‘Only “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has a rosy record, but all the rest suffered from poor viewer attendance.’
TWO beauty queens are happy to be part of GMA-7’s hit primetime series, “First Lady”: Maxine Medina and Thia Thomalla.
Maxine is Binibining Pilipinas Universe 2016 and she plays the role of Lorraine Prado. Thia is the Miss World Philippines who represented our country in Miss Eco-Tourism in Egypt in 2018 and won the title. She plays the role of a female presidential security guard, Valerie Canete.
Both Maxine and Thia started their roles in “First Yaya” and they’re elated to also be in the show’s second season, “First Lady.”
“Sa ‘First Yaya,’ contravida ako kay Sanya Lopez kasi ako ang unang girlfriend ni Gabby Concepcion, but Gabby chose to marry her,” says Maxine. “Now, ako na ang head ng PR ni Sanya as First Lady Melody Acosta.”
“Ako naman, may sarili akong love interest dito, played by Pancho Magno as Conrad, the head of the presidential security,” says Thia. “In Season 2, itatakda ang aming kasal pero something will happen na dapat nyong abangan.”
Are they aware that two members of their cast are senior beauty queens? Pilar Pilapil was the country’s Binibining Pilipinas Universe in 1967. Alice Dixson was Binibining Young Pilipinas in 1986.
“Yes, we know,” says Maxine. “And both of them later joined showbusiness and had successful acting careers. Tita Pilar is generous enough to share her experiences as a beauty queen turned actress.”
“Both of them won acting awards, so sana, mabigyan din kami later ng challenging roles like what they got, to show that we can also be good actresses,” says Thia
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Julia Barretto can currently be seen in the horror movie “Bahay na Pula,” now streaming on Vivamax, and soon, she’ll be in the new Vivamax youth oriented original series, “The Seniors.” Her co-stars are Ella Cruz, Awra Briguela, Andrea Babierra, Gab Lagman and Andrei Yllana. This is the directorial debut of award-winning short filmmaker, Shaira Advincula-Antonio.
“It’s about Gen Z students in the province, Pacaque Rural High School. I play Diana, a city girl from Manila na lumipat sa province at na-threaten sa akin ang mean girls doon sa school, so hina-harass nila ako.”
The mean girls are led by Ella as Jennifer, the school’s student council president; former Pop Girl Andrea Babierra from Lucban, Quezon as the school muse, Nicole; and Awra Briguela as the gay volleyball team captain Fifi.
We ask Julia how is it being directed by a new director like Shaira. “She’s very young, only 25 years old, and I’m 24, so we can easily relate with each other,” she says. “She’s great, a badass, I wanna work with her again.”
Experience the highs and lows of growing up, the pains and joys of your last year in high school in “The Seniors” starting March 20, streaming on Vivamax.
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We have seen some Hollywood releases in cinemas and they’re all playing to nearly empty movie houses. Only “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has a rosy record, but all the rest suffered from poor viewer attendance.
All the more so in the case of local movies, as evidenced by the dismal box office showing of all the entries in the recent Metro Manila Film Festival. The movie theater business is really facing very tough times. This is not surprising as the virus has prevented people from watching films in cinemas. Well, there are other reasons why this is so. The price of movie tickets has become truly prohibitive. It’s anywhere from P350 to P450 and that’s no doubt beyond the reach of the ordinary wage earner for whom the minimum wage is P550 a day.
If you’re a poor hand-to-mouth employee, you’d naturally rather spend that kind of money in buying food for your family.
Also, there are now so many alternatives and you can watch a lot of shows for free on the internet, in YouTube, in social media. You don’t even have to go to a cinema or watch TV to see your favorite stars as all of them now have their own vlogs where you can even get in touch with them personally.
And Vivamax streaming has really offered one great alternative. For only P129, you can watch all the movies they offer and you can watch it with your whole family! What a bargain. No wonder they have quickly built their own market and their regular subscribers has swiftly increased to 2.5 million worldwide. And that, we’re afraid, is the future of films, whether we admit it — or like it — or not. Movie theaters would have to learn how to co-exist with streaming channels.
Now that we’re on Alert Level 1 with less restrictions, do you think theaters will be filled up by warm bodies soon? Well, hope springs eternal.
