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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."

The optimum way to see a documentary like Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' The Shock Doctrine is at a film festival, such as Sundance, where it made its North American premiere this week. Unfortunately, I saw it in my living room, which is probably how most people in the U.S. will see it thanks to the Video-On-Demand cable channel Sundance Selects, which began airing the film immediately following its Park City debut.

Not to say the festival experience makes it a better film, but at least attendees of the first Sundance screening had the benefit of a post-film discussion featuring the film's directors and Naomi Klein, the author of the book upon which it's based. It's safe to assume she explained her arguments regarding "disaster capitalism" and the faults of Laissez-faire economics better than the film does. And Winterbottom and Whitecross are possibly the only ones who can defend what they had intended with their ultimately disjointed translation of Klein's thesis.

I had only the internet to use as a reference and clarifier in the end. What I learned afterward about the film and Klein's involvement in its production is that she basically walked away due to its increasing departure from what she felt an adaption of her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism should look like. From what I understand, Klein's work is more investigative journalism, while Winterbottom and Whitecross have concentrated on a history lesson based upon her expose of Milton Friedman's methods of economic shock therapy.

We assumed that the world of Zoolander was complete fiction, with its break-dance fighting, ambiturning, Derelicte, and killing the Prime Minister of Malaysia. There's no way Derek Zoolander and his shenanigans could be real, right? It's just about as likely as a school for ants. Nevertheless, Guardian writer Hadley Freeman spotted some real-life similarities, which she whipped up in a great piece called "The Amazing Truth about Zoolander."

In brief, her evidence: First, the ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia, made the following announcement: "There is strong evidence that the [September 11] attacks were staged [by America]. If they can make Avatar, they can make anything." Talk about a great conspiracy theory -- blue people created on-screen 9 years later means a worldwide lie. This antagonism of the U.S. is then merged with designer Vivienne Westwood's new homeless-inspired menswear collection. A quote from Westwood: "The nearest I have come to it [homelessness] is going home and finding I don't have my door key. I mean, what a disaster that is, dying to get in your house and you can't. And what if it wasn't there any more?" And finally, Cristiano Ronaldo's new Armani underwear ads, which feature him with a hand across his face, looking off into the distance. (Bottom picture at this link.) Freeman writes:

So to conclude, Ronaldo is being brainwashed to become a political ­assassin; Vivienne Westwood is trying to kill the prime minister of Malaysia, and, while I can't vouchsafe that Avatar proves America was behind 9/11, there does seem to be some kind of ­antagonistic US-Malaysia situation, and I would advise Mahathir to stay away from fashion shows.

Yes, it's silly, but you've got to give it to Freeman for finding some pretty applicable connections. Be wary next time you hear ... "Relax."

Film retrospectives seem to be in scarce supply these days unless they're tied to a new release, a remake, or an untimely death. Thankfully, The New York Times' piece on Frank Serpico was inspired by none of the above; it's just an intriguing look back at Sidney Lumet's film Serpico and the man who inspired it. Neither the film nor the real Frank Serpico have exactly disappeared from the radar (Serpico has an official website and a blog), but Corey Kilgannon's profile is a particularly haunting piece because it confronts its subject with his own movie biopic. It's a timely one too, as there's at least one generation (if not two) that know more about Spider-Man's heroism than Serpico's, and favor Michael Bay over Sidney Lumet.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Frank Serpico's name was shorthand for bravery, honesty, and standing up against your so-called friends and allies. Everyone knew his story. He was the son of Italian immigrants, a Brooklyn native who had such pride in his country that he fought in Korea and joined the NYPD. But once he joined the police force, he found that corruption and extortion was rampant. Anyone unwilling to participate in bribery was shunned, and anyone willing to speak against it risked his life. Serpico bravely stepped forward to testify, and was shot during a routine drug bust in 1971. It was clear his fellow officers had set him up to be executed. It was a shocking act of violence and betrayal that still haunts Serpico to this day. "I still have nightmares," he told the New York Times. "I open a door a little bit and it just explodes in my face. Or I'm in a jam and I call the police, and guess who shows up? My old cop buddies who hated me."

Let me begin this post with a disclaimer -- Cinematical is a site about film first and foremost, and we try not to let politics or social agendas interfere that goal. But seeing as we're in the thick of awards season and the beginning of Sundance (a festival that often dictates our year to come -- be sure to check our 2010 coverage to see what that might be!), I thought I would take the opportunity to remind you not to forget about the documentaries or films that moved you into action.

Back in September, Jenni Miller brought you the very good news that The Cove (which premiered at last year's Sundance -- you can still read Scott Weinberg's original review) had created enough awareness to stop the dolphin hunt in Taiji. It was one of those moments that proved the smallest film can make a difference. In an industry populated by so many disposable movies and marketing, it's nice to feel good about it all. But eventually, the publicity machine stops rolling. The awards are handed out (and The Cove has taken home a ton of them) and people are onto the next round of documentaries making the festival circuit. The media loses interest. Six days ago, The Cove's Ric O'Barry updated with some depressing news. Now that the initial shock and horror is off, people have lost interest and the dolphin hunt has resumed.

I feel strongly about stopping this hunt once and for all, as have many who have seen the film. We here at Cinematical have been fervent champions of The Cove , as we did with Dear Zachary. The ball continued to roll with Dear Zachary, which continues to fight to bring some real change to Canadian law. Obviously, I hope The Cove continues to snowball now that it's on DVD and receiving so many critical awards.

Oliver Stone working on something that's controversial? Nah, couldn't be.

Yes, it's true, the filmmaker behind such unprovocative works as JFK, Natural Born Killers and documentaries venerating Fidel Castro and Hugh Chavez has finally gone contentious with his announcement of a 10-hour docu-series for Showtime titled Secret History of America. We actually heard about the project last August, via TVSquad, but this past weekend Stone and collaborator Peter Kuznick spoke to TV critics in Pasadena at a press conference about the series. And boy did it get ugly.

According to the The Hollywood Reporter, Stone called Adolf Hitler an "easy scapegoat throughout History," used cheaply as such, and later said that "we can't judge people as only 'bad' and 'good.'" Other figures that Stone is reportedly focusing on more 'factually' than has been popular in American history are Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Harry Truman and Joseph McCarthy. It's not specifically said whether these people will be seen in a more positive light or simply more balanced one, but regardless their very mention has caused quite a stir.

"I've been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes," Stone told the Television Critics Association, "to understand their point of view. You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person you may hate."

The 2000s were a great decade for documentaries, both artistically and commercially. Four films (Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and this year's Earth and This Is It) grossed more than $100 million worldwide, with two of them even topping the $200 million mark. Meanwhile, plenty of other films, whether due to their politics or their humorous entertainment value, broke through with mainstream audiences, primarily in the arthouse circuit but also on home video. And speaking of home viewing, thanks to Netflix and free online streaming sites like SnagFilms, more and more people have access to more and more non-fiction films than ever before.

So obviously it's a tough task to narrow down all these docs for a list of the best in the last ten years. In order to spotlight some particularly deserving films (25 of them), I've decided to follow the lead of William Goss' action flick list and break these up into separate categories (15 of them). In a perfect world all these types of documentary would be respected as their own genre, like fiction is with comedy, action, science fiction, etc. And with the amount of non-fiction films produced these days it wouldn't be difficult to list ten favorites for each style and subject sort. Certainly I've had to leave out a lot of favorites, both mine and yours (doing a list like this really makes you realize the films you've not yet seen), so let's keep the discussion going in the comments section.

Best Expository Doc: Documentaries comprised primarily of talking heads and archive footage are so conventional, common and, yes, oftentimes boring that it's a shame most people associate them with non-fiction cinema as a whole. Occasionally, though, the stringing together of facts and expert testimony can be stimulating as well as educational, such as in the case of Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (2005), a film that says and asks so much about the questionable direction of the U.S. military in the past 50 years and the complicated origins of our current conflicts in part by referencing, with the intention of contrast, Frank Capra's far more clear-cut expository Why We Fight films from WWII. Everything within the actual film simply and straightforwardly illustrates history and the filmmaker's stance on it, which is all you really need from a doc. Honorable Mention: One of the great things about Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight (2007) is how much information it will feed you about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in so little time. We should only be so lucky to have such quick, comprehensive detail communicated to us about every topic.

It's no secret that Cinematical loves Dear Zachary, A Letter to a Son About His Father. Kurt Kuenne's documentary is excellent, evocative, heart-wrenching, and wickedly inspiring. But as any of you who have seen the film know, it's about a lot more than a simple letter. There's a legacy that follows this film, which is now picking up steam.

In case some of you haven't caught the film yet, I'll continue the post after the jump, as the main thrust and twists in the doc will be discussed.

Your tax dollars are now hard at work fighting movie piracy. In theory, at least. The Hollywood Reporter has picked up on Congress' approval of a new $30 Million earmark to help extend the effectiveness of 2008's Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act. According to MPAA CEO Dan Glickman, "Congress took a major step forward by providing $30 million in funding for new FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and local and state law enforcement grants to protect American jobs and creativity by cracking down on the theft of movies and other intellectual property."

Having written a post no more than eleven days ago outlining how 2009 saw Americans handing over a record-shattering $10 billion to movie theaters across the country and how attendance was up over 3% from the same time a year prior, the arrival of this news sticks in my craw a bit. There is absolutely no questioning that movie piracy costs the corporate interests represented by the MPAA profits, but I do find Glickman's further claims a tad dubious: "Copyright industries in the U.S. lose $25.6 billion a year in revenue to piracy, the U.S. economy loses nearly 375,000 jobs either directly or indirectly related to the copyright industry, and American workers lose more than $16 billion in annual earnings."

Call me a cynic (or an idiot), but I'd like some illumination as to what jobs that 375,000 figure is referring to, especially if it is a per year figure like the one before it. It's not as though DVDs are hand made on human-run assembly lines or that Walmart has cut back the number of cashiers it employs because people aren't rushing out to buy All About Steve on a Tuesday because they downloaded it on Monday night.

In the cold light of history, I'm sure there will be plenty of blame to be laid at the feet of one George W. Bush, but blaming him for movies? Well, that's what Ramin Setoodeh over at Newsweek is proposing -- that the rash of downer films that have littered the box office in the last two years is all because of big bad Bush, and it's a bit of a leap. After all, there's the tried and true logic that awards season usually has studios releasing their 'serious' pictures, and in the world of cinema, serious usually means depressing. But Setoodeh has some evidence to back up his claims, mainly that in the so-called 'golden years' of Bill Clinton, films like Shakespeare in Love and The Full Monty were Oscar contenders, and now we have grim, foreboding films like There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Slumdog Millionaire. But it didn't stop at Oscar nominees, because according to Setoodeh, Terminators, the kids of Hogwarts, and even a pair of star-crossed lovers from Forks, Washington seem to be suffering from bouts of depression thanks to the Republican president.

Now I truly believe that if you need to take the temperature of any nation, pop culture is one the best places to start. But it does strike me a little odd that Setoodeh glossed over so many of the films released during Bush's reign that were far from the dark and depressing world of Cormac McCarthy. If you take a quick look, Bush's term was full of romantic comedies, animated films, superheroes and gross-out comedies galore, which makes it just like any other year at the movies.

After the jump: Oscar nominees that weren't a downer, and is Setoodeh right?