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Friday, April 13, 2018

Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Griselda Blanco in new film " The queen of cocaine"

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Proceso article

Subject Matter: Griselda Blanco film
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The pay per view channel "Lifetime" has made a film Griselda: The Queen of Cocaine, based on the real history of Griselda Blanco, the Colombian narco trafficker, who trafficked cocaine into the United States in the seventies and eighties.


Reporter: Columba Vertiz De La Fuente
The renowned actress Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Griselda, known as La Madrina, and will be directed by none other than Guillermo Navarro, who won the Oscar for photography for Pans Labyrinth by Guillermo de Toro.

The feature film Griselda: The Queen of Cocaine premiered last Wednesday in Mexico. Griselda was an important leader of the Medellin cartel and a pioneer in cocaine drug trafficking and participated in the Cocaine Cowboys war in Miami.

Zeta-Jones said about the role:
"This is not the first time that I play a woman of Latin descent, nor is it the first time I play a woman involved in the world of drugs. As an actress, it was very difficult to embody the role of this woman, who is very different from me in many ways, not only culturally, but in terms of the decisions she makes. But I have to say that this was a project done with a lot of passion."

 "We were able to take the story of Griselda to the Lifetime screen and, while there are other Griselda projects on the horizon, which will be performed by Latinas, this woman has occupied my life out of curiosity for many years. I worked hard to get this project to be created. And I had the blessing of working with our wonderful director Guillermo Navarro and incredible actors like Juan Pablo Espinosa. "




The life of this criminal, whom many attribute to having enriched Pablo Escobar, is told through the eyes of his youngest son, Michael Corleone Blanco (that's what he called him in the novel The Godfather). In this film you can see Griselda since she was 17 years old. Then, he used a false passport to go to the United States. As a drug trafficker he used beautiful women or mules to smuggle drugs from Colombia to the United States.

Zeta-Jones plays a very convincing role.  Jenny Pellicer, who plays his lover Carolina; Juan Pablo Espinosa, Griselda's second husband, Alberto; Raúl Méndez, her third husband, Darío; Alejandro Edda, his hit man Rudy; Matteo Stefan, his son Dixon; Spencer Borgeson, his son Osvaldo; José Jillian, his son Uber, and Warren Christie, who plays DEA agent Jimmy.

According to the plot of the film, Griselda lives in Queens, New York, with her three children; She was attracted by the money offered by the world of drugs and quickly contacted local drug dealers. Griselda used beautiful women, old people and children as mules and created suitcases with false bottoms to smuggle cocaine from Colombia. Once she started earning a lot of money, her children left school and instead entered the family business.

Apparently, she was extremely close to her children, who were instrumental in helping her build her empire. At 36, Griselda already accumulated more than 100 million dollars economically, but had to fight against loneliness, insecurity and paranoia.

Later, she moved to the city of Miami, where she further expanded the cocaine empire and her second husband Alberto (Juan Pablo Espinosa) died, giving rise to her nickname: La Viuda Negra. It is said that she murdered him. Blanco's willingness to use violence against her Miami competitors caused her enemies to go out of their way to get her head, so Griselda moved to California to escape the assassination attempts and keep young Michael safe.

By 1985, La Madrina or La Viuda Negra was arrested by DEA agents at her home, detained without bail, and sentenced to more than a decade in prison, where she continued to run her cocaine business. In 2004 she was released from prison and deported to Colombia, where she was finally shot dead in the street and in broad daylight in 2012. She was executed in a type of homicide that is attributed to her having invented: "motorcycle murder".

Griselda: The Queen of Cocaine was produced by Asylum Entertainment for Lifetime with Steve Michaels, Emmy Award winner, Jonathan Koch, Joan Harrison and Alisa Tager as executive producers.



It should be noted that Guillermo Navarro (brother of the producer Bertha Navarro, who has produced several Del Toro films) has stood out in Hollywood as director of photography. In Mexico he worked with Nicolás Echevarría in Cabeza de Vaca (1991), which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Later he moved to Los Angeles, where he collaborated with directors such as Robert Rodríguez and Quentin Tarantino in films like Desperado and Four romos. With Del Toro he also worked in Hellboy. He has been the photographer of Imagining Argentina. He also directed the photography of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Night in the Museum, Miniespías and Stuart Little.


27 comments:

  1. If you guys enjoyed cocaine cowboys check out Operation Odessa. It a showtime documentary regarding some events that followed the Miami cocaine wars.

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    Replies
    1. Dope movie I like the part where tony steals the 10 million from Cali cartel

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    2. Thanks, it was good, nice hint!

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  2. Wasnt Griselda hotter than Catherine when she was younger? Seems unfair!

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    1. Nope Catherine Zeta Jones de hotter one, de get mister.

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    2. Yeah, well Griselda smoked coca paste by the Kilo, so when she was older, she looked like hell.

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    3. Is this the same Griselda movie that was on Lifetime about two months ago?

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  3. This is kind of old news. BTW the movie is cheesy and just plain awful. It has zero accuracy to it and most of it is so far away from what actually happened in real life.

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    Replies
    1. I agree it is cheesy and met the LifeTime movie criteria.

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    2. Remember, it's movie NOT a documentary so there is no focus on accuracy only entertainment.

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  4. In every aspect it was a poorly made show,can't imagine another season but anything is possible in this business.

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    Replies
    1. FACK MOVIES,
      See documentaries.

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  5. No...no she was not..

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  6. Couldn't find a latin woman to play a latina woman!
    Good old racist Hollywood!
    Maybe shawn penn can play chapo!
    or alex baldwin play bill cosby!
    Somethings never change!

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    Replies
    1. The director is Latin... she worked hard to get this role... she has played a latina involved with drugs before.... that would be the movie Traffic? Great movie by the way.... a lot of Europeans look Latin... she could pass for a South American.... and El Chapo did GET PLAYED by Sean Penn jajajajaja... I guess that was racism as well... Hollywood is the most liberal armpit on the planet and racist? Na don’t think so...

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    2. Hollywood is liberal trash how could it possibly be racist

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    3. 9:16 Yep . Some things never change . Especially people like you that rush to call racism without even knowing the facts . There are so many people walking around looking to call everything they see racism . I really don't even understand how a group could even exist if it was as prejudice as people make it out to be. I feel sorry for you because your paranoia hurts your life.

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  7. She was horrible in this flick, not even worth your time!

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  8. Rosanne would of done a better acting job

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  9. More Hollywood (or other film industry player) rubbish aimed at making money, glorifying a miserable and deadly industry.

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  10. Great more glorification for these demonds

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    Replies
    1. 1:11 only until you make something worthier that makes people spend a few millions of dollars watching.
      --How about a remake of "the Life of the Birds and the Bees?

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  11. Catherina Zeta Jones is hot, she likes tacos, de carne asada, and does look hispanHola.

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  12. John Riccobono aka John Roberts tells a funny story how he was immensly attracted to Griselda. Mind you he was used to extremly beautiful women and she was a beast. But as he said "something about a woman in her killing prime made my balls ache for her like no one else." Luckily Rafa Cordero (a psycho killer himslef who john was scared of) talked some sense into John(a Gambino family made man by the way) saying she was too dangerous for him.

    ReplyDelete

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