PRESS
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
One of the new sections at this year's LA Film Fest is called LA Muse, centering on films with a Los Angeles flavor. Most of the movies in the section are narrative features, but one documentary, Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey, stands out as one of the best films showcased in the entire festival.
AIN’T IT COOL NEWS
Forget about the fact that he's performed for 5 sitting U.S. presidents, and audiences in all 50 states. He's inhabited an individual role for over half a century. Not only that, but at 88 years old, he shows no signs of stopping. As his assistant says, "If he stops, he'll probably die."
THE HUFFINGTON POST
Long after the show has ended, the make-up has been removed, and the audience has gone home to get into their pajamas, likely still contemplating what they witnessed on the stage, Holbrook is making notes about the evening, documenting the crowd’s reaction, deciding what worked and what didn’t. This aspect of the documentary invites us along as stagehands, fans, and journalists. We become part of the act, and it is intimate. But it is not all.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Mark Twain gets me out of the bed in the morning," said Holbrook, 89, who performs as Twain about 20 times a year. "He literally fires me up. I don't have to fire myself up, all I have to do is lay there and think about what's going on in my country and the world and run over some Twain I am going to do."
PASTE MAGAZINE
Whether the audience is intimately familiar with Holbrook’s show or finds themselves learning about it for the first time, the film offers an engaging portrayal of an artist’s devotion to his craft or, as Teems described it in his pre-screening comments, the story of “a man who had a calling.”
THE TELEGRAPH
THE WASHINGTON POST
Viewers expecting a bland, folksy portrait of two beloved American icons fusing in Holbrook’s one-man performance instead were treated to several of Twain’s stinging, occasionally cynical, barbs directed at mendacious and hypocritical politicians.