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For the past 21 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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It’s Over When The Sopranos Sing
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I AM a confessed Sopranos junkie. I have seen every episode that producer David Chase put out on television. I have all the DVDs as well. And this Sunday, June 10, everything ends. The Sopranos are finally singing their last aria. The final episode.
The Jersey-based crime drama on HBO is perhaps the most successful TV series about the mafia. It has won numerous Emmy’s and became the best thing out of Jersey since Cinderella Man Jim Braddock.
It became so big, that there are Sopranos tour buses in the New York City to visit the places in neighboring Jersey where Tony and his gang hang out: The very famous ‘Bada-Bing!’ night club, which is an actual night club in Lodi, NJ called Satin Dolls, ‘Satriale’s Pork Store’ and even ‘Pizzaland’ in North Arlington - the pizza store that appears on the show’s opening credits for just mere seconds. It wasn’t even used as a set. But according to the owner their popularity ballooned to enormous proportions and as a result, business is great! They get orders from as far as Anchorage and they do ship their pizzas there via Fed Ex!
The Sopranos is such a great show and I feel low seeing it all end.
Last Sunday’s episode is perhaps one of the best episodes in the show’s history.
The long standing cold war between the New York family headed by Phil Leotardo finally moved on their Jersey counterparts, resulting in an all out war.
The Sopranos decide to move first, but the hired guns fail on their attempt to silence the New York boss. Apparently Phil is in hiding after giving the order to his henchmen to eliminate the Sopranos.
Tony Soprano’s main guys, Bobby Baccala and Silvio Dante are both clipped(Baccala died on the spot, while Dante is said to be in critical condition after multiple gunshot wounds.) and Tony knows he’s next.
In fact everything is crashing down on Tony. His sins are catching up on him.
His years of therapy with Dr. Melfi ends on a sour note, his son AJ is still messed up, his daughter Maedow decides not to pursue medicine and his best buddy, Silvio is dying.
It is so odd that we all know that Tony deserves all this after all that he’s done. Yet, there is that mysterious feeling of sympathy for his character in spite of all his wrong doings. We simply root for him no matter what.
That is the charm of the series. It created conflicted characters and it brought these conflicts right into the viewer’s hearts. That’s why In the world of the Sopranos, the good guys - the FBI, law enforcement, are the bad guys. And the mafiosos are the heroes. You just can’t help but feel for these crooks and it’s weird.
I remember right after watching a whole DVD of season 2, I went on an Italian food craze. All of a sudden, I was craving and eating capiccolas, maniccotis, calzones, Italian subs, zitti, pizzas and wine. I must have added 30 pounds into my already hefty built. But hey, at least I ate what the Sopranos ate.
The last time I felt sad about a TV show’s end was when Six Feet Under ended its run in 2005, and I don’t see anything good lately on TV that would get me involved as much as these two shows did.
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In the heat of the Immigration reform bill and the debate over the American national language, a Filipino-American band , The Happy Analogues, come under fire for releasing an all-English debut.
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On one balmy May night, the four members of the Filipino-American band, The Happy Analogues were sitting on the floor in their New Jersey recording studio, with their guitars and some sheets of music on their laps, when the news was delivered to them by one member of their street team: Their debut album, Lilacs and Politics, has gone global with Apple’s iTunes music store. It can now be purchased all over the world via the program.
For the band, the news was the cue to finally embark on their journey to try and make it to the American mainstream. It was the go signal that it’s time to play in mainstream American venues aside from their local Filipino-owned clubs. Yet as certain as they are about the direction they will take, the band is apprehensive about some criticisms that they received after releasing their debut.
Some Filipino nationalist groups and supporters think that Lilacs and Politics doesn’t represent Filipinos at all. In fact, It is devoid of anything Pinoy.
Unlike many Fil-Am acts, who usually record and release albums with a mixed number of English and Filipino songs, the Analogues came up with an all English release. An uncanny move for a band whose members were all born in the Philippines and still use FIlipino as their primary language in their households.
“The record was not a deliberate attempt to shun the Filipino language or anything Pinoy. But it was a deliberate attempt to win the American mainstream”. , says Ronnie Lao, the bassist and manager of the band.
Mr. Lao has a good point since the band is based here in the States and has a shot at the elusive mainstream by coming up with an all-English set. But aren’t they risking alienation from their Pinoy-bred followers by not including any songs in the native language?
“We have released songs in Filipino before we did our debut album. We even have a song about my native Kamuning called “Happening sa Kamuning”, and one of our biggest songs to date is a love single called “Alaala”, which was a part of the FIl-Am rock compilation, ‘Rock in the Box’ released in 2006. With those, we don’t think that we would lose any support from our Filipino-speaking fans.”, explains Ted Reyes, one of the main songwriters of the group.
Rock and Roll fans have a history of being possessive when it comes to their favorite artists. They have this strange notion that they own their artists and, in most cases, refuse to share them with the rest of the populace.
Like when the Eraserheads made it big in the Philippine mainstream in 1993.
After being underground for many years, their ardent underground supporters accused them of selling out. Same in the case of NIrvana, when they revolutionized music in the 90’s. They were also accused of betraying the underground.
Yet somehow it’s an altogether different case when it comes to Filipino-American bands.
Most of the time, when they start up, their core group of supporters are the Pinoy-bred immigrants, who are longing for a taste and feel of anything Pinoy. And they get that with Filipino songs with Pinoy sentimentalities.
But these bands cannot ignore the existence of American-born Fil-Ams as well. Hence they include English songs in their lineup.
“You have to play for both sides (Philippine-born and American-born). But we figured that making the debut album all English will serve that purpose better since not all of them understand Filipino, yet all of them understand English. It’s killing many birds with one stone and that includes all English-speaking people..”, says Rich Saguirre, the Analogue drummer.
No other Fil-Am album has generated such controversy about the language used in writing the songs except for Lilacs. Perhaps it is the timing of it’s release, when the whole US is caught up on the immigration reform bill in the Senate and the debate over the proposed bill to officially proclaim English as the national language, thereby eliminating the official use a secondary language in the country like Spanish.
Yet music is said to be a universal language. And whether the actual language used in lyrics determine nationalism is likewise very much open for debate.
But the fact holds up, The Happy Analogues made their debut in English to reach as many people as it could. But is it Pinoy enough to represent Filipinos worldwide? Maybe not. Is it good enough to cross over the mainstream? Probably yes.
Paul Zurita, the band’s guitarist and other main songwriter sums it up:” It doesn’t matter if an album by a Fil-Am band is not Pinoy enough. The mere fact that the artists are Pinoys is reason enough to be proud of.”
Lilacs and Politics is now available on Itunes Music Store, www.CDbaby.net, www.soulworksrecords.com and www.poptimesmagazine.com
Visit their site at www.thehappyanalogues.com
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MANILA -- Actress and beauty queen Ruffa Gutierrez said that she signed a one-year contract with ABS-CBN as a sign of her independence.
Gutierrez said the contract signing has nothing to do with her recent separation from her estranged husband, Turkish businessman Yilmaz Bektas.
“I think it’s not about a sign of independence from Yilmaz but a sign of independence period,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez clarified that she had always been able to make her own choices and being a new member of the Kapamilya network is just another chapter in her life.
“You know, I think I’d always been able to make my own choices in my career, in my life, so this (contract) is [just] another chapter unfolding in my life,” she said.
Gutierrez said she is excited about the developments in her showbiz career. She said she will be co-hosting the entertainment talk show “The Buzz” on a regular basis.
“... Let’s move on to the next chapter, I think this will gonna be a good start because I will be here definitely in Kapamilya network for one year. So, it means I will be here in the Philippines for one year … host na ako ng ‘The Buzz,’” she said.
The actress added that she is also looking forward to resuming her acting career to prove Yilmaz right. In an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau chief Danny Buenafe late last month, the Turkish billionaire and father of Gutierrez’s two daughters had called his wife a traitor and a good actress for her dramatic television interview about the breakup of their marriage.
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MANILA -- Turkish millionaire Yilmaz Bektas finally broke his silence and called Ruffa Gutierrez, his wife for four years and mother of his two daughters, a “traitor”.
It was Bektas’s first interview in nearly three weeks after his controversial split with Gutierrez.
Bektas had difficulty speaking in English but still could not hide his ill feelings against his wife. At one point he called her “Brutus,” after the best friend of Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who treacherously plotted to kill him.
Bektas said that he no longer wants to reconcile with his wife.
“She’s playing with me like [a] child then after that I’m [learn] from my friends...asking me when Ruffa will gonna come to Barcelona and I [said] after two weeks and the same guy [calls] me saying that your wife doesn’t love you anymore and she wanna divorce with you.”
“And after that I think [her] name have to be traitor and I’m calling her name now Brutus.”
Bektas said he decided to cut off ties with his wife after her television interview on Monday. In that interview, Gutierrez said she does not love her husband anymore and that she is no longer happy with him.
Bektas also clarified that it was he who initiated the divorce on May 6. He also said that Gutierrez has practically transformed into a different person since coming home to Manila in February.
He complained that his wife has lost respect for him, which he said is obvious in their telephone conversations. He blames Gutierrez’s change of attitude to her showbiz friends and her family.
“This person coming out on the television saying I don’t wanna go back, I don’t wanna be with him. It’s enough. I don’t wanna say anything and I don’t wanna be with this person anymore.”
Bektas also revealed that despite his stomach operation on May 3, his wife continued to ignore him.
Even worse, he learned from a source that Gutierrez chose to attend a party the same day, instead of staying by his side for his operation.
“Beginning of the May she changed so much because she’s not giving enough time for me, enough time for her children. When I’m calling to my children, my children are always next to their yaya (nanny).”
According to Bektas, Gutierrez proved herself a very good actress as she displayed different attitudes whenever she spoke to him on the phone and when she appears on television.
Bektas refused to discuss an accusation that he physically abused Gutierrez. When pressed to answer, he replied that he “neither confirms nor denies” the accusation.
He admitted that he misses his family terribly. He, however, said he needs to be strong.
“I miss them of course but I have to close my heart for all these kinds of feelings, for the love, for missing them, for giving up your family, I don’t know why.”
“I’m so sad for her, I’m so sorry for her. If she [tries for a] career in the Hollywood, probably she will gonna win several times in Oscar [Awards], she is good.” Gutierrez declined to comment because she has yet to watch the entire interview. (MNS)
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LOOKING at Billy Crawford dancing and singing in the flesh on stage, this former child actor who is gifted with good physical asset and singing voice is a different person now.
He’s not a changed person for the worse, but for the better. He is still humble and very much a Pinoy like everyone of us. (Unlike other Pinoys who have gone to the U.S. who have become more American than real Americans—in thoughts , in words and in deeds.)
True, he made ripples in Europe, and now his next target is mainstream Hollywood which is not impossible because of his talents.
Meanwhile, as part of GMA7’s 57th anniversary celebration, Billy is now in the country in search of six of the best of the best Pinoy dancers to back him up in his much –anticipated first major concert at the Araneta Coliseum on August 8.
The search will be through a reality TV show titled “Move! The Billy Crawford’s Search for Pinoy Dancers,” the first of its kind in Philippine television as it documents the journey of 24 aspiring dance performers who managed to pass stringent audition and outperformed hundreds of other applicants.
Premiering on June 10, viewers will get the chance to witness the daily performances of these aspiring dance idols, aged 16-26, who will be housed under one roof for five straight weeks where cameras can capture their every move, conflict, struggle and endeavor.
The dance performers will also undergo rigid training and a series of intense workshops under the supervision of Billy’s world-renowned French choreographer, Maryss from Paris. All the drama, hardships and fun of the dance performers will be aired daily with a five-minute segment on GMA -7’s morning talkshow, “SIS.”
There will be eliminations every week, which will be based on the viewers’ text votes and dance gurus’ scores until six “best of the best” dance performers remain to become Billy Crawford’s Pinoy Dancers. A panel of dance gurus, who will act as judges, will be sharing their views on the performance of the dance idols every week. The dance gurus will surely influence the viewers’ voting power.
Aside from the much-coveted title of being one of Billy Crawford’s Pinoy Dancers and a chance to perform with Billy on his concert, the six winning dance idols will receive cash prizes and a management contract with GMA Network. Move! The Billy Crawford’s Search or Pinoy Dancers begins June 10 after SOP on GMA -7.
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MANILA, Philippines -- Singer Erik Santos denied that there was a romance brewing between him and former Pinoy Big Brother housemate Say Alonzo.
Rumors linking him to the actress-TV host had reportedly taken its toll on his relationship with sexy comedienne Rufa Mae Quinto. But in a chat with the press late Tuesday, Erik vehemently denied the rumor, which was sparked by reports alleging he had dated Say on several occasions, especially when Rufa Mae was out of the country.
“Wala ako dapat i-explain,” Erik said. “Trusted niya ako,” referring to Rufa Mae.
Erik said Say was a “Bible study cell mate” and it was natural for them to spend time together but not in a romantic way.
According to reports, Erik and Rufa Mae had been spotted arguing in the premiere night of the Regine Velasquez-Piolo Pascual movie, “Paano Kita Iibigin.” Has this got anything to do with his reported dates with Say?
Erik denied there was any argument at all. “We’re in good terms,” Erik said and added his girlfriend has nothing to fear.
Meanwhile, Rufa Mae admitted on GMA-7’s “Startalk” on Saturday that she and Erik have plans of getting married but not right away. “Pag-usapan na lang natin sa June,” Rufa Mae said.
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