TV-film standouts this month

CURTIS. Lowering acceptable musical standards?

The entertainment world is a constantly eventful, “happening” scene, but some standouts manage to call special attention to themselves. This month, they are paced by Anne Curtis, whose new teleserye, “Dyesebel,” is both literally and figuratively making waves on the electronic TV aquarium!

The latest version of the iconic drama series (launched way back in the 1950s by Gerry de Leon’s movie starring Edna Luna) is expected to figure heavily in the ratings due to its particularly strong “star value”: Aside from Anne, it topbills Gerald Anderson and Sam Milby, and also boasts of a top-level supporting cast.

On the other hand, it was preceded last month by the start of another show about mermaids, GMA 7’s “Kambal Sirena,” the advance publicity for which boasted that it has twice the “mermaid value” of the competition!

In the light of that rather cheeky boast, you can bet that “Dyesebel” fully aims to best the GMA show in the ratings, to teach it to compete in a less “supercilous” fashion. After all, “Dyesebel” has Anne Curtis topbilling, while “Kambal Sirena” has—Louise de los Reyes? —That has a less resonant stellar ring to it, doesn’t it?

While Anne is flying high by way of her new TV series and her “Anne-bisosya” concert performances these days, some people are raining on her parade by criticizing her for “daring” to sing when she doesn’t really have the pipes for it.

Limitations

Anne protests that she is fully aware of her musical limitations, but her “singing” is more of the novelty and comedic sort, so people shouldn’t take it seriously—it’s just a funny lark, promise!

But, some well-known singers still rap her for “making fun” of their profession, and for lowering acceptable musical standards in these parts.

If more professional singers join those who find Anne’s “spoof” singing not funny at all, she may have to take more serious stock of this pretty mess she’s painted herself into. Moral of the story: Don’t poke fun at other performers’ craft and art, even if it’s with “patay-malisya” ditziness!

PARAS. Appears to have “personality plus” going for him

Andre Paras

Starlets in general and show biz progeny in particular are a dime a dozen on the local performing scene, but new teen fave Andre Paras, scion of comedian Benjie, bids fair to end up as one of the few newbies to go the distance, not just because he looks good, but also due to the fact that he appears to have “personality plus” going for him, as well.

A recent guest appearance on TV indicated this, so hopes are high that Andre will in fact turn out to have what it takes to attain show biz stardom when his big break comes—hopefully, before the year ends.

To be sure, this is by no means a sure thing. Some seasons ago, the scion of Rudy Fernandez and Lorna Tolentino, Renz, did well in a TV drama showcase, so we felt confident that he was stardom-bound. To date, however, he has yet to really make it—so, the even newer and younger Andre has to really do his level best to prove his prescient boosters, us included, right!

Other promising newbies

Aside from Andre, other new talents who are coming on strong this season include Julia Barretto, Andrea Brillantes and Meg Imperial.

Andrea has just wrapped up work on her long-running teleserye, “Anna Liza,” and did so well in it that she should be cast in a new show

real soon.

For her part, Julia has been given a new teleserye of her own, “Mirabella,” in which she portrays an unfortunate girl who has a literally “wooden” countenance. Here’s hoping she can make thespic sense of her character’s unusual and even weird problem!

Finally, Meg impressed us months ago with her fine, spirited and insightful portrayal in Jericho Rosales’ recent film starrer, so we’ve been wanting to see her on the big or small screen again. Well, it looks like we don’t have to wait all that long for that to happen: Meg is one of the lead players in the “adult” drama series, “Moon of Desire.”

We hope that the new show’s “sensuous” undertones won’t be too much of a distraction, and that Meg’s obviously superior talent and charisma will convincingly shine through!