Significant stellar gambits

CASTRO. Unusually daunting singing assignment.

ONLY a year ago, we found the local show biz scene rather lacking in truly exciting developments, with too many stars just coasting along between really attention-calling projects. This season, however, we note a “leveling up” intensity that is upping the ante in terms of stellar competition.

This indicates that more stars aren’t taking their hard-won popularity for granted, and have realized what we’ve been saying all this time, that the competition has become so fierce that they can’t afford to relax—because their rivals are working extra hard and overtime to dislodge them from their “thrones.”

That key lesson has been learned, so we’re happy to see that these significant stellar gambits have energized the show biz scene:

New “maindie” movies are being produced and screened one after another—the latest being “Love Me Tomorrow,” starring Dawn Zulueta, Piolo Pascual and Coleen Garcia.

It comes hot on the heels of other new stellar showcases for the big screen like “This Time” for James Reid and Nadine Lustre, “My Candidate” for Derek Ramsay and Shaina Magdayao, and “Just the 3 of Us” for John Lloyd Cruz and Jennylyn Mercado.

In addition, a new film for Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo has just been announced, Olivia Lamasan directing—and Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza are currently shooting a film in Italy for showing in July, the first anniversary of their AlDub love team.

On TV, things are even more eventful, with Marian Rivera launching her daily show, “Yan ang Morning,” Anne Curtis hosting the new singing tilt, “We Love OPM,” and Sharon Cuneta joining the panel of judges on the new season of “The Voice Kids.”

ZULUETA, PASCUAL AND GARCIA. Topbill “Love Me Tomorrow.”

Only on Philippine TV

We’ve watched television shows all over the world, from the sublime to the quirky—so, we can vouch for our sometimes amazing and otherwise confounding local practices and products. —Only on Philippine TV, indeed!

Our latest entry in this intriguingly idiosyncratic category comes courtesy of a telecast of “Eat Bulaga’s” “Just Duet” singing tilt, in which name singers agree to sing with gifted but relative “unknowns.”

The unique concept and format has clicked with viewers, because it “forces” contestants to do their utmost to keep up with their much more experienced stellar singing partners!

Recently, however, when the tilt geared up for its final round, we caught a telecast with Ima Castro as the stellar guest for the day that made us sit up and watch—slack-jawed.

What threw us for a loop was the fact that Ima was tasked to sing serially with not one, not two—but three semifinalists, one after another!
To make the unusual singing assignment even more daunting for Ima, each of the songs she “cosang” was a vocally challenging, “buwis-buhay” showstopper, along the lines of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”

That iconic vocal anthem from “Dreamgirls” is tough enough to pull off all by itself. Multiply its requirements thrice, and you get a clearer idea of what Ima was required to pull off!

To her credit, Ima did “survive” the assignment without landing in the hospital or losing her singing voice permanently!

But, it was still an ill-advised requirement, so we were glad to see it discontinued in subsequent telecasts, before the popular tilt was concluded.
Of course, Ima was more than up to the challenge, having done more than her share of stage musicals both here and abroad. But, let’s be kind to our vocal cords and not get carried away, shall we?

Boy soldiers

Last Saturday’s “Maala-ala Mo Kaya?” episode veered away from the long-running dramatic anthology show’s usual focus on personal and family conflicts, and instead dramatized a topical theme and issue—the use of youths as juvenile armed combatants in Mindanao.

The episode on “boy soldiers” was a controversial choice of material, but we welcomed it, because it helped make the show more relevant and significant. To its credit, the episode, directed by Nick Olanka, was able to realistically and believably transport viewers to a war-torn locality in Mindanao, where a rebel band led by a tough and uncompromising character played by Victor Neri engaged in guerrilla raids and skirmishes with military forces, for various motives and reasons.

The episode’s youthful protagonist was a boy (Izzy Canillo) who had been separated from his parents and was forced to live in the drama’s remote setting with his grandfather (Pen Medina).

The lolo did his best to keep the boy and his even younger brother safe, but the lure of danger and excitement made his grandson covertly undergo training with other boy soldiers, until they were ready to actually undertake raids and other antimilitary initiatives.

The conflict’s rebel and guerrilla connotations imposed unduly rigorous demands on the production and its young cast, including quite a number of action and battle scenes.

Gunbattles are difficult to stage and pull off believably, but the production passed muster, and its young actors were similarly credible as scruffy but determined young combatants.

We hope that enough viewers related to and got involved in the unusually realistic and topical drama’s antiwar theme, and have thus proven that they’re open to other “engaged” topics and issues—beyond the usual love and medical melodramas!