Viewfinder
New screen tandems make their bid
By Nestor Torre
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:41:00 08/31/2008
Filed Under: Entertainment (general), Cinema
MANILA, Philippines - When stars make their first movies together, producers and directors cross their fingers and fervently hope that the new tandems will make movie magic on the screen and click with viewers, so that follow-up projects will drive their profit ante up.
Thus, before “For the First Time” opened in town, its romantic leads, KC Concepcion and Richard Gutierrez, were all over the place, promoting their first team-up as though there were no tomorrow.
KC is an ABS-CBN talent and Richard is under contract with GMA, but the two otherwise combative entertainment giants have effected a momentary truce to enable the two fave stars to act together. They have also been allowed to guest on the competing channels to plug their movie, helping assure its success at the box-office.
This makes great sense for both networks, because “For the First Time” is a Star Cinema production, while KC and Richard’s follow-up starrer will be produced by GMA Films. So, the first film’s success will help assure the follow-up movie’s similarly great showing at the tills—a win-win situation for all concerned!
So, will “For the First Time” and its spanking-new romantic tandem click with viewers? A good indication that it will is the fact that, on their TV and mall promo tours, its young leads have shown that they interact well with each other. Of course, their handlers are hinting at a budding romance, and the young stars play along with that spin up to a point, stoking fans’ expectations of a “real follows reel” conclusion to their “professionally romantic” relationship.
Comic chemistry
For another new film tandem, Dolphy and Vic Sotto in “Dobol Trobol,” the verdict is already in: Yes, they do work well together as a comic duo on the big screen—and, if Dolphy’s energy and health hold out, they could conceivably follow up with another hit rib-tickler.
In “Dobol Trobol,” Dolphy plays a man who’s frustrated with his wife’s lack of respect for him, and opts to drop out of her big-business life. Instead, he works as a chef in a ritzy restaurant, where he has a run-in with a colleague (Sotto) who falls for his sexy daughter.
At first, Dolphy thinks that Vic is only out to take advantage of his daughter, so they keep squabbling throughout the film—until Vic proves that he’s a better man than Dolphy thought he was.
Poker-faced approach
True, the production’s “antagonistic comedy” format is as old as the movie hills, and some of its giyera patani scenes aren’t as inventive as they should be. But, the two leads’ “comic chemistry” helps make up for the film’s low, slow and obvious moments, so “Dobol Trobol” turns out to be—double the fun.
It’s interesting to see the two veteran comedians working together on the big screen, because their acting styles are quite similar. They both opt for a relatively poker-faced approach, the sly put-down rather than the hysterically “blitzkrieg attack” that so many TV-film comics favor these days.
This is a welcome relief, and we’re grateful to Dolphy and Vic for showing all the lesser, “comedians” out there that there is a better, less shrilly in-your-face way to make viewers laugh.
Quite disturbingly, many of today’s gung-ho comics are female. You would think that they would be more judicious, but their directors make them come on as “mga babaing bakla,” looking like gargoyles, lividly screaming their lines, and generally acting like a house on fire.
This a major turn-off, so we’re glad that Vic and Dolphy have reminded their lesser colleagues (and their directors) that comedic acting need not be over-the-top, and can in fact be quite deft and stylish.
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