OK, so #OTWOLista ako (see previous post) pero I that doesn’t mean hindi ako aware sa ibang teleserye, particularly ‘yung katapat niya sa kabilang channel.  Eh paano naman ako hindi magiging aware—si Dennis Trillo yata ang bida.

 ‘Nung start, hindi ko masyado binibili ang gimmick nila ni Jennylyn Mercado na they’re back together, but now I don’t care, ang galling nila pareho umarte! But really, no one can top Dennis Trillo—fabulous actor na, super pogi pa.  Kaya medyo weird sa akin ang premise na Jennylyn’s character, Melanie, will be unfaithful to her husband, Emman, sa gwapo at bait naman nito.  Then again, watching the show revealed several points na pwede ngang reason enough for Melanie to stray.

Melanie is a happy-go-lucky kind of chick.  Bata pa lang siya, ganun na siya.  Tapos nabuntis at iniwan ng boyfriend niyang bad boy (Mikael Daez as Dean).  Eto naman si Emman na lonely and super bait and in love kay Melanie na biglang inako ang bata and, in the end, married Melanie.  OMG, may lalaki bang ganyan talaga?  Anyway, here’s the added problem:  they have to live in Emman’s family’s house, with his younger brother and his wife, his younger sister, and his obnoxious mom Mercedes (the former child superstar Snooky Serna).  Many times naisip ko, bakit ba nagtitiyaga si Melanie doon?  Grabe si Mercedes, laging inaapi si Melanie, and makes sure Emman sees it as his responsibility to fend for their whole family.  Only because Emman is the son of a college schoolmate who raped her, and thus put an end to all her dreams.

Masalimuot ba?  Here’s more.  Bumalik si Dean and wants Melanie back.  Melanie, still with feelings for Dean, kind of entertains him.  Wala naming nangyari sa kanila physically, but emotional cheating?  Yeah, that happened.  At this point, Emman had already found out about this, and I should say this is the best part of the show so far.

Napakagaling na actor ni Dennis Trillo.  You won’t miss the change from gentle, loving husband, to one consumed by jealousy and rage.  Ang galling niya, sobra.  Among all the characters, si Emman ang pinaka hindi masyadong believable (dahil sa sobrang bait at mapagmahal) noong una, but compensated for it during this recent turn of events.  At mas mahirap sa lahat is to convey all that—na nagawa ni Dennis, successfully.  Hindi naman ako masyadong fan, ano?

The show has traces of My Husband’s Lover and The Rich Man’s Daughter  (since it was penned by the same writer) in terms of standard characters (bossy dad/mom, societal acceptance/stereotype, chuwariwaps), and to be fair, it happily lacks all of the over-the-top elements that we’ve come to expect from local dramas. OK lang may palit-baby, o may kaliwaan, o may kidnap gang, pero sana ‘yung pagkuwento disente naman at hindi palengke.  This was how MFH did it, typical drama angle (adultery) pero carried out with sanity.  Hindi tayo mapapakamot ng ulo sa pagtataka kung paano nangyari ang mga bagay-bagay.

More, more, more.  More Dennis pati.

How do I even begin?  Let’s just say I’ve been sleeping later than usual, and that’s because I’ve found a new thing to stay up late for: oo na, #OTWOLista na ako!

Before this was shown, I found myself getting a bit too much into Pangako Sa ‘Yo (see my post on it), so much so that kating-kati akong makauwi everyday nang maaga para maabutan sina Amor at Eduardo, plus ang mga shenanigans ni Claudia.  But August came and the hype on OTWOL (yes, yan ang shortened version) made me curious enough to check out the pilot episode.  At ‘yun na.  ‘Yun na talaga.  I’ve been hooked ever since.

First of all, the fresh story angle.  Tama na ang OA plots at saka sexuality issues muna, nakakasawa din. OTWOL brought in the plight of Pinoy OFWs, done with a light tone pero you still won’t miss the serious undertone and homesickness.

Tapos magaling ang direction.  One of the directors is Tonet Jadaone of That Thing Called Tadhana fame.  Winner ang comic timing, at nailabas niya ang acting skills ng lead stars, 'it' loveteam James Reid and Nadine Lustre. Partida na ang fact na may added degree of difficulty ang production, since they shot much of it in San Francisco with no ABS-CBN-style crew.  Sila-sila lang.

Third, kilig factor.  My gosh, ibang klase!  Grabe magtinginan!  Plus yung mga lines nila, trademark kilig talaga.  Can’t blame JaDine (James and Nadine, yeah) fans from getting all worked up every episode.

Fourth, and probably the most surprising (for me, at least), marunong umarte ang mga bida!  To be honest, I didn’t expect much, but they sure proved me wrong.  Lalo na si Nadine, who appears to be on a higher acting level compared to her partner.  OK, OK, binawi naman ni James sa hotness factor.  Nadine has been able to keep up with the ever-changing tone of the show every episode:  from romance to drama to action back to romance, and sometimes even horror!  Kayang-kaya niya.

What else can I say?  Clearly I’m a fan! Like many viewers, I really hope this show keeps its standards and remains consistent—primetime definitely needs something like this to offset all the heavy drama, baby kidnapping, fraudulent identities, and everything else we’ve been used to.

I found out about the movie before the book.

Well, I can already call myself a LizQuen (that’s Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, natch!) fan since watching them faithfully in Forevermore, so no surprise that I knew about their movie.  But I decided to be old-school and read the book the movie was based on.

Found the book at National Book Store, with a new cover featuring LizQuen, to promote the movie.  OMG—makapal siya at maliit ang size ng letters.  I was hoping manipis lang para tapos agad, I didn’t expect too much from it.  However, when I started reading, aba, OK naman pala.  Sure, the storyline kind of follows the same formula (guy and girl hate are complete opposites, hate each other, and end up in love); promise, I’ve only read around three Pop Fiction books and they all kind of go this way.  Strangely enough, Sophia Taylor and Drake Swift start off being your typical nerdy girl and popular guy, but later they develop dimensions to them that make them somehow more interesting.  ‘Yun nga lang, feeling ko hindi nabuo nang maayos.  The surprises and mysteries incorporated in the story (Sophia’s parents, Drake’s dad) came in trickles, tapos in the end medyo feeling mo may hindi pa nadi-discover na iba pang secrets.  Actually, mas interesting (but complete!) ‘yung character ni Andre, best friend ni Drake.  Palagay ko, ang intention ng writer is really to put together all these complex twists to keep the story engaging.

So, done with the book, on to the movie.  Buti na lang super mabenta ang loveteam na ‘to at palabas pa din sa sinehan nung time na natapos ko ang libro.  Grabe! Nakakakilig talaga sila! So much that it didn’t matter anymore to me na andaming details na hindi naipasok sa movie, kaya naging lalo pang mediocre ang storyline.  Pero convincing sila as a loveteam, tapos magaling pa silang umarte.  Hindi lang ‘yun—nakakaiyak kaya! Lalo na dun sa story angle ni Sophia (Liza) and her dad, which somehow made up for the lost story about her brother, the Andre/Marcus angle, and the role of Skye.  I guess kailangan gawin para hindi confusing ang story masyado.

That said, sure ako na naging LizQuen fan pa ako lalo.  Now, since walang pang ganap sa loveteam na ‘to, looking forward muna ako sa On The Wings of Love ng JaDine.  Six days na lang!

OK, fine—it’s not really a chick flick.  Pero mga 85% ng nanonood ay chicks.  That’s ‘cause it’s based on the book by John Green, author of the YA novel and popular-with-the-chicks flick, The Fault In Our Stars.  In fact, andun din sa Paper Towns si Gus (Ansel Elgort) in a cameo role. 

To be honest, I liked this film better than The Fault In Our Stars.  In TFIOS, there was just so many puns coming from angst coming from the characters’ experiences; death is a difficult subject to tackle, and that fact, of course, came out, no matter how witty or sarcastic Gus’ and Hazel’s lines were.  In Paper Towns, the theme was really about friendship and coming of age, so it wasn’t as ‘heavy’.  Some might say may kababawan ang pelikulang ito—after all, it just shows a teenage boy Quentin (Nat Wolff, TFIOS’ Isaac) with a crush on popular girl Margo (model Cara Delevingne) who dragged him along to do some pranks, whom he runs after (with his friends) when she turns up missing.  But in the end, ang kwento naman was really about how this young person idealized something, in this case, a girl, which turns out not so extraordinary.  What he realized is that his friends, no matter how quirky or crazy, would stay with him all throughout and knock sense into him when he needs it.  At yun ang natutunan ni Q, yung bida:  the real ‘miracle’, the idea that was extraordinary, was his friendship with his two BFFs.  That he should treasure it, because they were all set to go off to college, which meant parang end na rin ng samahan nila as they knew it.

Ganoon naman, di ba?  Minsan lang, there are ideas or people that you set so high up on a pedestal, na pinakaiingatan mo, na laging gusto mong ma-impress.  Then, later you discover na OMG, ang corny pala niya, o he’s not as smart as I thought, o grabe pala ‘to mag-tantrums.  Tapos nagiging totoo na siya sa paningin mo, not anymore as perfect as you originally thought.  So, doon natatapos ang ‘pagsamba’ mo, nagigising ka na sa katotohanan.  Don’t blame it on the person or idea—because you did all the ‘idolizing’.  But along the way, you usually end up neglecting people or parts of your life that had been there for you constantly.  Yes, we can say na ang mga totoong kaibigan ay ‘yung tipong nandiyan pa din kahit anong mangyari, pero mas OK if we don’t take them for granted.  Because when you look back at your own story, you might wish you had given them more parts.

Ayan, #hugot kung #hugot.  ‘Lamoyan.

I think this is the second New Adult novel I’ve read in the Summit Books Pop Fiction line, and I’d really have to say I enjoyed it much, much more than the first one.  In fairness, the writer’s interest in cosplay was shown clearly; nakakatuwa na madami akong nalaman about cosplay.

First off, the main characters’ names:  Ran and Rigid.  I mean, WTF?  Who has names like that?  But of course, I forget, this is cosplay-inspired, and thus the names can be anything and everything.  The more fantastic, the better.  So, anyway, Ran Figueroa, cosplay queen, met her match in Rigid Razor Montez, all-around campus king.  Or king of jerks, as she called him.

They’re a super kilig couple, I must say.  It’s quite difficult sometimes to empathize with characters in pop novels if they’re too good to be true, but in this case, they were too good to be true on the outside (super gwapo and ganda)—but normal and vulnerable on the inside.  I know, I know, this has been done before, but the way they were written was very believable. 

Parang aso’t pusa in the beginning, and they fall in love in the end.  But somewhere along the way some guy from Ran’s past entered the picture, and, because of evil plans, and circumstances, Rigid ended up hurt and Ran ran (sorry, couldn’t help it) away.  Don’t worry—they meet something like four years later, and something happens, tapos a few more years, and they meet again.  Siyempre naman at this point hindi na sad ang ending.  Sana naman, or I’ll complain to the publisher, or magwawala ako!  Again, in fairness, no questionable points, everything happily consistent.  Winner!

Read it.  Super kilig.  Sana may sequel.