Taking a cue from the genre-melding impulse of the music at its heart, They Shot the Piano Player initially gives every appearance of being pure fiction. The plot of this animated film by Spanish directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba follows Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), a journalist from New York City who’s been commissioned to write a book on bossa nova. Immersing himself in the music in preparation for a trip to Rio de Janeiro, he hears a solo by Brazilian jazz pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. and gets sidetracked. The innovator of samba jazz, it turns out, disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Buenos Aires just before the 1976 military coup, and Jeff decides to fill in the blanks.
The setup, then, has all the trappings of a detective story, with an amateur sleuth in obsessive pursuit of an unsolved mystery. In Rio, Jeff’s friend João (Tony Ramos...
The setup, then, has all the trappings of a detective story, with an amateur sleuth in obsessive pursuit of an unsolved mystery. In Rio, Jeff’s friend João (Tony Ramos...
- 11/20/2023
- by William Repass
- Slant Magazine
Last Friday I spent the hours from 4:00 Pm to 11:30 Pm watching three movies at Seattle's Neptune Theatre as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. The films included Spain's 2009 Foreign Language Oscar submission The Dancer and the Thief, Alejandro Amenabar's recently released Agora and Neil Marshall's forthcoming 2nd century actioner Centurion.
Following the long day of movies I posted on my Twitter account the following, "Today's Seattle Film Festival triple-feature: The Dancer and the Thief (C+), Agora (C) and Centurion (B+)." However, my opinion on the first two mentioned has since changed a bit.
First off, The Dancer and the Thief...
The Dancer and the Thief
Anyone that saw last year's Oscar-winning The Secret in the Thier Eyes will recognize Ricardo Darin here as Nicolas Vergara Grey, a thief whose face is as recognizable as any celebrity in Chile and he has just been pardoned by...
Following the long day of movies I posted on my Twitter account the following, "Today's Seattle Film Festival triple-feature: The Dancer and the Thief (C+), Agora (C) and Centurion (B+)." However, my opinion on the first two mentioned has since changed a bit.
First off, The Dancer and the Thief...
The Dancer and the Thief
Anyone that saw last year's Oscar-winning The Secret in the Thier Eyes will recognize Ricardo Darin here as Nicolas Vergara Grey, a thief whose face is as recognizable as any celebrity in Chile and he has just been pardoned by...
- 6/8/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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