Online Showbiz Surfers Choice Awards: Most Liked Pinoy Primetime Soap Operas of 2010 Winners

A fashion-serye, a drama-romance TV Series and an action-romance fantaserye rule and occupy the final top 3 spots for the first ever Most Liked Pinoy Primetime Soap Operas conducted by Pinoybizsurfer for their 1st Annual Online Showbiz Surfers Choice Awards. And now, we would like to formally declare Magkaribal, Katorse and Imortal for being 2010’s Most Liked Pinoy Primetime Soap Operas.The three top-rating shows of ABS-CBN earned and gathered the most number of votes as the poll end last January 30. Imortal with 914 votes, Katorse with 480 votes and Magkaribal with 466 votes. But like what we pointed out in our previous blogs that the 3 Pinoy Primetime shows that rank the Final Top 3 spots will be declared and hailed as Most Liked Pinoy...

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Erich Gonzales & Enchong Dee cover Meg Magazine February 2011 Issue

Hailed as Most Liked Pinoy Showbiz Love team of 2010, Erich Gonzales and Enchong Dee Tandem grace the cover of Meg Magazine Love Month Issue.The two hottest stars of Kapamilya network are so cute and sweet together in this cover.  Erich & Enchong shared in MEG on how to be a great love team. The two stars are currently seen in the afternoon youth-oriented show of Kapamilya Network, “Shoutout” along with other young teen stars. The two is set to topbill the Philippine TV adaptation of hit Thalia-starrer "Maria la del Barrio" this 2011.Exciting topics in this latest issue of Meg Magazine include “100+ Valentine’s Lust-Haves,” “How to wear shimmery eyes & side-pinned hair,” “Rebound Love,” “Approach a guy without being slutty,” and...

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Willie Revillame controversial phone talk to John Estrada and comments for the upcoming noontime show of ABS-CBN!

Last Week on his own show in TV 5 Network, Willie Revillame once again had a hotheaded of sentiment on national TV during a phone-call with John Estrada live on the show. Willie confessed on an episode of “Willing Willie” about his disappointment with his friends John Estrada and Randy Santiago.According to Willie, he already had a negotiation with TV 5 bosses about the 1st ever noontime show of Kapatid Network which Willie recommended Randy and John to host the said noontime show. But according to Willie, he was shocked to discover that his two best buddies accepted the offer from ABS-CBN to do a noontime show daily.Here’s the said video: Any reactio...

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Sam Milby covers Celebrity Living February/March 2011 Issue

Rockoustic Heartthrob Sam Milby is the latest cover guy of Celebrity Living Magazine for February/March 2011 Issue. The Kapamilya hunk actor confessed why he doesn’t mind living alone in his modern home.Other celebs featured in this latest issue of Celebrity Living are Yeng Constantino (spending a night with her), Princess Ryan (Kingdom of Comfort) and Michael Cacnio (Never-ending Masterpiece). Plus! A day with Markki Stroem, Arnell Ignacio’s fancy riders, Raphael and Marvin Kiefer’s MMA moves, Martin Jickain’s healthy recipe and many more!So grab your own copy of Celebrity Living Magazine February/March 2011 “You Are, Your Space!” Issue with Sam Milby on cov...

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Sunday out of the Past: Big Tops in Trouble or Transition: The Three Most Interesting Circuses to Watch in 2011

This first appeared on October 20, 2010The destiny of all circuses resides in the hands of the owners, not the performers. The decisions they make ultimately dictate success or failure. Here are three shows, each either in trouble or transition, that intrigue me the most. For a number of widely varied reasons, their ongoing sagas will be interesting to watch in 2011.KELLY MILLERJohn Ringling North II: Content to run Kelly-Miller as an average mid-sized show, or burning with the artistic ambitions of a true Ringling?Key Question: The story here is John Ringling North II — how far does he wish to advance as a producer? Is he a work in progress, or have we seen already what he may be content to stand for? Nearing the end of his fourth...

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Circus Dames Rise to Top of the Big Top

Sunday Morning, Looking Back ...One of the first female circus press agents: Shirley CarrollThey have often played critical roles behind the scenes if not out front. And in the beginning, when women who performed over sawdust were lumped together with women who served men across the tracks, one of the most fearless and arguably important of all was Al Ringling's wife, Louise. She charmed snakes, rode horses, sewed sequins onto costumes, and helped Al be an on-the-road father to the four younger brothers he talked in to joining him, first on winter-time vaudeville stages, then in the ring.First lady of the Circus When Female Troupers were Scorned: Louise Ringling, circa 1890The recent passing, at 93, of long-time Hollywood publicist Shirley...

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At Monte Carlo, Gold & Silver to Bello's Antics, Flavio's Elephants, Chinese and Russian Acrobats & Aerialists ...

Gold Clown champs at Monte Carlo: Flavio Togni and Bello NockThe information that trickles out of Monte Carlo can be so infuriatingly fragmented and randomly arranged. Even a look at their official Monte Carlo website appears not to offer a simple list of the artists by category (Gold, Silver, Bronze) and country. Might this misty vagueness be a "French thing"?Gold Clowns:Clown and general acrobat Bello Nock (U.S.)Italian animal man Flavio Togni (Italy)Silver Clowns:"Pagoda Light" performed by a Chinese Troupe taking the Silver ClownDalian Acrobatic Troupe (Chinese)Flag Circus Acrobatic Troupe (likely from China)Valerie Inertie (Canada)White Birds aerial ballet (Russia)Silver for the lady in silver: Canadian Valerie InertieI continue to...

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Back to Three Rings? Bucking the Big Top Blues, Rebounding Cole Bros. Circus May Add Canvas and Circles

Rumors upon rumors, some better grounded than others. I'm reporting on a most tantalizing tidbit I've just come across.Get out your whistles, true blue circus fans! At least one tenter filled up lots of its seats during the season just past. We're talking Johnny Pugh's Cole Bros Circus of Stars.Johnny brought the animals back, as you know, and the crowds are coming back, too. Stay with me on this, we need a good-feeling moment, right? Something to chirp about, there's been so much dreary news lately.Cole's tour of New England said to have been boffo -- "boffo" these days perhaps meaning well above half houses. I am only guessing here.One high-placed Cole Big Gun termed business very good. According to this source, removed from yours truly by one or two private cell phone numbers,...

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Sunday Morning with Agent A: Dunning's Disastrous Rock & Roll Circus Dirties Big Apple Tent

Our eyes are upon Gary Dunning, executive director of the Big Apple Circus, thought by many to have assumed full power now that founder Paul Binder has "retired" from the picture.A Board of Directors numbering, astonishingly, 35 individuals (how many know-it-alls does it take to dismantle a legacy?), ultimately controls the destiny, shaky as it now appears, of this circus, whose well-built reputation possibly exceeds to a dangerous degree its actual ability on the ground to "make nut."All of which is a precarious prelude, here outside the ice house on a bleak early-winter chill, to a late night fly-by rendezvous with Agent A, whose travels intersect the myriad avenues of the show world. My hunches are that he locates somewhere in or around...

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Shocking Vegas Murder Links Stripper to Cirque du Soleil 'Love'Artist ... On PBS, Roman Coliseum Fails Circus History, Great Circus Parade Charms ...

Last revised: 1/15, 8:10 AM pstTrading a Stetson for an Astaire: John Ringling North II with wife Shirley at the Great Circus Parade of 2009Circus Maximus, where are you in the Roman ruins? PBS lensing an hour spread that caught my fancy, all about the famed Roman Coliseum, but not including a trace of the clowns, acrobats and jugglers said to have once embellished those bloody athletic contests between big brawny he-man "gladiators," and chariot drivers. The program does allude to humans as fast food for hungry lions, but these humans were strictly of the criminal class, not out of any Sunday school. And, as dramatically depicted here, the doomed figures, pushed out into the arena, were spared even the tiniest scratch, credit a chorus...

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Big Top Bits: Brit Critix Toast Cirque's Totem, Rue Thrill-Neutering Life Lines ... Circus of Horrors Goes for the Gut, Perilously Penile! ...

First Draft Digs: Cirque du Soliel's Native-American informed Totem at Albert Hall (whatever happened to the sainted tent?) tickling London critics, here a rave, there a loved you a lot --but. The "Overarching plot," reportedly a parable about Darwinian evolution barely understood by the circus-entranced, thought by the thinking to trace "man's journey from the very beginnings of life on Earth to our ultimate desire to fly" (how novel). Wall Street Journal, handing kudos to famed Canadian director Robert Lepage, this his second outing for the Montreal monster, declaring the riveting result "almost beyond praise ... certainly defies description." Hoop dancing, roller skating, Chinese juggling atop unicycles, and Russian bars, among other...

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World's Greatest Circus Acts: What Nations Produce Them? By Monte Carlo Gold Standards, It's No Surprise ...

No surprise at all.Of the total number of Gold Clown awards handed out to circus acts throughout the famous festival's history, I am impressed. Confirms my respect for the judges of Monte Carlo -- not to say all of their verdicts over the years have been correct; that I would not know, having not followed the events closely.But, look here, French-speaking Monte Carlo is a ward of Monaco, itself surrounded on three sides by France, right? And French acts have not fared nearly as well as those from the leading nations. In this regard alone, I have no reason to suspect undue favoritism. In fact, European nations only did fairly well.The reigning champions? Top honors, equally shared, go to CHINA and RUSSIA, each having won 11 Gold Clowns....

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A Free Visual Feast from Magnificent Monte Carlo

Want to sample world-class cutting edge circus action? I've just added the Monte Carlo Festival's website under my circus blogs listing to your right. It's in French, but so what -- the visuals are universal. (See Jack Ryan's comment -- how to bring it up in English.)Deeeeeeeelicious! If only I flew more. This looks to me like big top heaven. I envy those who attend the annual event. Maybe the greatest show on earth has moved across the great ocean.Thank you, Princess Stephanie! You remind me of why I am a life-long circus f...

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Sunday Out of the Past : Forbes Top Ten Circus Rankings — Fantasy, Farce, Fraud or Flakery?

This first appeared on October 2, 2009When Forbes puts out a list, the media and public tend to sit up. So when I came across their recently issued “Tops of the big tops: America’s Best Circuses,” I was naturally interested.I might have dismissed the whole thing out of hand, but when I saw “Best Clowning” going to Ringling’s Zing Zang Zoom, placing the show itself Number 1 on the list, I was rather thunderstruck, to put it mildly. Then again, we all have our own opinions, so I thought, perhaps the Forbes judge was genuinely amused. That is, if the judge did not also work for Feld Entertainment. I was close to tossing the list out.But then. But then. Wait a minute, they are calling Big Apple Circus's Bello Comes Back “Best Family Show”? Has it even opened yet? I did a little digging. This was...

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Circus in 2010: Same Old Same Old, Maybe ... Modest Highs, Weird Lows. You Figure

Biz up? Biz down? Kelly-Miller Circus in Brewster, NY7:31 AM PST: First Draft Rush: High and Low Points, if Any, of 2010:Waiting for the great Rose Parade to begin, I wonder if the year deserves a looking back?First of all, to make the hurdle clear, we do NOT know, as we rarely have ever known, exactly what business the tents did. So I am writing blindfolded, perhaps already sinking in the quicksand of speculation. I recall something Kenneth Feld recently said to a Florida newspaper reporter, summing up his own recent ticket sales: Business was "Up a little," he said, but the take was down owing to the Great Recession. I take this to mean the Ringling-Barnum shows did not pull in as many people this year. You may add up the slippery...

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