Moura, Wagner

Subterms

    Latest story

    188 Shares66 Views

    Last Year’s Cannes Winners Won Big at Oscars. Can the 2025 Crop Do the Same?

    by

    The most likely movies to grab academy voters are “Un Simple Accident,” “Sentimental Value” and “Nouvelle Vague.” But none are primarily in English.Awards strategists used to be wary of the Cannes Film Festival, claiming it came too early in the calendar to launch a lasting Oscar campaign.They don’t say that anymore.The last two editions of Cannes have proved to be a veritable gold rush, producing three best-picture nominees each. The 2024 festival proved particularly fruitful, as films that premiered at Cannes — including “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance,” “Flow” and the eventual best-picture winner, “Anora” — won a combined nine Oscars.But this year’s crop of Cannes contenders may have a harder time hitting those highs. The three films with the strongest best-picture potential are all primarily in a language other than English, and the academy has never nominated more than two such films in a single year for the top Oscar. Still, as the academy grows ever more global, it’s possible all three could break through.The first big contender is Jafar Panahi’s “Un Simple Accident,” a taut moral drama about former Iranian prisoners who believe they’ve tracked down their old torturer. The winner of the Palme d’Or, “Un Simple Accident” is the most accessible movie yet from Panahi, a dissident filmmaker who has twice been imprisoned by Iranian authorities. And like the last five Palme winners, the film will be distributed by Neon, which has a track record of steering them to Oscar glory.Only one thing gives me pause. Neon also handled last year’s Cannes entry “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which had a similar back story: It, too, was directed in secret by an Iranian dissident, though even with that compelling narrative, it couldn’t muster more than an international-film nomination. Hopefully, Panahi’s Palme win will nudge Neon to campaign even harder for “Un Simple Accident,” which could factor into the picture and director categories with the right push.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      ‘Long Bright River’ and ‘Dope Thief’: Drugs and Murder in Philly

      by

      “Long Bright River,” on Peacock, and “Dope Thief,” on Apple TV+, set stories of drugs, murder and broken families on the mean streets of Philadelphia.After New York and Los Angeles, what is the third city of American crime drama? Boston, Chicago and San Francisco can all make claims, and many might choose Baltimore for “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “The Wire.” But lately, another city has been moving up the charts: Philadelphia is suddenly a hot location for moody stories about drugs and murder.In the mini-series “Long Bright River,” premiering as a binge watch on Thursday on Peacock, and “Dope Thief,” beginning Friday on Apple TV+, Philadelphia is the postindustrial crucible — vibrant but violent, caring but crime-ridden — for tales of working-class heroes doing battle with criminal forces. The shows follow HBO’s 2021 hit “Mare of Easttown” and precede another HBO law-enforcement drama, “Task,” that will feature F.B.I. agents in suburban Philadelphia. (And you can throw in the Hulu comedy “Deli Boys,” about a crime ring based in Philadelphia-area convenience stores.)The stars of the two new shows, Amanda Seyfried and Brian Tyree Henry, play people who are categorically different on the surface but, for dramatic purposes, could almost be the same character. Seyfried’s Mickey Fitzpatrick in “Long Bright River” is a cop who’s protective of the prostitutes on her beat; Henry’s Ray Driscoll in “Dope Thief” is an ex-con who robs drug houses by pretending to be a federal agent.Under the surface, though, the two natives of northern Philadelphia are haunted by similar family traumas, seen in copious flashbacks (fathers figure heavily). And as a result each is in need of redemption and transformation, which is the real through line of each series.They get there in very dissimilar ways, however. “Long Bright River,” which plays like a companion piece to the heavy-going “Mare of Easttown,” is a family soap opera onto which a procedural serial-killer mystery has been grafted. “Dope Thief” is a hyperbolic, postmodern thriller in the guise of a hard-boiled mystery. Personal taste may largely determine which one you respond to, but here’s a tip: If humor counts for anything, then “Dope Thief,” which consistently cuts its angst and violence with reasonably clever, farcical comedy, is the much better use of eight hours.In “Long Bright River,” Mickey is a single mother with a preternaturally precocious 8-year-old, Thomas (the very charming Callum Vinson); her only family support, if you can call it that, comes from her abrasive grandfather (John Doman). When women on her beat begin to turn up dead at the same time that her estranged sister, Kacey (Ashleigh Cummings), goes missing, Mickey starts her own off-the-books investigation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Marighella’ Review: Battle for Brazil

      by

      Wagner Moura’s provocative feature debut chronicles the armed struggle led by Carlos Marighella against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s.In 2018, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro declared that he wanted “a Brazil similar to the one we had 40, 50 years ago”— referring to the era of the country’s military dictatorship, which saw violent censorship and the torture of dissidents.This contemporary context underlines the barreling urgency of “Marighella.” Directed by Wagner Moura (the star of Netflix’s “Narcos”), the film chronicles the final years of Carlos Marighella, a Marxist revolutionary who led an armed struggle against the dictatorship in the 1960s. With a rousing, kinetic style reminiscent of “The Battle of Algiers,” and confrontational close-ups of fiery eyes and faces, the film is not merely a historical biopic — it’s a provocation.And a riveting one, too. Seu Jorge plays the charismatic Marighella, whom we meet as he leads a group of younger radicals in robbing a train carrying weapons. In flashback, we learn that Marighella was expelled from the Communist Party for his uncompromising commitment to guerrilla warfare. “An eye for an eye” is his cell’s motto, invoked throughout the film.The group struggles to balance itself on the razor’s edge of that phrase. “Marighella” plows stylishly through heists, showdowns and increasingly bloody shootouts, with the sadistic cop Lúcio (Bruno Gagliasso) on the militants’ tail. Yet the script makes room for wit as well as meaty ideological debate, delivered in crisp bullets of dialogue by a uniformly solid cast.“I’m your comrade,” Marighella’s wife, Clara (Adriana Esteves), says to him. “But don’t make me your accomplice. Don’t ask me for permission to leave here and die.” As the tragedies mount, Moura’s film becomes an elegy — not so much to Marighella as to an idealism consumed by the pyrrhic games of dirty regimes.MarighellaNot rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More