‘Battle’ of plugs for MMFF frontliners

GANDA. Portrays four different characters—and genders.

As if we weren’t already being besieged by too many commercials, some TV shows are now devoting quite a lot of their airtime to plugging some entries to the year-end Metro Manila Film Festival.

The shows’ hosts are in the casts of the films being “intensely” plugged, hence their eagerness and even desperation to get their viewers all excited about their respective MMFF starrers.

On “Showtime,” for instance, host Vice Ganda’s flick, “Girl, Boy, Bakla, Tomboy,” is being bruited about as the festival’s probable topgrosser, because it offers the “unique viewing proposition” of seeing “Vice” playing four  different characters—and genders! We hope that the TV-film star is able to do full justice to the tough challenge he has posed for himself!

Meanwhile, on “Eat Bulaga,” Vic Sotto and Ryzza Mae Dizon are constantly promoting their festival entry, “My Little Bossings.”

Correspondingly, on her TV show, Kris Aquino is plugging the same movie, which also stars her and her son, Bimby—making “My Little Bossings” the most-plugged festival entry, by far!

Not to be overlooked, Jhong Hilario is also talking on “Showtime” about his participation in another festival flick, “Boy Golden.” —And so it goes . . .

We understand why these stars and starlets are so gung-ho about using their daily TV shows to promote their festival entries. But, we should remind them that those shows are supposed to be for viewers’ benefit, not for their personal and professional advancement.

The worst thing that could happen would be that the festival entries with strong links to regular TV programs end up getting promoted so relentlessly that they turn viewers off. We don’t want this to happen to any production, so hold your horses, folks!

Aside from Vice Ganda’s major acting challenges, the big question related to MMFF entries is how well Ryzza Mae and Bimby will interact onscreen with each other.

While Ryzza has more on-cam experience, this is the first film for both of them, so their director, Marlon Rivera, has his work cut out for him to elicit empathetic big-screen performances from these two relative tyros.