Catalina Sandino Moreno Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Ballerina
(2025)

Director – Len Wiseman – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 125m

*****

A young, female assassin seeks out the man behind the organisation that killed her father – John Wick franchise spin-off is out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 6th

While the Bond movie No Time To Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021) divided viewers, there seemed to be a widespread consensus that Ana de Armas’ scene as a kickboxing 007 sidekick was something special, crying out for her to be given her own action film. In the interim, the actress’ high profile career has burgeoned – her portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (Andrew Dominik, 2002) proved that she can act just as well as she can do stunt action.

Meanwhile, writer Shay Hatten’s spec screenplay about a ballerina bent on revenge found its way to John Wick franchise originator and director Chad Stahelski, who thought it might fit into John Wick’s world. As they worked out exactly where that might be, Hatten was put to work on the scripts for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023). It was eventually decided that the events in Ballerina would take place at the same time as those in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and an early scene has John Wick (Keanu Reeves) passing on a staircase in the Ruska Roma Ballet School in New York.… Read the rest

Maria Full of Grace

Director – Joshua Marston – 2004 – US, Colombia – Cert. 15 – 101m

Reviewed for Third Way magazine to coincide with UK release date 25/03/2004.

Life’s options are limited for 17-year-old Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno). She would rather climb old ruined buildings in the open air than succumb to her parochially-minded boyfriend’s constant demands for sex, but that doesn’t stop him getting her pregnant. When he offers to marry her for no other reason than because that’s what you’re supposed to do; she dumps him. She hasn’t told anyone else about this yet. Warned she can’t use the lavatory on work time by the foreman at the rose-stripping factory where both she and her best friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) works, she quits. She’s also fed up with being asked to contribute money to support her sister’s baby. What’s a good Catholic, Columbian girl to do? She visits the church to pray about it.

Travelling to Bogotá ostensibly in pursuit of a possible lead on work as a maid, Maria runs into carefree, leather-jacketed Franklin (Jhon Alex Toro) and the word “mule”. Suckered in by his confidence and the promise of $5 000, she agrees to bodily transport Heroin pellets to the US despite the terrible stories she’s heard of people being arrested for the offence.… Read the rest