Telenovela Watch - September 12

Article with my thoughts on some of the current telenovelas.  I quite liked the quirky modest comedic Colombian telenovela MANUAL PARA SER FELIZ with featured a lovely lead performance by Marcela Mar.  Don't much care for LA MALQUERIDA, which is tepid.

Claudia Álvarez

I also mostly like HASTA EL FIN DEL MUNDO, the Mexican version of Argentina's DULCE AMOR, which has also seen adaptations in Chile and Colombia.  Claudia Álvarez has gotten some flack for her performance.  It is a tricky call - the character she plays is a bad actress given to drama queen tantrums, so from time to time, you have to assess whether it is Claudia Álvarez or the character whose performance you are witnessing.  Álvarez was the best thing in DOS HOGARES and up until the writers destroyed her character, one of the better things in PORQUE EL AMOR MANDA, and she imbues her character in HASTA EL FIN DEL MUNDO with enough vulnerability to give her the benefit of the doubt.

La Reina del Sur

LA REINA DEL SUR is a 2011 narco-novela from Telemundo that was the network’s only genuine hit.  Based on a 2002 novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, it follows a Mexican woman who is caught up by circumstances into the world of drug-trafficking and finds she has a talent to succeed in that dirty enterprise.

Cristina Urgel and Kate del Castillo

The first half of the telenovela is the best thing Telemundo has ever produced – pulpy trash that is swift, sexy and exciting.  Kate del Castillo is a dynamic lead, strong and fiery.  Her sensuality has always been on the butch side, but that works here when offset by a pretty boy like Iván Sánchez.  Their chemistry is the best thing in the telenovela.  The international cast also features excellent performances from Mexican actor Humberto Zurita and Colombian actor Christian Tappan, but it is a pair of Spaniards who steal the show: Alberto Jiménez as an unflappable Russian crime boss and an androgynous lithe Amazon named Cristina Urgel who isn’t much of an actress, but is a compelling, peculiar screen presence that evinces ineffable star quality.

The second half bogs down into more conventional narco fare and is far less interesting.  It was Kate del Castillo’s first telenovela in eight years and she seems to run out of steam.  She is not helped by her lack of chemistry with Miguel de Miguel, the Spanish actor who becomes the leading man over the final weeks.

But ultimately, the biggest flaw is LA REINA DEL SUR tells the same lie the majority of the narco-novelas tell in depicting its protagonist as a “good” drug trafficker in conflict against “evil” drug traffickers.

The cast also features Gabriel Porras, Salvador Zerboni, Sara Maldonado, Ezequiel Montalt and Dagoberto Gama.

Utopia - series premiere

Billed as innovative and experimental, Fox’s UTOPIA is little more than a tired BIG BROTHER retread of strangers living together and filmed for twenty-four hours.  The series is meant to last a year, but there was so little of interest in the first two hours that I can’t imagine this series will last even a month on the air.  The cast of fifteen men and women are obnoxious made-for-reality-TV stereotypes and each play their boxed-in roles predictably.  Unsurprisingly, the producers of this show provided booze for their cast in an attempt to prod some drunken drama, but half of the episode seemed to concern whether some morons will stay in the Utopia community or depart.  Who could possibly care?

Evita - "A New Argentina"

The first act finale of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical EVITA is immoral and artistically untenable.  The number, called “A New Argentina” and sung by a rousing chorus, concludes on stage with the election of Juan Perón as the act ends.  The end of an act calls for applause from the audience, especially after a vocally exciting number like “A New Argentina,” but that moment depicted on stage - the election of Juan Perón – is not an event the audience should be compelled to applaud.

Ultimately, I applauded begrudgingly, wanting to acknowledge the talent of the performers, but I remained grumpy for the rest of the evening.  No responsible artist would ever put his audience in that type of bind.

Telenovela Watch - winter novelas

Julieth Restrepo in La promesa

A catch up article on some of the telenovelas to premiere this year in the US.  The Colombian-made tele-series LA PROMESA is the best of the bunch, but it is also a depressing hour and a half to take day after day.  It features Julieth Restrepo in a large role, a young actress with enough peculiarity to be fascinating on screen.  Even when given desk duty in a dull cop series like COMANDO ELITE, she draws the eye.

QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS from Televisa, airing on Univision, and LA IMPOSTORA on Telemundo are dutiful, watchable, even enjoyable middle-of-the-road telenovelas.  POR SIEMPRE MI AMOR from Televisa, airing on Univision, reaches higher highs than POBRES or IMPOSTORA, but also lower lows.  It is also suffering from heavy Univision editing.

I found the Argos/Cadenatres telenovela INFAMES to be infuriating.  I found Telemundo's EN OTRA PIEL dire, the worst telenovela I've seen so far this year.  It is also badly overlit in many scenes, which I don't remember seeing on a Telemundo novela since the mid-2000s.

The article also has some words on DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO.  I have been taking more and more time before writing about a telenovela.  Most critical appraisals seem to be made after a single episode, which is ludicrous.  I used to take a couple weeks into the novela's run before writing my thoughts; I'm now usually taking three or four weeks.  I didn't do that with DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO, and almost immediately regretted it as I was too harsh.  While I don't think the first seven episodes were very good, it improves a great deal in this, its third week.  But like LA IMPOSTORA, it is a telenovela where the subplots and supporting characters are of more interest than the central plot line.  Unlike LA IMPOSTORA, it is the writing rather than the actors playing the protagonists that is the problem.  Still, Cynthia Klitbo, Marcelo Córdoba, Marisol Del Olmo and the temper-tantruming antagonist played by Esmeralda Pimentel are what I'm enjoying on that novela so far.

THE HYPNOTIC EYE

Alternately nasty and tedious 1960 b-flick that sells itself as a some kind of cautionary tale of the dangers of hypnosis. Women are disfiguring themselves and the police can’t figure out why, but the audience can by the third scene. With Allison Hayes slinking about, it is easy to guess what she has to do with the diabolical goings on. Directed by TV director George Blair; also with Jacques Bergerac, Marcia Henderson, Merry Anders and Joe Patridge.

Reign - pilot episode

The pits. American teen network CW does Mary, Queen of Scots. Everybody is conventionally TV attractive, bland and interchangeable with the casts of every other show on the network. The heroine is limp, sullen, and pale as is the current vogue, which I find preferable, even if that favor is infinitesimal, to the plucky spitfire cliché – the only TV alternative for shows of this type. The bastard brother of the dauphin in named “Bash.” Does more really need to be said?