“Bikuri,” said a moviegoer, using the Japanese term to mean “surprised.” She exclaimed that to a packed theater at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The woman was talking about "The Cove," a documentary she’d just watched, that tracks the dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. The theater had just hosted Japan’s one and only screening of the award-winning documentary.

A still from film shows dolpins being driven towards Taiji.

It was a screening that almost didn’t happen. The Tokyo International Film Festival initially balked at the movie taking part in the festival, but eventually caved after international pressure. Watch a trailer for "The Cove"

But as cameras lined up to cover the Tokyo Film Festival’s showing of "The Cove," handlers threw their hands over camera lenses and ordered reporters to stop asking questions. Media crews were corralled into a fire escape saying the theater’s owner would not allow access to moviegoers on their property. The only access would be a tightly controlled question and answer session of festival goers and the filmmaker.

Such heightened sensitivity highlights the controversy surrounding the award-winning documentary that challenge’s Japan’s continued allowance of coastal whaling. "The Cove" follows the fishermen of Taiji, who for say they've hunted dolphin for meat for 400 years. CNN tracked the hunt last year, as fishermen in boats corralled the dolphins in from sea. Divers in the water chased and dragged them into the cove.

In only a few minutes. The water turned red with blood as the throats of the dolphins were slashed. Fishermen transported the carcasses onto boats and took them to a pier, where they were gutted. CNN found dolphin meat sold in local grocery stores.

Not all the dolphins were killed. Some were transported to holding areas where the town eventually sells them to aquariums around the world, a practice called “live capture.”

The movie calls the treatment of the dolphins in the cove inhumane, but also say the meat has high levels of mercury.

Japan’s government says the meat, like tuna, can contain mercury, but is not harmful if eaten in moderation. Japan allows approximately 20,000 dolphins killed each year, because the species is not endangered.

“The Japanese government is very keen on the resource maintenance, so that sustainability is maintained. Each country, each race, has its own traditions to be respected. The international community should cooperate while respecting each other’s traditions and eating habits,” said Yasuhisa Kawamura, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy press secretary.

Kawamura adds that in Western cultures, people have an emotional connection to dolphins, yet are able to hunt deer and eat cows. “Cows are cute, dolphins are cute,” he said.

"The Cove’s" filmmakers hope to change that mindset. Director Louie Psihoyos told the film fest’s crowd: “Now we have this movie called ‘The Cove’ and hopefully everybody in Japan will get the same information the government isn’t giving you.” Psihoyos made that comment in reference to what the film alleges is toxic levels of mercury in the dolphins.

After the screening, the cameras were promptly ejected from the theater’s property. CNN managed to grab one festival attendee, Kenkichi Takizawa. “People should watch this movie before they argue about this issue,” he said.

But with no future screenings and no distributor in Japan, few in Japan will even know the documentary was ever made.

World premieres in 25 cities are planned for the Michael Jackson documentary 'This Is It.' (PHOTO: Sony Pictures Releasing)

"This Is It," the documentary that follows pop star Michael Jackson in the months before his death, will have a global launch in 25 cities on October 27-28, according to the film’s distributor. Are you planning to watch the Michael Jackson documentary? Tell us what you think about the movie in the comments below.

A 6 p.m. PT event in Los Angeles on October 27 will launch premieres of “This Is It” worldwide. Simultaneous debuts will be staged in 15 cities, including London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Johannesburg and Seoul, Sony Pictures said.

The documentary chronicles Jackson’s rehearsals for concerts that were scheduled to have taken place this past summer at London’s O2 Arena.

Directed by Jackson’s choreographer and creative director Kenny Ortega, the film draws on more than 100 hours of footage shot between March and June.

The public will be able to view the film, which will have a two-week run in theaters, three hours after the red-carpet premieres. Tickets go on sale September 27.

Play-acting on the pitch is usually frowned upon by fans of the game, but as Eric Cantona's upcoming role as himself in Ken Loach's "Looking For Eric," which is in competition at next month's Cannes Film Festival shows, that hasn’t stopped some of the world’s best players from combining the beautiful game with the big screen.

Cantona is no stranger to the movie world - the enigmatic Frenchman shocked the football by announcing his intention to launch a serious film career on his retirement from the game. A cameo role in the Oscar-nominated 1998 historical drama, "Elizabeth" was an atypically low key debut for the legendary striker, but Cantona has since amassed a substantial filmography of both English and French films.

Now Cantona takes on arguably his biggest role to date - that of himself. "Looking For Eric" is the story of a Manchester United-supporting milkman who experiences visions of Cantona as he attempts to escape a mid-life crisis. The film, directed by Ken Loach, has been tipped for success at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

The beautiful game’s universal appeal has captivated many a film-maker for generations, from Wim Wenders’ psychological take in "The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty" (1972), to Loach’s manic PE teacher in "Kes" (1969).

But it was 1981’s "Escape to Victory" that really kicked off the football film revolution. Pele and Bobby Moore’s star turns were never likely to be up for Oscar nominations, but seeing them share the screen with Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine popularized the idea that footballers themselves could appear on celluloid.

Former Wimbledon and Chelsea hardman Vinnie Jones is one of the more unlikely players to embark on an acting career, enjoying success playing a gangster in Guy Ritchie’s "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch." He subsequently got back into his football kit to appear in "Mean Machine" (2001), a soccer-based remake of the American football film "The Longest Yard."

The most famous player of them all, David Beckham, went one better and had a film named after him - "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002) - although his only "appearance" in the film was actually a lookalike posing as the free kick specialist. However, since his move to Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, Beckham has been no stranger to the Hollywood lifestyle, and indeed did have a cameo in the first of the "Goal!" trilogy, alongside then Real Madrid team-mate Zinedine Zidane.

Zidane, a former World Player of the Year, was the sole star of a 2001 documentary, "Zidane: A Twentieth Century Portrait," in which his movement was closely tracked by a team of cameramen during the course of a Spanish Liga game.

And it seems that even the lure of merely appearing in your own movie isn’t enough to sate the footballing appetite for cinema, with some players starting to work behind the camera.

French international Vikash Dhorasoo released his video diary of the 2006 World Cup, "Substitute" (2007), to acclaim at the IDFA Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, documenting his frustration at being consigned to the bench during France’s run to the World Cup Final on Super-8 film.

As both the subject and director of the documentary, Dhorasoo stripped away the glamour of international tournaments, showing the boredom - and even depression - that permeates the lives of the perennial bench-warmer.

Of course, not every footballer after a film career has to make a film about football. England defenders Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand may currently have Chelsea and Manchester United’s Champions’ League campaigns to contend with, but both have signed up as executive producers on 50 Cent’s next film, "Dead Man Running," a gangster flick also starring "The Football Factory’s" Danny Dyer.

Which football movies hit the target for you? Which ones leave you as sick as a parrot?

If you want to be an innovative filmmaker these days, the best plan is to follow the crowd.

Pete Postlethwaite who plays The Archivist in Franny Armstrong's 'The Age of Stupid.'

That's exactly the revolutionary approach activist filmmaker Franny Armstrong has taken to independently fund her new part-fact, part-fiction climate change documentary, "The Age of Stupid."

"The Age of Stupid" has not been funded by banks or large media organisations like many movies, but by an innovative system which harnesses the cash of ordinary folks for a cut of the movie's profits. It is called crowd-funding and it is the first time this method has been used to fund a film in the UK.

"When we first showed our plans to our lawyer," Armstrong, who is best known for 1998 documentary "McLibel" in which a postman and a gardener take the McDonalds Corporation to court, told UK newspaper The Guardian, "he told us: 'It's the most original film funding scheme I've seen in 25 years working in the industry.'"

The premise is simple: Investors sink a minimum of £5,000 ($6,900) into production of the film and in return they get a "share" of the film's profits. Interested parties with shallower pockets can donate from £20 upwards towards the documentary.

And what do people get in return? First on the list of benefits on the film's website is the  "warm fuzzy feeling" of contributing to a worthwhile cause.

The fictional section of Armstrong's film stars Oscar-winner and Pete Postlethwaite as an archivist in a devastated future earth looking back to today asking why mankind didn't make changes when it had the chance.

It links together documentary footage of six people affected by and affecting climate change. Among them are 82-year-old French mountain guide Fernand Pareau in the Chamonix valley, where the glaciers are melting and lifelong Shell employee Alvin DuVernay, who rescued 100 people after Hurricane Katrina.

For the less romantically inclined, the returns break down like this: invest £5,000 and get 0.05 percent of profits, 0.10 percent of profits for an investment of £10,000 ($13,833) and 0.20 percent for £20,000 ($27,666) - but only if the film makes a profit. If not, the money is lost.

While some investors are wealthy, many of the investors are made up of groups of people from - there is a hockey team, a mother's group and a women's health center.

Armstrong will also keep the rights to the film for herself (the usual model is to sell the rights to a film to a distributor), which will allow anyone who logs on to the Web site and pays a small licence fee to hold a screening of the film allowing all kinds of small-scale screenings to take place in schools, church halls and other local venues.

Ultimately, Armstrong hopes that 250 million people will see her film in the run up to the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December and that she can harness the power of the crowd to force governments to take action.

Would you invest in a movie? Tell us below.

LONDON, England - So I'm sat in Screen 3 of The Curzon Soho, an artsy basement cinema in London's Soho district. We're 10 minutes into the early afternoon screening of black-and-white documentary "Of Time And The City," Terence Davies' elegiac paean to post-World War Two Liverpool. Selected to play at the Cannes Film Festival, Davies' very personal outsider memoir has been universally praised by critics, its release much anticipated by UK audiences for its use of –

Terence Davies' 'Of Time And The City' - best appreciated without annoying audience members.

And then it starts.

Creak creak. Creak creak. Creak creak.

My seat pitches back and forth. Back and forth.

I look round. A fellow audience member in the row behind has his knees buried into the back of the seat next to mine.

I stare. He stares back. He does not care.

Creak creak. Creak creak. Creak creak.

No one else is sat nearby. I'm the only person bothered. If I complain I risk disturbing the pic for everyone else. I don't want to move. Why should I?

So I simmer in silence for the next hour - and fling "Of Time And The City" into that grubby popcorn bucket marked Movie Screenings Wrecked by Someone Else In The Audience.

Poke around among the dregs of said bucket and you'll stumble on the likes of "Batman" (1989, Cardiff), when I sat next to a scarily pale woman and her scarier paler teen son. Ten minutes in and they yanked bulging carrier bags from under their seats. For the next hour they fell upon samosas, sausage rolls, crisps, orange juice cartons, meat pies, pizza slices and chicken wings like those teeny tiny dinosaurs munching on the asking-for-it IT guy in "Jurassic Park."

Then there was "Last Orders" (2001), Fred Schepisi's touching drama about loss starring Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins and Ray Winstone (sounds a tall order but Schepisi managed it). Did the audience really benefit from having a party of students among its numbers that night, only one of who could speak English - and who had to loudly translate the dialogue for the other 11?

It's not just been in the UK - take "Spider-Man 2" (2004) in a moviehouse just off Times Square. The best that New York could offer included scary-looking gang members nonchalantly sloping up and down the aisles; the background drone from two fellow tourists who mistakenly thought they had tickets for "Fiddler On The Roof"; possibly a séance going on near the emergency exit. Hey, at least the seats were comfy.

Being stuck on the subway in high summer, being handed a parking ticket first thing on a Monday – nothing, but nothing, hurts more than having a movie screening wrecked.

They're all there, sloshing around in the bucket.

"Bladerunner: The Director's Cut" (1992, constant, maybe understandable, drunken guffaws at Sean Young's performance); "The Truman Show" (1998, "dee-diddly-dee-dee-dee-diddly-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee" from a cellphone at the crucial bit when Truman's yacht crunches the horizon); "The Others" (2001, how is it physically possible for popcorn to scratch so loudly?); "Solaris" (2003, bored father with weekend custody of sugar-pumped toddlers in ponderous sci-fi drama); "Sideways" (2004, man swaying back and forth for the first half of the film, then left to right for the second half – altitude sickness maybe?); something directed by Pedro Almodovar (sometime during the last 40 years, too massively irritated by the end to recall what the movie was or where i saw it or what wound me up in the first place - just that it somehow involved cheesy nachos).

Seems I'm not the only one. A few weeks back cinema chain Vue made some of its "Quantum Of Solace" screenings adult-only in the UK in order to stop kids ruining the movie for older patrons. It's a move made from the best of intentions – but as my litany of movie misery attests, over-18s are as much to blame as children. It all comes down to a question of respect, regardless of age.

Several years ago, I thought about printing up some flyers to hand out at the end of wrecked screenings. "Thank you for ruining my enjoyment of the film" they would read at the top. "You managed to do so by..." There would then follow a checklist of common complaints with the appropriate offenses ticked.

My other half thankfully caught sight of an early draft. She pointed out that (i) it was arrogantly patronizing to grade people on their movie-watching manners; (ii) she would never go to the movies with me again (though that would avoid the usual rom-com versus zombie flick bickering); (iii) she would refuse to visit me in hospital if I was dumb enough to go ahead with the idea.

She also reminded me that I was, um, being utterly hypocritical. So...

...I'd like to apologize to anyone disturbed by a group of giggling drunken students at a late-night screening of Roman Polanski's "Bitter Moon" in the northern English city of Sheffield in 1992. I'm really, really sorry. It's just that the last 30 minutes seemed like some hybrid mutation of "The Poseidon Adventure" and "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?," with Hugh Grant slung into the sad sorry cocktail for good measure. What can I say? Drink seemed the obvious, if inexcusable, solution.

But what do you think? Should cinemagoers be more tolerant of each other's foibles? Have you any ideas for trouble-free cinema viewing? Send your comments to the usual below...

LONDON, England – Jeremiah Zagar's film, "In A Dream," recently held it's international premiere at prestigious UK documentary festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest.

"In A Dream," which took more than seven years to make is ostensibly about Zagar's father, Isaiah, a well-known mosaic artist and storyteller, but ultimately becomes a love story centred on his parents' relationship as it teeters, after 40 years, on the verge of collapse.

The film has picked up awards at SXSW Film Festival, as well as at San Francisco and Philadelphia film festivals among others.