Sarah Geronimo: Tension and excitement

Author: Isah V. Red
Column: Life & Entertainment

While Sarah Geronimo may be this era’s top concert draw, she can’t hide her excitement over her first big solo concert this year.

It is called Sarah The Next One, and it will be at the Araneta Coliseum. The date is Nov. 8 and the call time is 8 p.m.

The excitement is understandable. After all, the concert underscores a highly successful year for her career. She has become not only a much sought-after performer, but a box-office star as well with A Very Special Love, the movie she starred with actor John Lloyd Cruz.

Yet, Sarah can only smile when people tell her how she has become the star to reckon with these days. She has a new CD titled Just Me and she will, in fact, sing some tracks in the concert, which Star Magic’s Mr. M (Johnny Manahan) will direct.

Do we have to ask what he will do to make the concert the biggest event in entertainment this year?

What a lucky girl, indeed.

She has a slew of music awards, including gold albums for her various CDs. She has citations from People Asia magazine and the PLDT Plaque of Recognition among others. She has toured the world and brought her music to cheer up lonely OFWs everywhere.

People look up to her as a role model. That’s why Jollibee, Smart, Charmee, Talk n’ Text and others bank on her to sell their products and services.

Despite all these, Sarah is not taking it easy. She is rehearsing furiously to make sure she lives up to the promise of being “The Next One” in the highly competitive world of showbiz. She will sing her old favorites along with new songs from her album.

What is she Pop Princess for if she can’t regale her fans with the vocal power that gave her the chance to be in the business?

Cleaning up

ABS-CBN seems serious about cleaning up its ranks. And the third casualty is the longtime talent of the network Cristy Fermin whose contract (which expires midnight of Dec. 31 this year) has been suspended until the end of the year after former movie/TV star Nadia Montenegro lodged a complaint with the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board on Fermin’s accusations on her about giving birth to a child (without previous knowledge of her longtime partner Boy Asistio) in a hospital somewhere in between Mandaluyong and Pasig cities.

This is the second time Fermin has been suspended from the network arising from “libelous” statements, and yet the network had never been firm with making sure their employees, especially those that use the airwaves, will be responsible people.

Alfie Lorenzo was the first and Ogie Diaz was second.

Lorenzo’s stint on dzMM was terminated after the management decided that he had already been very critical of ABS-CBN’s management and that is not helping the already sagging credibility of the network.

Ogie Diaz had been removed from the morning show Umagang Kay Ganda for violating some of the code of ethics of the network’s news and current affairs, the details of which have never been disclosed.

In any case, whatever it is that ABS-CBN is trying to do these days, I hope it leads to a better network in the future, where there is integrity and credibility, first and foremost among its people, especially in the news in every media—print, radio, and television—the network and its affiliates operate.

New studios

Last week GMA Network Inc. inaugurated an annex building just across where the old TV barn was when it was still known as RBS.

The building, according to the network’s hype, will contain three studios, all state of the art, that can accommodate live performances (which means SOP will move to a bigger studio) and other taped programs.

This is really a far cry from when the network had to be content with two small studios (in the old building with rundown facilities) and one live studio at the Broadway Centrum (a cinema converted into a TV facility).

While GMA Network Inc. claims leadership in Mega Manila, the new studios confirm it has really earned its stripes in the broadcasting industry. Yet, against ABS-CBN’s 11 studios in one complex, the network along Edsa is still a David trying to put Goliath down.

ABS-CBN, by the way (I just hope this is not taken against me by GMA Network), is still the leader nationwide. Its only problem is Mega Manila and other parts of Luzon.

Rumors and intrigues

The week didn’t pass without the usual rumors and intrigues.

Dingdong Dantes and Karylle have called it quits. (What will happen to their business partnership in a KTV in a building along Timog/Tomas Morato rotunda?) Has Marian Rivera something to do with the breakup? Or was it Antoinette Taus, Dingdong’s former flame, who stormed into the country a couple of weeks ago? Why is Dingdong not saying anything? And why is Karylle saying everything?

Alfie Lorenzo and Judy Ann Santos are not talking to each other. And why?

Lorenzo says he doesn’t know. “Perhaps she doesn’t need me anymore,” he says.

Santos, meanwhile, says she is not aware that Lorenzo has been telling the media about the two of them.

Lorenzo says, “She only texts me and asks if she has a schedule. And I answer her back. Beyond that, we don’t discuss further.”

Joey de Leon and Willie Revillame kiss and make up. Wowoweeee! That’s really news, and now both of them can sleep tight with Joey not thinking what he would say against Willie the following day, and Willie not thinking what he would answer Joey back.

More Korean films

Two interesting Korean films I discovered lately are JSA: Joint Security Area and The Old Garden.

These old films but are really very valuable in my continuing search for answer to the question: Why critics from the West are constantly ignoring Filipino movies, except when they are about gay people?

Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA, that’s how it was called in Korea in 2000. Chan-woon Park directed the movie about an investigation of a breach in the Joint Security Area in the demilitarized zone dividing the north from the south.

Park uses Hollywood-style images (this is in widescreen) and Dolby digital surround sound. The movie jumps from present investigation to the past, using the soldiers’ deposition as the basis for the narrative. Yeong-ae Lee as Major Sophie E. Jean is a Korean raised in Switzerland, and is in-charge of the investigation.

What makes JSA definitive is its attempt to tackle the problem of a single race divided by ideology.

The Old Garden also takes its issue on Korea’s unification. Orae-doen jeongwon, that’s what it is known in Korea in 2006, stars Ji Jin-hee, one of the more popular male stars of the Korean TV and movie industries, as a man imprisoned for 16 years for being a “subversive” element in those days when South Korea was just starting as a capitalist democracy. Upon his release, he is welcomed back by his family, but Oh (that’s Ji’s name in the movie) wants to recall his relationship with Han (Eun Seong) with whom he had a child.

Sang-soo Im directs from his own screenplay this tale of love and romance between two ideologically opposite characters. The movie is touching in a very strange way as Han dies of cancer after giving birth to a little girl. Nearly two decades in solitary confinement, Oh can’t forget his socialist leanings but is too weak to go and fight, he just went back to his safe house and discovers what Han has left for him and their daughter.

If you want to have a copy of either film…you know where to go.

Source: Manila Standard Today

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