Nash Film Fest 2020 Recap: Part 4

THE DONUT KING

First off, if you don’t like donuts, you’re not American. Secondly, this splendid and interesting documentary will have you craving donuts. Lastly, delicious donuts can assist in achieving the American dream. No one knows that better than Ted Ngoy. As a Cambodian refugee, Ngoy comes to California and knows how to run a register and educates himself on how to bake. As him and his family start to sponsor more families from his country, one donut shop becomes over 70 with stacks of prominent pink boxes instituted by Ngoy in all of them. From the 1980s and on, the Cambodian community dominates the donut industry in Southern Cali.

It’s not all glazed, jelly, and sprinkled as the personal life of Ngoy comes to light, where wealth grew into a gambling addiction that put his family and all he’s worked towards at huge risk. His American dream changed and saved a lot of lives – including his own. With that said, the king is not immune to becoming his own worst nightmare. Ngoy’s mythic status is chipped away little by little throughout co-writer/director Alice Gu’s story of survival, perseverance and redemption. It’s unyieldingly candid and very much rewarding.

THE MYSTERY OF D.B. COOPER

Whether you know the story or not, this fantastic and consuming documentary will fascinate to the outright fullest. In the only unsolved hijacking case in the history of commercial flying – a man named Dan Cooper (with a bomb in his briefcase) hijacked a plane the day before Thanksgiving in 1971 that was going from Portland to Seattle, demanding $200,000 and four parachutes. After he gets what he wants, the passengers are set free and he forces the pilots and a flight attendant to head towards Mexico. Cooper never makes it there though. At 10,000 feet, he jumps out to never be seen again. Did he die? Did he survive?

Writer-director John Dower’s wonderfully well-shaped exploration of who the hell this guy could have been focuses on four separate lives he may have lived. And for those who were apart of them undoubtedly believe it was Cooper. Was he convicted skyjacker Richard F. McCoy Jr.? Was he someone’s uncle or husband? Could he have transformed into a woman named Barb Dayton?

These are all possibilities with exceptional evidence backing up every single one in sounding true. Each of their accounts make it impossible to not be incredibly intrigued, only adding to the great mystery of Cooper actually getting away with it. When it’s all said and done, this will make believers out of us all. Followed by guessing and second guessing yourself in the unraveling of who the real Cooper was. That’s part of what makes this so fun to watch.

Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.