and to be honest I really could care less.  Although when something I like wins (very rare) I do find it to be satisfying.

 

The following are my Oscar picks for this years awards, some followed by commentary.  My first pick will be in bold, my second will be italic (if I have one).  I base this totally on personal preference.  I’m not doing any analysis of what I think will win based on historical records, etc.  I’m picking what movies I think are deserving of some praise.  I’m also skipping some categories where I either haven’t seen any nominees, feel like I’ve seen too few to have a say, or just don’t care.  Here we go.

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The Cove is a film you’ve probably heard of, but don’t know a thing about.  You probably saw the trailer for the film which plays like it’s advertising a horror film.  That might not be too far off.  The film is horrific at points (not bad, hard to watch), but if I had to liken it to any genre it’d be a sort of heist film.  In actuality it is a documentary.  About dolphins.  Wait, don’t click away yet.  This isn’t any kind of boring nature film.  Let me tell you some more.

 

The Cove is primarily about Ric O’Barry.  Ric was the dolphin trainer, and in fact caught the 5 dolphins that played Flipper in the original Flipper tv series.  He was really a pioneer of dolphin training.  Through the filming of the show he lived 24/7 with these dolphins for 7 years and really got to know first hand what these species were like.  He very quickly noticed their intelligence and self awareness.  After the show went off the air the dolphins were moved to the Miami Seaquarium where, as Ric puts it, the main Flipper committed suicide in his arms.  He since dedicated his life to freeing dolphins from captivity.  It is through this course of work he learned about the Japanese town of Taiji.

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