WCBE 90.5 FM (NPR): "Vanity Fair," "Maria Full of Grace"

WCBE #181-FINAL
“Vanity Fair”,”Maria Full of Grace”
Taped: 4:00 pm, September 1, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, September 3, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

HIT NEW THEME MUSIC (CD: “PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN” (CUT 15: “HE’S A PIRATE”), ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay
“Vanity Fair” brings back to the screen the adventurous tales of Becky Sharp . . .

John
"Maria Full of Grace” is full of acting and little praying . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak:
It's Movie Time in Mid-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Vanity Fair")
Clay, In Thackery’s “Vanity Fair,” Becky Sharp makes not a thoroughly successful social climbing journey. Director Mira Nair has a sumptuous adaptation of the novel helped or hurt by Reese Witherspoon as Becky, depending on your perception of the actress and the role she plays.

Witherspoon, who played white trash rising in “Sweet Home Alabama, “ is just right when she plays a working class daughter climbing (described in the film as more a “mountaineer”) because of Becky's facility for language, her charm, and her beauty. After that, Witherspoon is flat for me, but not her anatomy.

As might be expected from Nair, the sets and costumes are glamorous or gray, depending on the class. Her eye for period detail is so good that when the wealthy upper class is not as rich as they seem, the paint on the mansion is flaking and the clothing frayed.

Now let’s find a worthy actress to play Becky, but not Meg Ryan, please. She’s too old and does a passing Reese Witherspoon imitation already.

Clay ("Vanity Fair”)
John, in “Vanity Fair” Mira Nair has given us a lushly drawn portrait of what life was like in the drawing rooms of Regency England. The social intrigues, [the boorish behavior,] the snobbery, the host of duplicitous romances, have all been exquisitely captured [by this director] on film.

The casting of Reese Witherspoon to play Becky Sharp, must also have seemed, on the surface, to have been a thoughtful decision. She’s attractive, full of energy, and has proven in several films, as well as in this one, that she can be [strong and] determinedly defiant. So why, does she never seem quite right for the part? Because we never see in her eyes the depths of the despair that drives her.

You can see it in the eyes of Samantha Morton in Jim Sheridan’s “In America,” and you can see it in the eyes of the actress, who plays Becky Sharp as a young girl in this very same picture. Keep your eye on her eyes when they take away her father’s favorite painting. You ‘ll not see a look of such pain for the rest of the movie.

Is it the casting? The directing? The acting? If anyone knew they could make a million.

John ("Maria Full of Grace")

It's all three!

But Clay, In Catholic school we prayed the “Hail Mary, Full of Grace,” ending with “Pray for us sinners, now and forever. Amen.” In “Maria Full of Grace” for those young women “Hail Mary” seems not enough to help.

In one of the only Catholic iconographic moments, Maria ingests small bags of cocaine as if they were communion. Director Marston’s detailed eye is not so much interested in religious motifs as he is in fully detailing the characters’ lives in impoverished Colombia, the claustrophobic flight with other mules, and Maria’s gymnastics in the rest room. The scene in New York with wary customs agents is a classic of terror and cool, played with superlative understatement by Moreno.

“Midnight Express” might scare the bejesus out of you, but “Maria Full of Grace” will cure you of any desire to forget your night prayers in favor of interstate commerce.

Clay (”Maria Full of Grace")
John, “Maria Full of Grace” is one of those films that has made it to the screen despite the demands of interstate commerce. [That it has also won top awards at The Berlin and Sundance Film Festivals is further testimony that it has been blessed by god, or the devil, or both.]

Having more in common with the movie “Vanity Fair,” than you’d think is readily apparent, the plight of the impoverished Maria is not dissimilar to that of “Vanity Fair’s” Becky Sharp.

Surrounded by people leading lives of quiet despair, Maria dumps her boyfriend; faces off with her employer, and walks out her family who has treated her unfairly. Determined to escape her life of dependency, she turns to high risk crime which she hopes will enable her to flee to the U.S. where she hopes she can eventually discover a better way of living

An intensely powerful film, brilliantly acted, and sensitively directed, “Maria Full of Grace” will most certainly touch deeply those who go to the movies to find more than escape.

But, enough of these homiletic pronouncements, it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Vanity Fair" earns a "B" BECAUSE I YEARN for a BETTER BECKY . . . .

Clay
"Vanity Fair” gets a “B” because Scarlett O’Hara owes her persona to Becky Sharp . . .

John
"Maria Full of Grace" earns an "A" for an ACTRESS truly climbing . .

Clay
"Maria Full of Grace” gets an “A” because this has been a great year for ALTERNATIVE filmmakers . . .

John
Clay, Do you think my Russian interpreter is social climbing by hanging out with me or should she take up smuggling?

Clay

John, that depends on how much she’s willing to swallow.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC

Richelle:

The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe