Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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MOVIE REVIEW Film combines drug smuggling, religious imagery in honest tale “MARIA FULL OF GRACE” A film by Joshua Marston ★★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ By D.E. McGUIRT THE GAMECOCK When Colombia, South America is mentioned around here, two things usually come to mind: drugs and coffee — in that order. Back in the days when declaring war on vague concepts rather than nations was just coming into fashion, we launched a War on Drugs, which focused (and continues to focus) on the mountainous South American nation. The goal is to squeeze out the avenues of supply that provide drugs to our nation’s six million addicts to the tune of $46 billion a year. We’ll let you know how that turns out. Joshua Marston’s “Maria Full of Grace” takes us into the trenches of the War on Drugs and introduces us to Maria, a doe-eyed teenage beauty who becomes a foot soldier for the other side. Maria (played by newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno) is from a town near Bogota and works at a flower plantation/factory where she rips thorns off rose stems all day for a supervisor who considers it a reward to let his workers go to the bathroom. Maria, hardly a shrinking violet in a world where everyone expects her to be one, quits the job, dumps the boyfriend responsible for impregnating her and finds herself in the company of a guy named Franklin who promises to help her find a good job. It turns out that Franklin is a recruiter for the cartel who trolls the suburbs of Bogota looking for girls just like Maria to work as drug-smuggling “mules”. They pay these girls money to swallow grape-sized pellets containing heroin and fly them into New York on commercial airlines. For the girls, the money is good but the risks are high. If the pellet breaks in your stomach, you die of an overdose. If customs officers get suspicious and take x-rays of your stomach, you go to prison. “Maria Full of Grace,” which ends its four-day run at the Nickelodeon Theatre today, is one of those rare movies that transcends the two-dimensional screen and takes on the appearance of life happening before your eyes. It is a film completely lacking in artifice. Andrew Sarris, the Zeus of film critics, called it the most amazing debut film he’s seen in a long time (since 1960s “Breathless,” perhaps?). You won’t find any argument here. I The suspense Marston creates during the film is tremendous, and you will find yourself extremely involved with the title character as she walks down treacherous and irreversible paths. Many scenes feature perfectly acted exchanges of dialogue that seem more authentic than scenes from documentary films. Religious overtones abound, as the film’s tide suggests. The poster for the film shows Moreno looking up as someone lowers a drug pellet onto her tongue as if it were a communion wafer. Maria’s pregnancy has a lingering presence within the plot, and she has nowhere to stay for the night in New York. Maria is a child of innocence in a guilty world. Such a role requires an actress possessing rare beauty and, well, grace. Catalina Sandino Moreno’s got both. Comments on this story? E-mailgamecockfeatnres@gwm.sc.edu PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK Catalina Sandino Moreno proves her worth with flawless acting in her debut performance as a drug mule in “Maria Full of Grace." CD REVIEW The Used get eclectic on latest release “IN LOVE AND DEATH The Used ★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ By DAVID STAGG THE GAMECOCK Somehow, The Used are always able to get away with whatever they want. To some, they’ll always be that screamo band whose lead singer vomits on stage because he screams so hard. To others, they wrote “On My Own” and some guy in the band dated Kelly Osbourne and should be written off as such. But on “In Love and Death,” the band’s third release (if you count their live CD/DVD compilation “Maybe Memories” last year), The Used continues to break molds and bones, releasing an intensely powerful, introspective look at themselves. Singer Bert McCracken has, hands down, one of the best voices ever, racing from gorgeous melody to violent scream in the same breath. And it serves him well — who better to convey the beautiful lyrics he writes? If you’re expecting another album like their self-titled release, don’t look here — although it is on the record: The opening track “Take it Away” is ridiculously furious and opens the CD perfectly. But keep listening — “Yesterday Feelings” is James Taylor on acid, “Lunacy Fringe” has a touch of Latin before moving to a beautiful chorus and exiting again to violin finger plucking. Sound eclectic? It is. It’s brilliantly eclectic. It’s a step many bands would never take. You can’t predict what the next song will be like, let alone the next minute in the same song. But what do you expect from a band whose lead singer lives on one pair of shorts and out of a suitcase? , The CD is peppered with random sounds (alarm clocks, bubbles, etc.), random squeals and interjections, and even a spoken word poem littered with obscenities. But it works. Don’t like it? They probably won’t care. “Do you want to take me on?” McCracken asks in “Lunacy Fringe.” It doesn’t matter, anyway, I guess. They’re The Used; they’ll always be able to get away with whatever they want. Comments cm this story? E-mail gamecockfeatures@girm.sc. edu New. j\'iXt SIC for tfje lveek 0j-' Sept. 27 BnanWHsop “Smile” Brian Wilson ■INTERPOLANTICS “Antics” Interpol '“Lest We Forget...” " Marilyn Manson “Hilary Duff” / 71 Hilary Duff “Mind Body Soul” f Joss Stbiie “Feels Like Today” Rascal Flatts -1 _I_ — i-; Plat Coi Gri _ 3n two, ci ?//e ':' wmMr Drayton Halt ! 8 PM ■ For more information or special assistance call 777-7130 or visit cp.sc.edu , Event subject to change. Paid by student activity fees