Stars in the news

VALENCIANO. “Negative” characters are needed to provide the contrast that’s necessary for goodness to convincingly shine through.

Fans of Gary Valenciano are joining him in gratefully marking his 30th year in show business. Despite the passing of the decades, Gary V has retained his relatively youthful aura and energy.

In addition, he’s been trying to engage in new endeavors to stretch his abilities, like playing a major role in the “I Do Bidoo Bidoo” indie film musical “soundtracking” the songs of the Apo.

What’s up next for Gary? He should think of writing a book on his medical challenges, to inspire young people to deal with similar crises of their own. He could also compose songs for an original Filipino musical. —So many new life and career adventures to learn from!

In the field of acting, Gary would do well to get over his notion that he shouldn’t play negative roles, for fear of disappointing his followers and co-believers.

As other prayerful artists have discovered, “negative” characters are needed to provide the contrast that’s necessary for goodness to convincingly shine through.

Wake-up call

The country’s artists usually feel detached from the elections, but this year should be an exception. Some artists have pointed out that politicians’ general disinterest and even disdain for artistic issues and concerns is partly our fault, because we haven’t used our collective clout and force at the polls to push for needed reforms.

The fact that the Supreme Court is blithely taking years to weigh in on the issue of undeserving “National Artists” should be a wake-up call for the country’s artists to pressure the government to recognize the importance of culture and the arts in the nation’s life.

ACUÑA. Outstanding actors shouldn’t be used in a spendthrift manner.

One way to do this is to collectively boost the electoral bids of some national and local candidates who are supportive of the arts.

For instance, Loren Legarda has been interested in promoting Filipino arts and culture for years. The fact that Koko Pimentel’s parents, Nene and Bing Pimentel, are both artists (he’s a writer, she’s a composer) has made him and his siblings supportive of artistic endeavors. And Grace Poe’s MTRCB experience has made her more aware than most of the value of creative, responsible and child-friendly television.

In local polls, performing artists Lou Veloso and Alfred Vargas have both won acclaim and care deeply about art issues, so they should similarly be supported by their areas’ artistic communities.

It’s time to elect officials who know the value of the arts and culture in helping the Filipino come into the full fruition of his talents, involvements and potentialities!

Richard’s new gambit

Richard Gutierrez’s new action-drama TV series, “Love & Lies,” fully intends to energize and toughen up his stellar image, which has been too nice and bland to be exciting.

The “maturing” actor plays a naval officer who’s known for his courage under fire. Well, he needs all of the guts and savvy he can come up with, because smugglers incensed at being foiled by him kidnap his young wife (Michelle Madrigal).

So, right off the bat, Richard’s character is placed in combat mode, with a strong personal involvement to further heat up the emotional action—a nice try all around.

Unfortunately, the gambit to energize Richard’s performing image is not yet sufficiently successful because, despite the show’s best and most rigorous efforts, his portrayal thus far isn’t charged and “physically committed” enough.

GUTIERREZ. Portrays a naval officer who’s known for his courage under fire

Yes, he may get the action moves and “choreography” down pat, but he’s still relatively too laid-back and bland to make his fight scenes rise to an appropriately feisty climax.

To be sure, Richard isn’t the only action-drama star to come up with an “underwhelming” performance on the tube these days. Even Bong Revilla on “Indio” is physically and emotively too laid-back to be truly exciting. —So, up the action ante, guys!

Gifted character actor

On another new series, we were happy to see that Art Acuña was given a substantial role as the kind plantation owner who took the show’s young protagonist under his wing. Expectedly, the gifted character actor took the predictable role and made it acutely credible and empathetic.

—Unfortunately, it turned out that his tenure on the new series was tragically short-lived: Before we could enjoy and savor his portrayal, Acuña’s character was abruptly killed off!

This is one of our frustrations with local TV dramas—they have a penchant for eliminating good actors’ characters, while bland but more popular performers are given the run of the place, from beginning to end!

After Acuña did so well in the indie movie “Niño,” we were excited to see that he had gotten a regular role on the teleserye, “Princess and I.” Alas, his assigned character ended up doing very little in the show—such poor use of fine talent!

Is this going to be a career pattern for Acuña on local TV? We hope not. We don’t have enough really good mature actors, so the few we do have shouldn’t be used in such a spendthrift manner.

We trust that, the third time we get to see Acuña on the boob tube, it’ll be in a role that’s truly commensurate to his ability and worth!

Come to think of it, he did do very well in a major and challenging role in the Asian regional production, “The Kitchen Musical,” but that was a show shot in Singapore. When will we learn to better appreciate and value the exceptional talents, like Art Acuña, in our midst?