Upbeat developments and ‘improving’ performances

ERICH Gonzales and Daniel Matsunaga

TO START the month of March off on a positive note, let’s focus on significantly upbeat developments on the local entertainment scene: In terms of incipient or evolving trends that should be encouraged, a bright light is the emergence this season of a third option in new movies, aside from the usual mainstream versus indie opposing choices.

This third batch that’s gaining popularity can be described as the emerging “maindie” phenomenon—relatively small-budgeted movies produced by studios and topbilling their contract stars.

This month, examples include “Always Be My Maybe” with Gerald Anderson and Arci Muñoz and “Love Is Blind” with Derek Ramsay, Solenn Heussaff and Kiray Celis.

These “maindies” are adding substantially to the local movie industry’s annual output—a welcome development in the light of the filmmaking slump that we are still recovering from.

Yes, many indies are now being made, but they have a hard time finding welcoming space in cineplexes, and can’t afford the TV plugs and trailers needed to connect with the general viewing public.

Maindies are budget productions, but they’re better-funded, have stronger star value and are better-promoted, and thus they do relatively well at the tills.

So, let’s have more of them—without forgetting the greater goal of getting more, better and bigger screening venues for our relatively hard up indie movies!

Timely reminders

More specifically, our TV channels should be praised for timely behavioral reminders like the “Ugaling Wagi” series on GMA News TV, and the political and electoral satires, with Michael V cross-dressing and playing ugly pols and candidates we shouldn’t vote for.

Similarly worthy of note and encouragement are the “improving” performances of some actors on TV who used to come up short due to lack of energy, “bite” and emotional commitment.

GERALD Anderson and Arci Muñoz

For instance, Maxene Magalona used to belong to this “nice-but-blah” category, but her recent outings on the “Doble Kara” drama series have been more incisive, focused and charged.

On “Princess in the Palace,” a recent sequence involving Boots Anson-Roa and Eula Valdes moved viewers because it was so simply yet effectively performed: The characters assigned to them are occasionally at odds, but in that particular scene, they forgot their differences and found the emotional space and grace to quietly but feelingly console one another.

For its part, “Be My Lady” has been more viewable of late, due to some droll touches like Daniel Matsunaga’s character secretly helping Erich Gonzales and her family cope with their unexpected financial reversal.

One of his cutely clever gambits that viewers know (but Erich doesn’t) is to add to her ducks’ eggs in the dead of night, making her oh, so surprised and happy the following day!

More such endearing touches, please. They go a long way in making the daytime series the rom-com charmer it aspires to be.