The breakthrough star of 2010–Andi Eigenmann–debuts in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival via the “Isla Engkanto” episode of Shake, Rattle and Roll 12.
Regal Films
Andi Eigenmann rose to fame and popularity via ABS-CBN’s fantaserye, “Agua Bendita.”
She has proven her acting mettle in tackling a dual role with contrasting personality in that top-rating TV series and has won the hearts of televiewers with her oozing sex appeal and mestiza beauty.
Regal Entertainment took the cue and banked on Andi’s irresistible charm with the male audience when it cast Jaclyn Jose’s daughter in the Isla Engkanto episode of Shake, Rattle & Roll XII, the 12th installment in the outfit’s blockbuster horror franchise.
In Isla Engkanto, Andi plays a depressed, love-stricken young lass who hies off to a remote island to soul search and find new love in the arms of Mr. Right.
Little did she know that the island she has chosen is a haven of dark creatures who pose as fairies and who serve the chief of the Engkantos.
One scene takes off from an Agua Bendita scenario where Andi makes use of the sea to determine her fate in love. But instead of her finding true love, the Engkanto chief finds and falls madly in love with her.
The production staff working with the young actress on the film shares some bit of interesting stories during their time in the island. Before a take, they say, Andi would act and move so mysteriously.
“Meron siyang isang lugar na laging pinupuntahan bago sumalang sa shooting. Nang minsang puntahan siya ng staff, nakita si Andi na parang may kausap at dumarating sa puntong nakikipagharutan pa siya. Akala ng nakakita sa kanya, sinasapuso lang niya ang role niya na magugustuhan ng Hari ng Engkanto, kaya pinababayaan na lang ang ‘moment’ niyang ’yon.
“Nang matapos ang shooting sa isla, saka namin nalaman sa ilang nakatira roon na tunay ngang pinamumugaran ng mahihiwagang nilalang ang lugar. Hindi lang nila alam kung fairies ang mga nagkikislapang bagay, pero ang sigurado raw nila, may mga engkanto sa lugar na ‘yon.
“No wonder, sa ilang eksenang kasindak-sindak, parang nae-engkanto ang hitsura ni Andi! Pati si Rayver Cruz (Andi’s leading man), nahihiwagaan sa ikinikilos ng partner niya, kung umaarte lang ba o nasasapian na ng engkanto,” a production staff lengthily recalls.
Find out the truth about this creepy tale when “Shake, Rattle & Roll XII” opens in theaters as part of this year’s MMFF on Christmas Day.
YOUNG actress Carla Abellana has what it takes to win every man’s heart – beauty, brains and gentle character.
[Regal Films]
But beneath that fragile image, she’s also got what it takes to succeed in a topsy-turvy world like show business. And so, she got all the right breaks as a showbiz newbie via two popular TV series, Rosalinda and Basahang Ginto.
These vibrant traits didn’t escape the eyes of Regal matriarch Lily Monteverde and her daughter Roselle Monteverde-Teo, who instantly signed her up as a full-fledged Regal Baby.
From her contract comes Carla’s biggest movie break, the Funeraria episode in the horror trilogy, Shake, Rattle & Roll XII, which is one of Regal’s entries in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival.
From doing plain drama on TV, Carla shifts gears on the big screen and takes on a part that would definitely give moviegoers goosebumps and send them screaming at wit’s end.
Shooting Funeraria proved to be a breeze save for some minor incidents that left the young actress literally holding on to dear life.
Recounts a cast member, “Napasabak nga siya sa matitinding katatakutang eksena sa movie. Nariyang mapilayan siya habang tumatakbo sa isang eksena sa movie. Gusto kasi niyang tuklasin ang sikreto ng pamilya ni Sid Lucero na may-ari ng misteryosong punerarya kaya sari-saring panganib ang sinuong ng karakter ni Carla para mabunyag ang lihim ng pamilya.
”Sa totoo lang, hindi alintana ni Carla ang hirap habang sinu-shoot ang mapaghamong eksena niya sa ’SR&R.’ Tutal naman, laging nakaalalay sa kanya si Sid sa matitinding scenes na ginagawa niya.
”‘Yun nga lang, marami ang nakakapansing sobrang malapit si Sid kay Carla. Kaya naman hindi maiwasang mapansin ito ng mga kasamahan nila sa episode.
“Parang hindi na kasi normal ‘yung pagki-care ni Sid kay Carla lalo na kapag mahirap ang ipinagagawa sa kanya ni Direk Jerrold (Tarog).
”Nang mapilayan nga si Carla sa isang eksenang tumakbo ito ng makita ang ga halimaw, aba, agad umalalay si Sid at siya pa ang nagbuhat kay Carla nang hirap na siya lumakad. Siguradong na-attract din siya sa maamong mukha ni Carla.
“Kaya naman pala kapag dumadalaw si Geoff (Eigenmann) sa shooting, iwas si Sid na lumapit kay Carla. Kasi naman si Geoff, never din namang pinapansin masyado ang kanyang pinsan. Nakarating siguro sa kanya ang tsismis na sobrang mag-care ang pinsan niya kay Carla.”
Well, who can blame Sid? Carla is beauty and brains combined. And that makes her a perfect catch.
Discover more about this unique Carla-Sid chemistry when “Shake, Rattle & Roll XII” opens in theaters come Christmas Day as part of this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival.
Kim Kardashian and her mom Kris Jenner have signed an endorsement deal with Skechers to be the faces of the “Shaping Up With the Kardashians” challenge.
The mother and daughter pair will participate in a fully integrated campaign, including television, print and online advertisements.
Kardashian said, “[Skechers Shape-ups] provide something for everyone. And, more important, they maximize your workout.”
The Bieber are winning awards left and right from MTV Music Awards to Teen Choice Awards to American Music Awards. Now even the Justin Bieber dolls are nominated for Toy of the Year Award.
The Justin Bieber singing dolls which have 5 designs and costs US$27.99 each were nominated for 2011 Toy of the Year Award.
Jay Foreman, the President The Bridge (the manufacturer of the Justin Bieber Dolls), was thrilled that their line of Justin Bieber Dolls are one of the finalists in ToyAwards.org.
We are thrilled that the Justin Bieber singing dolls were recognized with a nomination from our peers in the toy industry based on the interest and excitement they have brought to the market. We’re counting on Justin’s millions of fans to let us know how much they love the dolls by voting for them to take home the award in February!
The Toy of the Year 2011 Award winners will be announced on February 12, 2011 in New York City.
For the very first time, a team from the Philippines finished first on Amazing Race Asia!
Here’s what the final three teams have to go through in the final leg of the race (courtesy of Wikipedia):
In the last leg’s Detour, teams must choose between Stay Up and Add Up. In Stay Up, teams must successfully ride a wave for an accumulated time of two minutes at the Wave House in Sentosa Island. In Add Up, teams must head to the Gmax Reverse Bungee and add up three numbers called out by the host and get the sum correctly to receive their next clue. In this leg’s Roadblock, one team member must make a tightrope walk from tower 1 to tower 2 of the Marina Bay Sands Resort to get their clue. They must then make their way back to tower 1 to finish the task.
Additional Tasks
* At the Cavenagh Bridge, teams must locate the lion dancers to receive their next clue.
* At the Red House Seafood Restaurant, teams must extract 1 kilogram of chili crab to receive their next clue.
* Teams must search one of four Caltex stations and find a vintage car. If the vintage car is no longer in the Caltex Station, the team must proceed to a different Caltex station.
* At the St. James Power Station, teams have two minutes to unlock their handcuffs and perform an escape illusion to receive their next clue.
* At the Marina Bay Sands Resort, teams must ride a marked elevator to the Sky Park Swimming Pool where teams will be tested with their memory on the race. Once they’ve retrieved seven rings, they can receive their next clue.
Pals Richard Hardin, a 34-year-old basketball player and Richard Herrera, a 31-year-old model, finished the race first and became the first Philippine team to do so. Previous PHL teams Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez finished third in season 2 while Geoff Rodriguez and Tisha Silang almost won in season 3 when they finished second.
The Richards bested the rebel pals team from Singapore (2nd) and the father and daughter team from Indonesia (3rd). They won US$100,000.00 for winning the 4th season of Amazing Race Asia.
Party girls Jess & Lani, the other Philippine team this season, finished fourth.
MANILA, Philippines—The losing spell in the Grand Lotto 6/55 ended on Monday night when an extremely lucky bettor from Luzon bagged the P741-million jackpot by betting on the winning combination 11-16-42-47-31-37.
Lottery gods must have smiled on Monday night because someone beat the 1-in-29 million odds, a feat that had proved elusive for at least six months since this streak began.
The jackpot at P741 million was the biggest in the country’s history.
Liza Gabuyo, PCSO assistant general manager, said the bettor picked the combination, standing to win the pot tax free.
It took 86 draws before a bettor won the jackpot.
The previous biggest jackpot was posted in February 2009, when the pot for the 6/49 Super Lotto game reached P347 million. Two lucky bettors picked the same combination to split the top prize.
Meet Satnam Singh Bhamara of India. He’s not your average 14 year-old as he stands over 7 feet tall! He was always fairly tall for his age but grew an absolutely ridiculous 15 inches between the ages of 10 and 14. The ridiculous height is in his genes as his father, Balbir Singh Bhamara, stands a whopping 7 foot 2 inches tall and his grandmother is 6 foot 9 inches tall.
Amazing, right? Think of the potential with that kind of height if this guy continues to grow and develop his co-ordination and skill set. The combination of height and love for the game this guy is displaying at only 14 years old is already having some bloggers comparing him to a young and hyped up Yao Ming out of China.
But he’s not just relying on his height to cruise by in his basketball leagues. He’s working hard to develop his skill set and learn everything he can about the game. Hoopistani has been tracking his progress and development.
After blazing his way through the Punjab inter-school and junior leagues, Satnam began to collect his international credentials. He represented Indian in the FIBA Asia U16 Championships at Malaysia in November 2009. Back home, he took Punjab to the gold medal of the National Youth Championships at Trichy (Tamil Nadu) in June.” [via]
AOL Fanhouse writer Tim Potvak has some great insight into how a 14 year old kid from a tiny farming community on the outskirts of Pakistan came to know about the sport of basketball, let alone get involved in playing at an organized level:
Then his father (7’2? tall) told him a story, a sad story about long-ago missed opportunity, about a game he knew and loved but never was allowed to play, a game he quietly wanted his son to try, offering a window to a whole different world.
There were no basketball courts in his village to play on, no cable television to deliver the games, so his father sent him away, where others could teach him to play, quickly discovering he had an incredible gift, an athleticism very unusual for someone growing so fast and so large, leading him down the path he walks today.
North American scouts and coaches that have seen this kid play have had nothing but great things to say about him, many of them noting his excellent work ethic. Some even theorize that it is Satnam’s farming upbringing that has set him up to succeed, as he has learned from a young age the value of hard work and preparation.
This giant has size 22 feet, loves what limited NBA action he has seen on television, has chosen Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dwight Howard as his favorite players, and loves his Nike Basketball shoes from “Ameeka”, as he puts it.
Could Satnam be the first player from India on an NBA roster in the history of the league? Those in India are pulling for him. They are hoping that he will do for India basketball what Yao Ming did for China basketball.
We will all just have to wait and see…he is only 14.
Although Karen Davila denied having ill feelings towards ABS-CBN over her exit from TV Patrol, she admitted feeling sad about leaving the daily evening newscast, which she anchored for six years.
“I have feelings of loss. Alam nyo naman po na anim na taon din ako sa TV Patrol. Emotional in a grateful way. I want to let everybody know that I don’t have ill feelings or bitter feelings at all and I mean it. Change is normal. It is the only thing that happens into our lives. Ang gusto ko na lang po is to be able to do work that will be of value to the people and the public we serve,” said Davila in an interview on ABS-CBN’s SNNon Tuesday.
Reports said Davila was unhappy about her axing from the network’s centerpiece news program. Because of this, there were speculations that Davila will be transferring to TV5.
But these rumors were unfounded, Davila said, as she and her former TV Patrol co-anchor Julius Babao will appear alongside Ces Drilon on “Bandila,” ABS-CBN’s late night newscast.
“I’m a team player. I’m a good soldier. That’s really what I want you to know,” Davila further said.
ABS-CBN refurbished the TV Patrol newscast with the comeback of former vice president Noli de Castro and Korina Sanchez while retaining current co-anchor Ted Failon in the program. This was seen as a strategic move to combat TV5’s Willing Willie, which has been surging in the ratings since the start of the week with the entry of Valenzuela City Councilor Shalani Soledad as Willie Revillame’s co-host.
A young boy, carrying a parol, walks to school along a dirt road pockmarked with puddles.
What’s wrong — or rather, what’s right — with this picture? Everything, if we go by the US Department of State’s choice of winning photo.
Filipina student Mikas Matsuzawa was chosen as one of 12 winners of an international photography competition, with a photograph depicting democracy based on what she describes as the “dismal state” of education in the Philippines today. The Democracy Photo Challenge 2010, organized by the State Department, asked contestants to “Take a photo that completes the phrase ‘Democracy is…’ and share it with the world.” Matsuzawa, who is taking up journalism at the University of the Philippines Diliman, submitted a photograph of a young boy in school uniform, carrying a Christmas lantern, walking to school along a narrow dirt road lined with dense foliage and riddled with puddles. (See photo here.) The photo’s caption reads, “”Democracy is… accessible and quality education for all. It is education as a right.” Matsuzawa said she took the photo during an immersion program with the Dumagat tribe in the mountains of Eastern Rizal. “The children there had to walk for about two hours, some of them barefooted, just to get to the nearest school,” said Matsuzawa.
“This young boy captured my attention because despite the muddy road and wearing only slippers, he still takes care to protect his parol (Christmas lantern) project to school,” she added. “For me, accessible and quality education is a right of every person, of every child, who societies proclaim to be the hope of the generation, the young movers and shakers of the world. And for me, in a genuine democracy education should be treated as a right,” she said. Matsuzawa cited her own school, UP, as an example of how democracy in the Philippines, based on the state of the education sector, seemed to be “merely illusory.” The budget for UP, the country’s premier state institution for tertiary education, has been slashed by P1.39 billion for 2011, with the current allocation of P6.9 billion further reduced by the government to P5.25 billion for next year. UP had requested P18.2 billion and P18.5 billion for its operations for 2010 and 2011, respectively. “I think that the accessibility is an important element of education but with continuous budget cuts, many cannot access this basic right,” Matsuzawa said. Matsuzawa’s photograph won over 3,000 other entries from 131 countries. The winners were chosen based on online public voting by over 500,000 people, after a jury narrowed the field of submissions to 36 finalists, representing each region of the world. The other winners are Mustafa Kia, Afghanistan; Mohamed Kaouche, Algeria; Venkatesh Hamyanaik, Australia; Mehman Huseynov, Azerbaijan; Mike Mitchell, Benin; Dino Peri?, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Wladia Drummond, Brazil; Kaveh Baghdadchi, Iran; Jun Krishna Joshi, Nepal; Kaylene George, South Africa; and Ian M. Cunningham, United States. The photos taken by Matsuzawa and the other 11 finalists will be exhibited at the United Nations and at galleries in New York and Los Angeles. Other winning photographs include images depicting democracy as linked to press freedom, elections, protest actions, and other such themes. The Democracy Photo Challenge aims to use “social networks and creative challenges to allow global publics to share, consider, debate, and learn from diverse perspectives on democracy,” said the US Department of State in a press release.
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine justice secretary says she’ll seek criminal and administrative charges against at least 10 officials, police and journalists following last month’s killing of eight Hong Kong tourists who were held hostage on a bus in Manila.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima did not identify the individuals to be charged, or detail the charges.
She said Thursday that those to be charged will be identified in a comprehensive report on the bungled handling of the Aug. 23 hostage crisis.
The incident outraged China and the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, straining their ties with Manila.
