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'Babies' Doc Building Buzz
Posted: February 9, 2010 View Profile Login to Comment
This just in: babies are adorable.

The buzz around the nearly dialogue-free documentary Babies, which follows four newborns in four corners of the world for the first few months of their cute lives is building louder than, well, a baby's hungry cry.

The trailer was first seen last fall, and even had cranky bloggers like Andy Dehnart of Reality Blurred stating: "I’m not that fond of babies, especially the way some adults respond to them, especially if they’re sitting one row behind me on a five-hour flight, but this documentary looks fascinating."

A recent piece in USA Today proclaimed "Parents, movie fans are cooing over Babies documentary" and spotlighted not only the director (French documentarian Thomas Balmes, father of three), but the babies also in separate pieces.

James Schamus, the head of Focus Features which is releasing the film, said in the article: "It is 80 minutes of jaw-dropping wonder. The great thing about babies is you can never direct them. They never do something fake."

You'll have to wait until the movie's release date of April 16 to be the judge of that. Until then, the trailer will have to pacify your cravings for cuteness.

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Thomas Balmes and Focus Features documentary, exhibits 4 infants in 4 different cultures during the entire first year of their life. The documentary is mostly just video footage with music, but one of the babies was filmed in California. The movie, Babies, selected a San Francisco mother and child as one of the 4 babies. Thomas Balmes might face charges that he violated the child labor laws of California. One specifically cited is; that babies can only be filmed for 20 minutes each day, have a nurse present, and more stipulations. Balmes' defense is he filmed the kids within their natural environment, not as baby actors. I understand these laws are to protect children but seriously, are we planning to press charges on every mom that videos her child's soccer game for an hour and posts it on their website for the planet to see?