Star Powerhouse

Opening in cinemas on August 15 is “Bakwit Boys,” one of the eight official entries of the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino (PPP) 2018. The romantic musical is written and directed by box-office filmmaker Jason Paul Laxamana, and produced by T-Rex Entertainment. Direk Jason Paul and T-Rex Entertainment were the frontrunners at last year’s PPP. Direk Jason Paul’s film “100 Tula Para Kay Stella” was the top-grosser of PPP 2017, while T-Rex Entertainment’s comedy “Patay Na Si Hesus” was the second highest-grossing film of the festival.

Celebrities, bloggers, and the entertainment press were all gushing over Regal Films, Inc.’s latest movie, So Connected, starring Janella Salvador and Jameson Blake. The film, which is directed by the young and multi-awarded Jason Paul Laxamana, had its red-carpet premiere at SM Megamall, last Tuesday night, May 22. The common observation that these celebrities and writers have noticed is the surprising but undeniable chemistry that Janella and Jameson have in this film, even if it is their first team-up.

My notes on Love Is Blind: 1. Could a hottie like Derek Ramsay actually fall in love with a nottie like Kiray Celis? If we were to believe this movie, the answer would be a definite no. Unless of course one used the power of gayuma, because a conventionally unattractive woman has no chance of being loved by her Prince Charming without any dark magic involved. That was the single joke here stretched for an hour and and forty minutes. 2. In this movie, Derek named Wade actually had a beautiful girlfriend in Maggie (Solenn Heussaff), an unrefined artist who gets a bit wild inside a club. She was so nasty that she actually wiped her wet armpits in public because well, nobody's perfect (except for Solenn of course, an actress so game that she would do any silly thing and still end up looking endearing). In one scene, he asked her to undergo crystal peeling because he was embarrassed to bring her in his high school reunion ("Kasi hindi pantay ang kulay mo"). Seriously?...