What we have here is a dynamite premise fumbled in the execution. BRIGHTBURN gives us a strange visitor from another planet crashing to Earth as a baby and taken in by a good-hearted, infertile farm couple (Elizabeth Banks, David Denman) in the midst of baby fever. As with that other story of an infant from… Read More »
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
As the documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS opens, Bobby Shafran, one of the eponymous strangers, notes that the story he’s about to tell is unbelievable. And it is. But the way that Tim Wardle’s dark meditation on good intentions gone very wrong unfolds, the story of how the three identical triplets separated at birth found each other at the age of 19, is the least of it.
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS — Tim Wardle Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. Click here for the KMR review of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS. Almost the first thing I said to Tim Wardle when we spoke on April 8, 2018, was that my greatest hope for the interview was that we wouldn’t give too much away. I hope we succeeded. His documentary, THREE IDENTICAL… Read More »
KUNG FU PANDA 3
One of the things that makes Po, the eponymous hero of the animated Kung Fu Panda franchise, so endearing is that he doesn’t take his skills in stride. As voiced once again by the excitable gravel that is Jack Black’s speaking instrument, Po takes a childlike delight in being able to defy gravity and dispatch… Read More »
DAUGHTER FROM DANANG
Gail Dolgin and Franco Vicente’s heartrending documentary DAUGHTER FROM DANANG shows not only the long-term effects of the Vietnam War in very personal terms, but also looks at how fragile the bonds of blood and family can be. Both insights are disturbing, but in the able hands of these filmmakers, the story of one family’s… Read More »
Gail Dolgin & Vincente Franco Introduce Us to the DAUGHTER FROM DANANG
There are moments in Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco’s superb documentary DAUGHTER FROM DANANG that are like kicks in the gut. As we watch American homemaker Heidi Bub, who left her homeland in the Vietnamese baby lift 22 years earlier, visit a family who are strangers to her, the emotions are so overpowering and the subjects are… Read More »