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Louie Psihoyos's animal rights documentary The Cove (a film we've been championing since Sundance '09 - read our review here) has been opening eyes stateside and in a handful of overseas markets since opening last summer, but the real question was whether or not the people of Japan would hear about the mass dolphin harvesting that had been going on for years under their noses in the small fishing village of Taiji. According to a press release, Japanese audiences will get their chance to watch The Cove come April 2010, when distributor Medallion Media releases the Oscar nominated film.

In the press release (via The Hot Blog), Medallion Media director Norio Okahara stressed that the company was remaining neutral in the highly political dolphin harvesting debate, but that it was an important issue that deserved attention, so as to let the Japanese public decide for themselves. "In distributing The Cove we are not taking sides. Rather, we are presenting the film for the Japanese to decide for themselves about the issues it raises. There is a debate to be had here and this important film – and the Academy Award® nomination only serves to reinforce its importance - offers the opportunity for such a debate."

It took a Nicholas Sparks adaptation starring Channing Tatum to finally knock Avatar from the perch it held for seven weeks. Dear John grossed an estimated $32.4 million to Avatar's $23.6 -- but Sparks/Tatum is such a potent combination that I wonder if the movie wouldn't have done non-trivially better had it not opened against the Superbowl. As it stands, it still has by far the best opening weekend for a Nicholas Sparks flick, though it's not clear what kind of legs it's going to have -- it will get some stiff competition from Garry Marshall's Valentine's Day next weekend.

As for Avatar, I went for a second viewing on Friday -- more out of a desire to see it in (real) IMAX than out of any abiding love for the film. Before the movie began, someone took an impromptu poll of the sold-out crowd to find out how many had already seen it -- and I saw, oh, thirty or forty hands go up. Presumably, most if not all of them brought friends. As with Titanic, there's where a good part of those record-breaking grosses comes from. Avatar is merrily marching toward an astronomical $700 million. Saints preserve us, etc.

From Paris with Love opened in third place with a weak $8.1 million, and is a mulligan for Fox, Luc Besson and Pierre Morel. Their Taken was a surprise hit in early 2009, but I guess the novelty value of seeing Liam Neeson as a badass secret agent dominates the novelty value of seeing John Travolta as same. (Taken's elegant, simple storyline hook probably played a part too, especially as compared to the incomprehensible jumble that is From Paris with Love.)

More, and the top 10, after the jump.

Last month I did a little piece lamenting the general lack of quality films in January. And now I'm back, only this time we're looking at February ... and not much has changed. Today we get a weepy romance called Dear John and an outlandish action flick called From Paris With Love. (Warning: Travolta alert!) If you happen to get the chilly new thriller Frozen in your market this weekend, I'd recommend that one.

So that's two broad demographics covered in week one, but what does the rest of the month have in store for us? Meh. Seems we're still meant to be catching up on the Oscar-nominated fare, because February is mostly quickie flicks and genre films. Next weekend's wide releases are another rom-com (this one called, cleverly enough, Valentine's Day), the long-awaited (and R-rated) remake of The Wolfman (bring it on!), and the wackily-titled franchise hopeful known as Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Those who adore the Jackson source material seem pretty psyched, so maybe the movie version won't suck eggs.

The week after that, Martin Scorsese's very fine Shutter Island gets the weekend all to itself (which is weird but cool), and then the month of wide releases closes out with Kevin Smith's Cop Out (Bruce Willis + Tracy Morgan = me laughing) and the months-delayed but hopefully cool remake of George Romero's The Crazies.

If you wander the arthouses or enjoy picking through your On Demand options, you might want to look at the District B13 sequel, which is fun, or the Red Riding crime trilogy from IFC, or (at the end of the month), Sony's release of the festival-adored A Prophet. Or go watch District 9 again.

When you see that crazy French filmmaker Luc Besson is involved with a movie, you know you're in for something giddy, energetic, over-the-top, completely ludicrous, crazy, and French. About 80 percent of the time -- The Fifth Element, The Transporter, District B13, etc. -- it's highly entertaining, too.

From Paris with Love falls -- nay, plummets, head first, screaming -- into that category. Besson is only credited with the story (the screenplay is by Adi Hasak, who wrote the forgotten 1997 Charlie Sheen thriller Shadow Conspiracy), but the "story" is an insane conglomeration of twists and turns from a hundred espionage pictures. The film has Besson's Euro-cheesy scent all over it: the gleefully wanton violence, the performances that are somewhere between campy and cool, the dialogue that sounds like it was written in another language and translated inexpertly into English. Besson, who is also the film's producer, is like Michael Bay, only with style and wit.

The director is Pierre Morel, who made the Besson-scripted District B13 and Taken. From Paris with Love isn't as frenetic as the former or as thrilling as the latter, but it's definitely cut from the same cloth. In Paris, a square, eager young man named Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) works as an assistant to the U.S. ambassador (Richard Durden), but on the side he does low-level secret work for what I'm guessing is the CIA. He wants to graduate to special ops, and he gets his chance when he's assigned as a temporary partner to an American spy named Charlie Wax.

If you're a fan of martial arts superstar Jackie Chan -- and I don't mean The Spy Next Door Jackie Chan, more like Police Story Jackie Chan -- you've probably been keeping tabs on a little film of his called Shinjuku Incident, about illegal Chinese immigrants and Japanese crime bosses clashing in 1990s Tokyo. Directed by former Shaw Bros. actor-turned-filmmaker Derek Yee, the dramatic crime thriller marks Chan's welcome return to films that aren't, well, silly Hollywood comedies, which is cause enough for celebration.

Need proof? Check out the trailer for Shinjuku Incident after the jump, which begins with Jackie Chan's blood-spattered producer credit and includes:

Guys with knives
Jackie shooting people at point-blank range
Gang brawls
More shooting
Jackie drinking alcohol
Jackie threatening someone with chopsticks
Black Panther-esque power fists

Last year Variety reported that Shinjuku Incident was deemed "too violent" to pass censor in China and was subsequently banned from mainland distribution when Yee refused to edit it down. Thankfully, upstart distributor Barking Cow Distribution is releasing it stateside in limited release this Friday, February 5 (with an R rating), which means American Chan devotees can get a chance to see it on the big screen.

Full theater list and images after the break.

Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what's new and upcoming in the world of independent film. Pictured clockwise, from upper left: The Freebie, Winter in Wartime, Trucker, Saint John of Las Vegas.

Deals. Our own Eric D. Snider highlighted The 10 Sundance Films You Need to Watch For, which nicely sums up the buzz and the biggest distribution deals from the festival. Millions of dollars have been committed and the theatrical release schedule will be dotted with Sundance acquisitions for months to come. And the deals continue, as reported by our friends at indieWIRE.

Phase 4 Films won a bidding war for rights to writer/director Katie Aselton's The Freebie. Aselton stars with Dax Shepherd as a married couple whose relationship "is still full of love but lacking in lust," according to that dashing critic Eric D. Snider. He called it "an honest, unadorned relationship drama that suggests a new talent on the horizon." We await word of specific release plans.

Martin Koolhaven's Winter in Wartime has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. The drama follows a 13-year-old boy who becomes involved with the Dutch resistance after he helps a wounded British soldier near the end of World War II. Winter in Wartime was shortlisted, but ultimately not nominated, for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. As with The Freebie, specific release plans have not yet been announced.

Online / On Demand Viewing. Acclaimed drama Trucker, starring Michelle Monaghan, is now available on iTunes. Cinematical's Erik Davis wrote: "Monaghan finally delivered the sort of performance I've known was trapped somewhere inside her, hidden behind a variety of big, flashy Hollywood films."

After the jump: Saint John of Las Vegas reaps material rewards.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when John Travolta stopped doing it for me. I wouldn't peg it during his famously rock bottom years (roughly between 1983's Stayin' Alive and 1994's Pulp Fiction, AKA the Look Who's Talking Years), but rather sometime in the past few decades, when Travolta decided he wanted to stretch himself by going increasingly, well, batshit crazy onscreen.

For the record, I'm no Travolta hater. He's excellent in earlier films, as Danny Zuko in Grease, Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (and even in the aforementioned Stayin' Alive), and Bud Davis in Urban Cowboy. The man's proven his talent and shown his range over the years, which is why it's particularly disappointing to see him hamming it up in films like the recent Wild Hogs and Old Dogs, two comedies that both star Travolta, have titles that coincidentally rhyme, and feature grown men getting hit in the crotch in their respective trailers.

But broad and painfully unfunny comedy is only one hallmark of the type of film John Travolta has become known for in recent years. The other is arguably worse: Travolta has somehow become Hollywood's go-to actor for over-the-top bad guy roles. The kind of roles that make you say "WTF?" as you sit in a darkened theater staring at the scenery-chewing, gleefully unpredictable one-man circus on display. The kind that might call for Travolta to shave his head, grow a goatee, shoot first and spout witty one-liners later, have sex with prostitutes, and act like he just does not give a f***, which is exactly what he does in this week's buddy-spy action-comedy, From Paris with Love.

Sadly, Live Wire Travolta no longer feels fresh. And whereas it used to amuse me, I now only feel a faint tingle of something – is it nostalgia? - coupled by an overpowering sense of sadness for what used to be. So take a trip down memory lane with me to explore seven of Travolta's most wacky, wild, and crazy roles and figure out when exactly he went from kooky to creepy.