A selection of the rest of this week's releases

The Cove (15)

The Cove is brilliant. And I never want to see it again, writes Mike Polanyk.

This amazing documentary, a huge success at the 2009 Sundance Festival, was made by Ric O'Barry, who's famed for his television work in the Sixties when he captured and trained five dolphins to play the title character in international TV hit Flipper.

Within a couple of years, dolphins were being trained in parks and pools the world over, and O'Barry now says he made a terrible mistake, triggering a multi-billion dollar industry and threatened the existence of one of the most intelligent creatures on this planet.

It's that desire to make amends which drives this film. It plays out around a sleepy lagoon on the Japanese coast. Taiji is a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast.

But, in a remote cove, surrounded by barbed wire and "Keep Out" signs, lies a dark reality.

It is here, under cover of night, that local fishermen, driven by the dolphin entertainment industry and a black market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt.

What happens next is so disturbing they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.

Please see this film, but don't blame me for the effect it will have on you.

Rating: 5/5

Made in Jamaica

For a small island, Jamaica sure packs a mighty punch, writes Mike Polanyk.

It's had a disproportionate impact on world culture, as Jérôme Laperrousaz's documentary testifies.

The film tells how a nation of only three million people gave birth to music that resonates around the world.

Artists young and old, including Gregory Isaacs, Toots Frederick, Bunny Wailer, Elephant Man, Bounty Killer, Third World, Tanya Stephens and Capleton, turn in captivating performances.

All well and good, then. But my problem with this movie is that it looks at the music from a contemporary perspective, beginning with the murder of one of dancehall's leading stars, Bogle.

Dancehall developed from the skanking movement which evolved in Kingston in the late-70s and merged with American rap.

But in focusing on dancehall, Laperrousaz neglects to pick up on reggae's Sixties' roots, and there is little or no mention of powerhouse artists Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker and the band of producers who helped make the music an international movement.

The film is raw and powerful, but doesn't tell the full story.

Rating: 3/5

Safety Last (U)

It's one of the most celebrated scenes in the history of twentieth century cinema.

Dangling from a skyscraper, a swoon-inducing distance above the street below, the bespectacled Harold Lloyd clings for dear life to the bending hands of a clock.

It's more than 80 years since Safety Last was first released. But it hasn't lost its capacity to thrill and delight.

This classic comedy consolidated Lloyd's status as a major star and his career continued until well into the 1940s, but he could never top this masterpiece, which has had a welcome reissue.

Rating: 5/5

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (15)

Greed is good in Neal Brennan's raucous debut feature about the exploits of four car salespeople in the California town of Temecula. But everything else in this foul-mouthed comedy from the creative forces responsible for Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers is utterly dismal.

If ever there was a compelling case for bringing charges against screenwriters who commit crimes against good taste, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is it.

Andy Stock and Rick Stempson's script is an embarrassment almost from the opening frame, as Jeremy Piven's stripper-loving head honcho uses his powers of persuasion to orchestrate a pot-smoking orgy on a domestic flight.

Characters are crass and unlikeable and their filthy-minded dialogue is, by turns, racist, sexist and homophobic.

Don Ready (Piven) is the leader of four hard-nosed trouble-shooters, who move from one city to the next, helping ailing auto dealerships shift cars on their lots.

Don's colleagues, sex siren Babs (Kathryn Hahn), number cruncher Brent (David Koechner) and retired professional athlete Jibby (Ving Rhames), share his sell-at-all-costs mentality.

The feisty quartet answer a distress call from small town dealer Ben Selleck (James Brolin).

The team swoop into action and attempt to motivate Ben's emotionally-unstable sales force.

But the outsiders soon fall victim to the petty rivalries of small town life.

Don develops a crush on Ben's daughter Ivy (Jordana Spiro), who is engaged to Paxton (Ed Helms), the son of sworn rival Stu Harding (Alan Thicke).

Meanwhile, Babs harbours lusty desires for Ben's 10-year-old son Peter (Rob Riggle), who has a pituitary problem that causes him to have the body of a strapping 30-year-old man.

Yes. Quite.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is 89 minutes of mental torture, anchored by Piven's bombastic lead performance which involves lots of shouting, a spot of karaoke and some frenetic coupling in a motel with his two-dimensional love interest.

"Let's have sex in every corner of this room,'' he tells Ivy.

Seventeen seconds later, they are done.

If only Brennan's film was just as brief.

There's not a decent performance to be found anywhere in Temecula, and Brolin should hang his head in shame for ever agreeing to appear.

The central premise – Don and co must shift 211 cars from the lot in three days to save the business – is resolved with tiresome predictability and producer Will Ferrell cannot resist a humourless cameo as an old friend who discovers the perils of skydiving.

He takes about 30 seconds to hit terra firma and perish with an almighty thud. Brennan's film manages it in half that time.

Rating: 0/5