Tag: Zsarlene B. Chua

FILIPINO jazz musician and producer Bob Aves passed away on the night of Jan. 14 in Bacolod City. He was 64 years old.

RAZORBACK drummer, Brian C. Velasco, died of suicide Wednesday morning in Manila. He was 41.

WHILE MANY viewers may have already moved on to Netflix’s comedy series Sex Education as their next binge, Lifetime’s YOU is reminding viewers why they loved the crime/psychological thriller which the streaming service premiered on December 2018. The show sheds light on how much people share on their social media accounts and how they interact with it.

THE 44^th Metro Manila Film Festival drew to a successful close on Jan. 7, with the festival’s chairman announcing that they had not only surpassed last year’s gross but also recorded the highest ever take in the film festival’s history.

SOME OF the best singers in the Philippines will pay tribute to newly minted National Artist for Music Raymundo “Ryan” Cayabyab on Jan. 18 at the Globe Auditorium of the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Bonifacio Global City (BGC).

THE OUTLOOK for tourist arrivals in 2019 is more positive now that the industry has put the Boracay closure behind it and as airlines add connections to the Philippines, industry officials said.

IT IS a universally acknowledged truth that when January rolls in, gym membership spikes with many people trying to fulfill their “new year, new me” resolutions or to simply burn away all those holiday calories.

A FEW days before 2018 ended, global internet streaming service Netflix and the people behind sci-fi series Black Mirror decided to release their most ambitious project yet — an interactive film called Bandersnatch, which immediately, it caught viewers’ fancy. It presents an intriguing, yet familiar, proposition, especially for those who grew up reading Choose Your Own Adventure books published by Bantam Books from 1979.

AT THE tail end of 2018, Korean skincare cult favorite Dear, Klairs, officially launched in the Philippines with the presence of its brick-and-mortar shelves in select Watsons and BeautyBar stores in the country.

FILIPINOS love love stories, So it comes as no surprise that this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival had three romantic entries: Mary, Marry Me by Paul Soriano, One Great Love by Eric Quizon, and the focus of this review, The Girl in the Orange Dress by Jay Abello.

THIS year, Jose Marie “Vice Ganda” Viceral’s entry to the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) might have avoided the overly obvious product placements of his previous outings, but the people behind the film still made sure their film, Fantastica, would suck in all that blockbuster moolah by stuffing in as many big stars and cameos as they could in the almost two hour-long film.

FOR THOSE who have made it a holiday tradition to watch skating shows during the Christmas season, they will find that this year they can watch one show which combines magic, acrobatics, and figure skating.

Lea Salonga and the team behind Binondo: A Tsinoy Musical were the big winners at the annual ALIW Awards night held on Dec. 13 at the Manila Hotel.

THE YEAR 2018 might be a record one for Southeast Asian e-commerce site Lazada but according to its Philippine CEO, 2019 is shaping up to be an even better year for the platform as it focuses on introducing tools for its growing seller base.

FILIPINO film historian and award-winning movie maker Nick Deocampo will be giving a series of free lectures from Dec. 12-14 at the EDSA Shangri-la Plaza’s newly opened Red Carpet cinema as part of the Cine Europa film festival which is ongoing until Dec. 16 at the mall.

SINGAPORE-BASED The Ascott Limited continued to expand in the Philippines with the opening of the third branch of its apartment hotel brand Citadines.

A tale of two Butterflies.

A SONG about street children juxtaposed with a popular Filipino children’s rhyme written and performed by Teodoro “Chud” Festejo III won this year’s Philippine Popular Musical Festival (Philpop) while a ballad in Bisaya by Ferdinand Aragon was named first runner-up, a win an executive called “a statement.”

FOLLOWING a successful first run last year, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ (NCCA) ASEAN Tingin Film Festival returns for a second a year and presents a selection of films from ASEAN countries and Taiwan, running until Nov. 29 at the Gateway Cineplex in Cubao, Quezon City.

THE YEAR is ending so what better time is there to reminisce than on Dec. 1 at the Theatre at Solaire Resort and Casino as vocal group The CompanY and comedian Jon Santos take the stage for a one-night only shindig celebrating four decades of golden music from the 1960s to the ’90s.

HOUSING developer 8990 Holdings, Inc. is planning to launch three to four leisure properties every year within the next five years.

ROBINSONS Galleria, one of the first shopping malls that opened along EDSA in 1999, has gotten a much-needed makeover.

LIKE THE total entertainer he was, death is not enough to stop Rico J. Puno.

THE Department of Interior and Local Government will meet with the producers of the prime time television show Ang Probinsyano this week to discuss their differences over the show’s portrayal of some of its characters.

A CLASSIC tale of sibling rivalry is what GMA is one of its biggest shows the network is launching this year for its prime time bloc. Cain at Abel hits the small screen on Nov. 19.

NETFLIX LAUNCHED its plan to focus on strengthening its Asian market as it announced 17 Asian original productions from Korea, India and Southeast Asia with more on the way, the streaming service’s executives said in a two-day conference in Singapore.

TRESE, a crime/horror graphic novel about a detective of the same name who solves supernatural crimes often in connection with creatures from Philippine mythology, will be getting its own Netflix treatment as the streaming giant announced that it will be adapting the novel into an animated series. But it will take a while before it gets on the small screen.

FOR ITS second year, the Italian Film Festival — which brings a selection of films from the Venice International Film Festival to be shown in Metro Manila — is showcasing nine films from Nov. 14 to 18 in select cinemas.

ORIGINALLY intended as the fourth season of Netflix’s Narcos, Narcos:Mexico instead grew so big that executive producer Eric Newman decided to make it a companion series to the original and, as the title states, it will focus on the origins of Mexico’s drug war and its biggest drug lord, Felix Gallardo.

AMERICAN SKINCARE brand, Kiehl’s has finally ventured into the realm of Philippine online shopping as the brand made its debut on the online beauty portal, BeautyMNL on Nov. 9.

GOING ONLINE isn’t the only big news to have come from Kiehl’s as the brand launched last month its newest product meant to beef up its mask line -- the Ginger and Hibiscus Firming Mask.

IT’S TIME once again to brave the heavy traffic of the Metro and watch the annual Festival of Lights at the Ayala Triangle Gardens, now on its 10^th year. This year’s lights show will be accompanied by the music from the Walt Disney Co. in a show titled Reimagine The Magic: A Festival of Lights.

A ROMANTIC drama about a man who has trouble remembering faces and a woman who has secrets of her own is at the crux of Joel Ruiz’s second full-length feature, Kung Paano Siya Nawala, which hits theaters nationwide starting Nov. 14.

AMERICAN IDOL-alum Jessica Elizabeth Sanchez comes back to the Philippines for a one-night concert, bringing with her the hits that made her a finalist on the US singing show alongside songs that will showcase her vocal versatility.

VETERAN SINGER and an icon of Original Pilipino Music (OPM), Enrico “Rico” J. Puno, passed away on Oct. 30 at the age of 65 due to cardiac arrest.

FORMER Eraserheads front man, Eleandre “Ely” Buendia, has formally launched his two-year-old independent music label Offshore Music — which focuses on creating vinyl albums — in a bid to give “artists who deserve to be heard that chance,” said Mr. Buendia.

CELEBRATING 10 years in show business, Mitoy Yonting and the Draybers, led by front man Michael “Mitoy” Yonting of the Voice of the Philippines fame, will be holding their 10^th anniversary concert on Oct. 30 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila (RWM) in Pasay City.

In 2017, Hard Rock Café Makati City closed its doors, ending a more than 20 year run of good food and good music, but Hard Rock Café isn’t gone forever as barely a year after its disappearance, the international restaurant-bar chain has announced a comeback in Manila, with a plan to open in Conrad Hotel’s S’Maison in December.

MAX’S GROUP Inc., opens its 196^th location with a new concept that targets a market not “typical of a Max’s restaurant,” by combining the casual dining experience with a family restaurant concept the group is known for, according to a company executive.

THE 14^th edition of CinemaOne Originals concluded with two films from its Circle Competition taking home the awards night’s biggest prizes, with Paglisan by Carl Papa winning Best Picture while Never Tear Us Apart by Whammy Alcazaren winning the Best Director and Jury Prize.

SKY Cable Corp. is launching a new digital box which allows its customers to access HD Cable TV together with streaming services like Netflix and YouTube.

THE World Travel Expo returns for its third year with bigger discounts and deals for local and international destinations.

TECH giant Google LLC is opening its first operations center in the Philippines, which will provide support for its users and customers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, as well as the Philippines.

AMERICAN footwear company, Skechers continues to bank on the current nostalgia for the 1990s as it releases new colorways for its classic chunky sneaker D’Lites line, with one harkening back to the original black and white style which started it all for the brand.

AVENE, the French skincare brand known for using the thermal spring water from the town of the same name, has released its new Aqua Cream-in-gel, an “all-in-one multi-benefit skincare [product] to keep skin beautifully hydrated and protected all day long” which is specially formulated for Asian skin, according to a press release.