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Carmina clarifies status with Zoren

Author: Mario E. Bautista
Column: Freehand

Carmina Villaroel gets a grand launching as Bioderm germicidal soap's endorser along with her twins Mavy and Cassy. In the Q&A, Carmina was asked when will she and Zoren Legaspi tie the knot? "Akala n'yo lang, hindi pa, pero nangyari na," she replies.

This is quite a revelation so we asked her to give more details later. Was it a civil or church wedding? "Actually, hindi pa kami talaga kinakasal," she says. "Sinabi ko lang 'yun para matigil na ang katatanong. Kasi, iniisip namin, okay naman kami as of now. Although, siyempre, iba pa rin 'yung may blessing ni Lord. Kaya lang, hindi Catholic si Zoren, Christian siya, kaya hindi rin kami puwede sa church wedding. As it is, I'm just thankful na the Lord blesses us pa rin. We're really a happy family. The twins are now 7, turning 8 in January. They're in grade 2 at a school near our place. Legaspi ang ginagamit nilang apelyido. "

Are they willing to allow the twins to act on TV or films? "They were four when they were first offered to do a commercial. We asked them at gusto rin nila. We don't force them. They enjoyed it kasi magkakasama kaming buong pamilya. Zoren is also with us to keep them company at ngayon nga, kasama na rin siya sa ibang commercials. Natutuwa rin sila when they see their commercials on TV. But honestly, we don't want to expose them so much sa showbiz. 'Yung pag-aartista, huwag na muna. Magtapos muna sila ng studies then kung gusto nila talaga, bahala na sila. As of now, kailangang okay rin ang ini-endorse nila, like Bioderm soap na talagang panlaban sa germs ng buong family. "

And why did Biodern choose Carmina as endorser? "We considered a lot of names," says marketing VP Stanley Wang. "Credibility is very important and we chose Carmina as she has really a happy family. She leads a busy life as a working mom but very careful in choosing products for her family's health. In other words, palaban siya, just like Biodern which is palaban sa germs. "

VALERIE ON 'MAKING LOVE' WITH JON: TRABAHO LANG

Valerie Concepcion might be a single mom but she says that the first time she got inside a motel was when they shot the OctoArts entry "One Night Only" in Tripoli Motel in Marcos Highway. "It's only when we shot the movie there na nakita ko ang itsura ng loob ng isang motel," she says. "Meron pala siyang sariling garage where you can just park your car then tapos diretso na kayo sa kuwarto!"

In "One Night Only," she plays Vicky, a liberated young woman who's fond of the good life. While gallivanting in Boracay, she meets Jon Avila but nothing happened to them as she got drunk. So when they meet again in Manila, she asks Jon to take her to a motel for a night of good sex. What does she think of her role?

"I'm really curious how some girls can do one night stand. Ako, walang kaipokritahan, hindi ko kayang ma-imagine ang sarili ko na makipag-one night stand lang and then, wala na. Iba kasi 'yung you make love with feelings of affection for each other. Sa akin, what happened to me before was may mutual feelings kami ng jowa ko. Ayoko nung sex without love. "

So how far did she go in the movie? "Jon was just in his briefs sa love scene namin. Ako, in bra and shorts, pero nakatakip ako ng kumot. Sa scene, I'm the aggressive one kaya ako ang humahalik-halik sa kanya sa neck. Pero hanggang doon lang 'yun. Wala akong balak tikman niya in real life. Hindi ko naman siya jowa. We're just doing a job. Also, comedy ang treatment sa movie and Jon is put in a dilemma kasi while he's making love to me, he's also making love to Diana Zubiri who's in a different room but in the same hotel. Lagari siya sa amin hanggang magkabukuhan. "

OLDEST PLOT

WE were hoping "One True Love" will be a fine romance with an involving story to provide a good transition for the Dingdong-Marian loveteam from the small to the big screen. Sad to say, the narrative makes use of the oldest plot in film history, with one character getting amnesia . This year, "Manay Po 3," "Mag-ingat Ka sa Kulam," and various TV shows also made use of amnesia. We honestly think it should now be outlawed to discourage uncreative minds from ever utilizing it again.

The first few sequences of "One True Love" unfold very fast, with Dingdong Dantes as Migs proposing marriage to Marian Rivera as Joy and former girflriend Iza Calzado as Bella coming home in time for the nuptials. The morning after the wedding, Migs figures in a motorcycle accident and his head hits a big rock. Migs is a doctor but he's obviously a dumb one as he drives his motorcycle without a helmet.

When he regains consciousness, Migs no longer remembers Joy. He thinks it's Bella who's still his girlfriend. It's a case of selective amnesia, says the doctor who looks after him (who doesn't look convincing at all in the part so he's later replaced by Adel Tamano. ) Despite this, Joy takes him home to their new abode, something that we can't understand since Migs is still in such a confused state and should have stayed longe in the hospital. Also, we're wondering why they didn't show the pictures and video of his wedding to Joy right away to help refresh his memory. It takes such a long time before they finally show this to him.

And Joy herself doesn't help at all. Instead of being the supportive wife, she becomes a jealous, suspicious termagant virago who demands that Migs tell her who he's talking to on his cellphone. As may be expected, this annoying attitude only alienates Migs all the more. She's supposed to be a nurse and yet Joy behaves like an idiot. Migs finally leaves her to join Bella, who says "itinakda talaga ng tadhana na kami ang magsama. "

If Bella were serious in not wanting to have an affair with Migs who she knows is very much married to Joy, she should have gone back to Canada right away. And since one knows very well that it's a Dingdong-Marian love team, not Dingdong-Iza, it's so easy to predict that Migs will eventually return to Joy and Bella, being the outcast, will just leave for abroad once again.

At this point, we're so totally bored with this nonsensical movie where you cannot sympathize at all with any of the characters. The situations are all very contrived and the script is so apparent in its being manipulative. Badly written and badly directed, it's good the movie still made money. But Dingdong and Marian certainly deserve a much better movie.

POINTLESS REMAKE

WE saw the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with our late father some years after its release in 1951 at the Mayfair Theatre in Quiapo, a second run theatre that showed double features then. If we remember it right, we saw it back to back with "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", another sci-fi flick that became a cult classic and was remade twice.

In the original "Day", a flying saucer lands in Washington, DC (in the remake, it lands in New York City) and Klaatu, an alien, comes out and gets shot by a soldier. A powerful robot, Gort, also comes out and melts down all the weapons of the soldiers who threaten them. The wounded Klaatu (Michael Rennie then, Keanu Reeves now) is taken to a hospital where he tells a general that he has come to earth to warn world leaders that earthlings must stop warring against each other.

Remember this was made after World War II during the cold war when superpowers were in conflict and there were threats of a nuclear war that could destroy the planet.

His warning ignored, Klaatu escapes and meets widow Helen Benson (Patricial Neal then, Jennifer Conelly now) and her son (now played by Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada Smith). The government continues to hunt him down and he gets shot and is killed this time.

The remake has a totally different narrative development and a very disappointing ending (as a matter of fact, it's not really an ending as the movie just stops), even if it makes extensive use of state of the art special effects. The original was directed by Robert Wise, who made such classics as "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music" and the first film version of "Star Trek. " He knows how to make a better film without CGI effects.

As Klaatu tours Washington, DC, he stops in front of the Lincoln Memorial and reads the words left behind by Pres. Lincoln and realizes that there might be hope for earthlings.

In the remake, people have become so destructive they honestly deserve to die. The black and white original implies that if the Lord cannot make man behave, then an alien force might come to tell him to pull his act together. One of the best things in it was the chilling score by Bernard Herrmann, a favorite of master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

In the remake, Klaatu arrives in a rotating glowing sphere and, as he gets out in Central Park, a trigger-happy soldier shoots him. The robot who guards him (a giant compared to the first one which is just about 8 feet tall) then steps out (looking like the Oscar trophy) and turns off all electric power in the weapons directed to him. The alien Klaatu is taken to a government hospital where doctors take off a coating of gooey stuff that envelopes him. He then evolves speedily and becomes Keanu. The widow Helen is upgraded and now becomes one of the compassionate scientists who looks after Klaatu. The son now becomes a black stepson who misses his dad who died in Iraq.

This time, Klaatu warns about man's neglect and destruction of the environment, but he does not even go into specifics. My goodness, Al Gore's movie does more in advancing the cause of ecological protection than this boring flick. We do get to see some wide scale destruction. Metal insects coming from the captured giant robot become a plague that demolishes everything around them, including the Giants Stadium in New York. More spheres also appear in other parts of the world, including in Sydney where there's a shot of the famous Opera House and Harbor Bridge.

But special effects do not a good movie make. It's the sloppy script that is the movie's undoing as even a good actress like Kathy Bates (Oscar best actress for "Misery") can't make her thankless role as the stupid secretary of defense even half interesting. Another Oscar-winning actress, Jennifer Connelly (for "A Beautiful Mind") is awful as she utters silly lines over and over again: "We can change. We can turn things around. " After she got an Oscar, Connelly seems to be doing one dumb movie after another like "The Hulk" and "Dark Water. " Even more annoying is her stepson, Jaden Smith, who should've been eaten by the metal insects right away. His A lister dad should send him to acting school pronto. Also wasted are Emmy winner Jon Hamm (of the hit U. S. series "Mad Men) in a nothing role as another useless scientist who dies and John Cleese as a professor who matches mathematical wits with Klaatu. It's only Keanu who suits his part perfectly, looking so expressionless and talking in a flat emotionless monotone, which is to say he's just being his usual self and isn't acting at all. He can easily win for best performance with a blank stare (with Summer Glau as runnerup in her role as the female robot in "Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles"). But yes, he does get to walk on water.

What the film's director, Scott Derrickson, succeeds in doing is plugging McDonald's where Klaatu meets with another alien (why do they have to make him Chinese) who's been living on earth for several years. Maybe he's aiming for the ambiguity of the ending of "2001: Space Odyssey," but my goodness, he's no Kubrick, any way you look at this misconceived foolishness of a pointless remake that seems to be more like M. Night Shyamalan's alley. This should be retitled "The Day Special Effects Failed to Save a Hollywood Flick. "

Source: People's Journal