New primetime show for Boy and Kris; Ruffa and Ai-Ai to replace morning show of Boy and Kris

In last Sunday’s The Buzz, Boy Abunda and Kris Aquino fended off rumors that their midmorning show, Boy and Kris, was about to be canned. The show was rating well, they said, so why fold it? The show wasn’t canned, that much is true. But what the two hosts failed to mention was that it was going to be moved to a new time slot, to give way to a new program hosted by Ruffa Gutierrez and Ai Ai delas Alas. Beginning February 16, Boy and Kris will be seen in SNN: Showbiz News Ngayon, which airs immediately after Ruffa and Ai’s show.

The switch is one of the program makeovers launched by ABS-CBN for this year. The network is bringing back Maricel Soriano in “Florinda”, the third offering of the Susan Roces Collection. It’s also casting child actor Santino for the lead role in “May Bukas Pa”, and introducing another Mars Ravelo superhero, “Flash Bomba”, to Kapamilya televiewers.

Rival network GMA-7 had introduced its first-quarter line-up a few days earlier. Paolo Contis will host “My Dad is Better Than Your Dad,” which replaces the Celebrity Edition of Family Feud on Sundays. The network is also banking on a string of teleseries based on old movies to beef up its primetime programming.

“Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang,” based on Carlo Caparas’ film, takes over from La Lola, and will feature the third teleseries team-up of Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera. “Paano Ba Ang Mangarap,” a Vilma Santos-Christopher de Leon starrer, will be given new life as a telenovela starring Jennylyn Mercado and Mark Herras. Fernando Poe Jr.’s “Totoy Bato” will replace Gagambino and will star Robin Padilla, Regine Velasquez and Manny Pacquiao.

GMA-7 will also try to cash in on the legend of Zorro to replace Luna Mystika, with Richard Gutierrez playing the masked swordsman.

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Jay should be one of the movies on your must-see list. The film took top honors in last year’s Cinemalaya and it proves that the award was no fluke.

Jay explores the issues of ethics in journalism and the manipulative potential of media. A gay teacher is murdered, and a television crew jumps on the story, driving to the lahar-ravaged village of Bacolor in Pampanga to video the teacher’s family. The crew captures the grief of the teacher’s mother and siblings as they learn of his gruesome death. To add drama to the documentary, they stage scenes, even re-enacting the moment the mother had a premonition of her son’s death, when a bird flew into her room. It was a maya that visited her, but because such a bird was difficult to catch, the TV crew provided a pigeon as a stand-in.

And when the shots of the mother’s visit to the morgue to identify the body of her son came out too fuzzy, the crew re-staged the scene, dragooning the TV van’s driver to play the blanket-covered corpse. The family at first grudgingly agrees to the charade but soon become demanding actors themselves.

The movie also indicts the media for allowing a suspect to be beaten up by the relatives of a victim and shooting the violent confrontation.

Baron Geisler delivers a powerful performance in Jay as the TV journalist who has the scruples of a prostitute. He moves the story along not by imposing his presence but by coaxing the other characters to reveal their innermost feelings.

One gem of an anecdote about Jay concerns the scene when the gay lover of the teacher arrives at the wake. As is the custom in some wakes in rural Philippines, colored chicks are placed on top of the casket, to peck away at the conscience of the victim’s killer. At some point the casket’s lid slams shut, pinning to death one poor chick. In the next scene, the crew is burying the chick.

According to Director Francis Pasion, it was on the seventh take when the lid fell by accident on the animal. They decided to keep the shot to add a touch of black humor to the story.