Double Feature Duel (Rd2): The Nines vs. The Cove

Double Feature Duel (Rd2):
The Nines vs. The Cove

The most surprisingly good movie I’ve seen since Frequency vs. an Oscar-winning documentary. The ole narrative vs. documentary matchup. Not usually good for the documentary, but it made it this far so who knows?

Title: I do appreciate the brevity employed by both movies here, but I much favor the ambiguity of The Nines. Because if there’s one thing you know about me, it’s that I enjoy ambiguity. (Point, The Nines 1-0)

Funnier: The murder of dolphins isn’t really high on the humor scale. (Point, The Nines 2-0)

Better Turn: For a three-vignette series, The Nines has the feel of a complete narrative. And up against a documentary, it has a chance. That chance is now gone. (Point, The Cove 2-1)

Better Ending: The Cove isn’t going to lose this too often. It stepped away from the narration to let the power of the final scene do the work. However, The Nines raised some existential issues that I still haven’t fully grasped. And it made fun of gamers. (Point, The Nines 3-1)

Better Message: Well, The Nines isn’t going to lose this too often, but there hasn’t been a more direct and efficiently delivered message since An Inconvenient Truth than what The Cove delivered. (Point, The Cove 3-2)

Better Acting: It doesn’t always play out like this, but usually the documentary get the point for the message and the narrative gets this point to even it out. This is not exception. (Point, The Nines 4-2)

Poster: The Packers lead the NFC at 10-0 right now and yet they are 31^st in passing defense. The Patriots are 7-3 atop the AFC and have the 32^nd best pass defense (out of 32). If this was the battle between those two teams, this category would be like their pass defense. But I like the dolphins (on the poster, not the team – though they have a better pass defense). (Point, The Cove 4-3)

More Creative: It’s going to take a miracle for The Nines to ever lose this category. This isn’t it. (Point, The Nines 5-3)

Watch again: I wanted to watch The Nines again immediately after I saw it the first time. That hasn’t changed at all. (Point, The Nines 6-3)

Overall: Well, I have a feeling that the only movie that could have stopped The Nines from running through this half of the bracket would be a documentary. And yet, it didn’t. Winner: The Nines (6-3)

Double Feature Duel: Unknown vs. The Cove

Double Feature Duel:
Unknown vs. The Cove

Bout #11: Another narrative vs. documentary story. So far the battle favors the narrative 2-1 (if I lump Shattered Glass, a based on real life story) into that category. Which I will. Because I can and mostly because I just did and I don’t feel like deleting it.

Unknown: Liam Neeson plays his character from Taken and gives himself some Bourne Identity-grade amnesia. Only he can remember some things but not other things, which is a very convenient trick used often in the writing world. It’s good, and I do especially enjoy the twist, but the movie couldn’t help itself and threw in some cheesy action car chases and lines of bravado that sucked it back down to Hollywood cookie cutter status. 5.5 bugs

The Cove: Wow. This was an incredible look at this underground dolphin mass murder that goes on over in Japan almost daily from what I understood. And for part of the movie, I thought I was actually watching a real life Oceans 11 in how they had to sneak in to get the footage. 8.5 bugs

Title: Unknown is a good title. Which is why 6 other movies are also named that. (Point, The Cove 0-1)

Funnier: Don’t go watching either of these movies expecting a laugh-out-loud moment, though I’d have to give the banter in the Cove a nod over Unknown, who seemed to take itself a little too seriously to let down its hair (Point, The Cove 0-2)

Better Turn: It’s hard to say where the action actually turns in The Cove, though it was shot a little more like Oceans 12 than your average documentary. Unknown also seems to keep turning, as we learn something new every scene. But I rather enjoyed the middle 15 scenes of the movie. (Point, Unknown 1-2)

Better Ending: When ESPN shows their top 10 plays, they usually don’t speak over the final play and let the play-by-play peeps do the talking. That’s kinda what The Cove did. It was obvious and easy and it worked superbly. (Point, The Cove 1-3)

Better Message: Don’t kill dolphins. And if you do, don’t lie about it. And if you do, learn what a fake rock looks like and steal the HD camera from inside it. (Point, The Cove 1-4)

Better Acting: Again, the yin to the Better Message category’s yang in the narrative vs. documentary battle. (Point, Unknown 2-4)

More Creative: The lengths that these documentary guys had to go to get the shots they wanted was straight from Oceans 13. Except this was real. And it worked! Better than it did against Al Pacino. (Point, The Cove 2-5)

Poster: Shallow water, deep secret >OR< Take back your life. Unknown just wanted you to know that Liam Neeson and two hot blondes were in this movie. (Point, The Cove 2-6)

Watch again: I’d probably watch Unknown again just for the scene with Bruno Ganz and Frank Lengella. But The Cove was really entertaining and if you can stomach the needless slaughter of thousands of dolphins – which I can – I would definitely see it again. (Point, The Cove 2-7)

Overall: The Cove was a special movie. A documentary shot like an Oceans 14 movie. Unknown is the second best movie with that title (See Jim Caviezel, 2006). Winner: The Cove (7-2)