The week that was

Carla Abellana

Everybody was surprised when at the final part of GMA’s trade show at the A. Venue Mall, a 20-year-old lass was introduced. What was interesting about this beautiful young model,who graduated from De La Salle University, is that she’s going to do the remake of Mexican telenovela, Rosalinda. Another fascinating fact: She is the daughter of 80’s heartthrob Rey ‘PJ’ Abellana.

Reports last year said that the project is specially prepared for Marian Rivera so the announcement came to be a big surprise. It actually made good impressions because it implies that GMA is keen to discovering new artists and eager to give equal opportunities to its stars. We hope it was the same thing they did with Zorro. They conducted an audition attended by newbies just to get known artist to play the lead roles.

TNS

Taylor Nelson Sofres is one of the world’s biggest market research and market information group. Like AGB Neilsen, TNS also specializes in broadcast media by providing ratings for television. As AGB being marred with controversies, more people, and media outfits are beginning to take notice of the service TNS provides.

If you are going to check television ratings in the internet, the source used to indicate AGB Neilsen, now, another table is being shown taken from a different source, which is the TNS.

What’s interesting about TNS is that it reflects the ratings provided by AGB Neilsen’s Nationwide Urban Television Audience Measurement (NUTAM) that covers 95% of urban areas in the country. Meaning, broadcast giant ABSCBN leads the ratings game among urban cities. There is only one question that we would like to raise: Do we now have more credible ratings or we are just given another chart that would later be questioned?

May Bukas Pa

The title itself simply entails hope and faith: hope that ABSCBN shows could still post higher ratings and faith for the audience that they could still watch wholesome programs on primetime TV.

May Bukas Pa debuts with an outstanding 26.4 percent viewership in Mega Manila. In a survey conducted by TNS, it leads the primetime raise with 36.9 percent rating.

Child actor Zaijan Jaranilla is definitely a treat to everyone for he doesn’t just get the attention of very young age group, grownups also take notice of this boy. Truly, hope and faith also come in small packages, literally.

Ang Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang (ABHSAT)

Gone are the days when Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes tandem sees a 40 or 50 plus ratings in Greater Metro Manila area. Their first television appearance as onscreen couple was in phenomenal series Marimar, it generated a milestone rating for GMA network with 52.6 percent. Meanwhile, their second outing as a love team was seen on Dyesebel. The fantasy series premiered with 44.6 percent viewership.

As  Marian and Dingdong mark their third team-up, ABHSAT got a disappointing rating of 32.9 percent for its pilot episode and we can see a trend as their newest series showcases more intimate scenes which are not advised to be viewed by young audiences.

Queeriosity International Film Festival (QIFF)

Queer plus curiosity and you get queeriosity. But mind these people who are behind the first ever QIFF that their bold move to push sleazy gay films to a higher ground is such an absurd idea. It is a milestone for a very small market to come up with a festival if the films they have to offer are worth watching for, but looking at the lineup of films to be screened (aside from Jay and Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros), we can’t help but just sigh while scratching our heads.

Instead of staging this festival, which is not really of international standard, why don’t they just channel their energies and money in creating sensible and exceptional gay films? Do we still have to say that these independent filmmakers have to learn from Gus Vant Sant who directed the gay milk Milk that is up for eight Oscar nods?

KC Concepcion

The country’s flag bearer on the campaign against hunger is usually absent whenever there’s an important event concerning the program. KC was appointed to be the face of UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in the country, but during the recent turnover of donation from a popular restaurant chain, the young actress was a no show. It was not the only time that Sharon Cuneta’s daughter didn’t appear on the event organized by the WFP.

It’s so funny that during the photo shoot of the promotional ads in Mindanao and another international event like the one held in Hong Kong , KC was able to show off her presence. She snubs small occasions and simply reasons out that she is confronted by tight schedule as if she’s the only person in the world who is busy.

Twilight…Camera…Action

By Lil Kitty

Riding on the mammoth success of the movie Twilight, ABSCBN, according to reports, paid a whooping $ 1 million for the exclusive rights to turn the romantic-fantasy film into a television series. Although the broadcasting giant has denied the report, rants and raves already had circulated around internet forums and blogosphere. Even famous Hollywood blogger Perez Hilton featured the report in his blog.

Hilton’s post was flooded by raging comments (8,000 negative comments) from American Twilight fanatics. One comment there said that he’s a Filipino but he feels ashamed because he believes that ABSCBN will just do a ridiculous remake.  After negative feedbacks, the link on ABSCBN News Online Beta, where the report came from, was permanently removed. It only means that Takipsilim that was supposed to headline  Shaina Magdayao and Rayver Cruz as the lead stars is just a hoax.

Meanwhile, former beauty queen Carlene Aguilar was spotted wet.

Mama wants to get hotter so she bares her skin like what those voluptuous single ladies do. Because she thinks she’s sizzling, she dips her self in a glass water tank to see that mama can still look awesome even wet for hours.

Carlene welcomes the readers of a male magazine with her statuesque figure in a wet fashion. According to the former lover of Dennis Trillo, hotness should not stop at motherhood so she makes a bold statement by posing in a two-piece bikini believing that people will get notice of her once again.

If you’ve noticed Carlene’s bold move, we have something to tell  that might give you another reason why you should not allow your children to watch Wowowee.

Willie Revillame’s noontime show is assigning a new meaning to the word smile. We don’t know if the script writers of the show and or even the hosts had visited their dictionary lately. Maybe it is just their numskulled idea to promote the new tagline of Coke. In a segment sponsored by the product, people in the audience are asked to give their most beautiful smiles. What makes it noticeable hilarious and then irritating is when Willie asks the sound engineer to stop the background music to give way to a laugh that supposed to be just a grin.

“Out music, okay smile,” Willie would say giving the microphone to the lucky audience who sometimes lacks teeth on his gum. “Smile ‘yung may tunog,” and the word massacre continue.

Aurora’s Cul de sac

By Lil Kitty

Before the word flawless was ever used by derm clinics and Angelica Jones, Rosanna Roces became famous using the word to describe her skin.

After several years of hiatus, she is making a comeback. Her reappearance however is  not a  grand return via a big movie from an established film outfit. She has this indie flick called Aurora where she plays a role of a social worker kidnapped by some rebels. While in the hands of her enemy, she is raped in the middle of the forest.

While director Adolf Alix stands by his cut of the film, for the second time the received an X rating from MTRCB because of the long rape scene deemed by the classification board too explicit for public viewing.  Maybe the actors and the director are missing the whole point, if they wanted a scene like that, why didn’t they go underground and produced a pornographic flick?

Since Osang’s film is still in limbo, let’s just go to Cul de sac (Dead End).

The title of Sam Milby’s latest offering is the perfect innuendo to his venture to indie movies. Apart from the fact that indies don’t have a real market except some students and gays looking for porn-style movies, Cul de sac is too mainstream floating in the muck of indie flicks. In fact Sam plays a character neither he comprehends nor his audience. His fans are not yet ready to see him rough and rugged most especially in a low budgeted feature.

According to the director of the movie, there’s really no “dead end” because one can do a “U-turn,” and Sam might as well do just that.