PLUS:
Yam Laranas’ “Patient X” not frightening enough; Parents complain not all Star Magic talents endorse Sen. Noynoy.
We are sure that many people were surprised when Ryan Agoncillo was presented as a new member of the Eat Bulaga! Dabarkads in last Saturday’s telecast of the top-rating, award-winning and long-running noontime show.
It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least, that now we can share our lunchtime hour with the talented better half of Judy Ann Santos.
We believe it’s a very good career move on the part of Ryan and his manager Noel Ferrer to accept the offer of TAPE, Inc. (the producer of Eat Bulaga!) for him to be part of the longest-running noontime show in Philippine television. If you care to notice, no member of the Eat Bulaga family retires from the show nor is given walking papers. If ever a former EB host disappears from the show (like what happened to Toni Gonzaga), it was their choice. This only means that the Eat Bulaga family values the company they keep through the years, simply because they treat each other as family. And if you become a part of the EB dabarkads, you are assured of a long term career as a TV host.
Eat Bulaga won’t last three decades on TV if they don’t know how to take care of their talents, in the same manner that they treat their audience as part of the EB family.
When Ryan and his manager Noel decided to accept the offer for him to be regular host of EB, they were obviously looking at longevity with regards to Ryan’s career as a TV host. As Joey de Leon always says, “hangga’t may bata may Eat Bulaga, the popular noontime show is here to stay.” With him at EB, Ryan is assured of a hosting for the next three years since TAPE, Inc. just renewed their contract with GMA 7 for another three years.
What is delightful and enticing with the EB offer is that Ryan can come as often as he wants. He can report on the show daily, or MWF or TTHS, depending on his availability. You can’t find a more lucrative offer than that, time-wise. And if ever he gets offered a morning show, even before EB, it’s fine with EB for Ryan to accept (even if it’s with Channel 2) as long as he keeps his lunchtime for Eat Bulaga.
Since Ryan is more of a matinee idol, EB had thought of a segment tailored for him. Remember that there are some segments in Eat Bulaga that seem “emotional” meaning “umiiyak o napapaiyak ang contestant.” If you give this segment to Vic Sotto or Joey, sometimes they try to make a joke out of the emotional situation just so to lighten it up a bit.
EB plans for Ryan to be the brother, or the shoulder to cry on for the contestant. He will be the one to give comfort to the emotional studio contestant and make them feel good even if the situation is mushy.
We learned that Ryan is open to anything like even participating in Bulagaan portion or any other segment that might see him ending up being doused by water or what just like what it is being done in the Pinoy Henyo segment.
We are really happy for Ryan that he’s now a part of the Eat Bulaga family and we believe that there’s going to be a wealth of experience that he’s destined to gain now that he’s now part of the dabarkads of the number one noontime show in the land.
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Since Senator Noynoy Aquino announced that he’s running for president in the 2010 elections, Kris Aquino had been very vocal in saying that Star Magic talents will help her brother out in the campaign. This prompted a reaction from a parent who sent us a text message. We presume that this message was also sent to other writers.
It says: “Patulong naman po please. Panay ang banggit ni Kris ng ‘Star Magic artists to endorse Noynoy.’ Yung ibang sikat lang po iyon at di lahat. Ang mga anak po namin eh di kasama. Sayang naman po. Our family needs the income from that. Pakikalat naman po. Salamat po. – concerned star Magic parents.”
We understand the concern of the parent. Since Kris had been saying that Star Magic talents would endorse Noynoy, it sounds like a sweeping statement that everybody in Star Magic is indeed endorsing her brother. That might send the wrong signal to other presidentiables (who might be thinking of getting the services of other Star Magic talents) that these talents are exclusively campaigning for Noynoy. We understand the parent’s point that they stand to lose quite a sum with that impression. Stars, whether big or small, earn quite a huge sum of money during campaign sorties, especially if they happen to be invited by a candidate who has more than a busload of money to pay for celebrities who’d sing and dance in campaign sorties.
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If the intention of “Patient X” is to scare us out of our wits, sad to say, they were not quite successful on that aspect. Well, we probably had been watching too many horror films lately and that “Patient X” somehow failed to give us a genuine scare. We had the chance to watch “Patient X” when it was premiered at SM Manila last Sunday. Truth to tell, the film starred by Richard Gutierrez and Cristine Reyes didn’t measure up to our fright and horror meter.
But if we were to gauge from the reaction of the audience who attended the premiere, it was frightening enough to elicit deafening screams and shouts at the right places. It seemed they were really affected by the scenes.
As for us, we probably had expected too much. After all, this was directed by Yam Laranas, who did quite a better version of Sigaw when he remade it as The Echo for Hollywood.
If there’s any consolation, the cinematography was passable, same with the sound design and musical score. We would also like to commend the performance of Cristine.
We have other comments regarding the script and the characterization but we will not dwell on them lest we’d spoil the fun if you are planning to watch “Patient X” when it opens today. Do watch since this is just our opinion and as an audience, you might see things differently. You be the judge. We do have our individual preferences. What may be bad for us might look good from your end.