The movie My Bebe Love, a film based on the phenomenal “AlDub” love pair Alden Richards and Maine ‘Yaya Dub’ Mendoza reportedly struck gold on its opening day of the Metro Manila Film Festival on Friday, Christmas Day.
The film’s director Joey ‘Direk’ Reyes, in a tweet fielded yesterday quoted producer Orly Ilacad of OctoArts Films who announced that the movie hit the “million mark” on its first hour of release, presumably referring to the amount in Philippine pesos it had raked in at the box office in that short period.
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But Direk further qualifies…
“It doesn’t matter if you are #1 or #2 or #8. What is important is that you MAKE people happy & people are happy,” he said.
Evidently, what constitutes “making people happy” in the Philippines, in this regard, is work that is thin on plot (and performing talent in the cast) and heavy on eye candy and displays of unabashedly adolescent mating ritual.
Mainstream Philippine cinema has long been criticised for overly catering to the shallow tastes of the Filipino masses and, in doing so, perpetuating the long-observed intellectual bankruptcy of Philippine society.
[pullquote align =”right” size=”16″]What constitutes “making people happy” in the Philippines, in this regard, is work that is thin on plot and heavy on eye candy.[/pullquote]Whereas many excellent films in other countries draw from the deep wells of their host societies’ multi-layered national psyches, it is quite likely that Filipinos’ collective faculty for insight simply lacks the depth to support a film industry that caters to substance.
Indeed, it has become quite common knowledge that truly insightful and artistic Filipinos are left no choice but to seek validation overseas. This has already seen evidence in the Philippines’ music industry where edgy artists are also edged out by entrenched — often politically-backed — mainstream artists. The latter are even lobbying hard to curtail the entry of foreign artists wanting to perform in the country in order to protect the local industry.
To be fair, the commercial success of movies like My Bebe Love simply mirrors the true character of Philippine society and the challenges faced by real artists in the Philippines.
[Photo courtesy Twitter.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Stupid people are ALWAYS happy.
By the way, Joey Reyes, fuck you and your shallow piece of trash movie! You call yourself a director you assclown? Only in the Philippines…!
Proud of making Pinoys dimmer by the day?
Come to think of it, Alden Richards’ success only further marginalises the majority of Filipinos who do not get groomed for studio-backed talent searches because of
1) dark skin
2) flat noses
3) thick regional accents
4) surnames that reek “ethnic” (i.e., Batute, Dimagiba, etc.)
Down with the studio system that oppresses the Filipino masses!!!
And enough of that romantic cr@p – we want some ACTION!!! Exploding cars, flying kicks and burning fists – that is what we moviegoers REALLY want!!!
the screenplay that i’m writing will never be published. it has action + human drama inspired by the country’s culture and dirty politics. unless there’s ‘kilig’ factor and good looking men/women, in short ‘mababaw’, then it has a good chance of being read by producers. if they would ask me to make changes to it, i would just say, “hell no.”
I would be very interested to read it. And Andrew, forget the local market. You have to find a producer and distributor abroad.
People like Joey Reyes and all those other cretins who call themselves “actors” appearing in films here can never work anywhere else, except maybe scrubbing toilets in Hollywood.
Using words like ‘Bebe’ really gets on my nerves. Gaaahhh the fucking kanto shit!
It pisses me off movies like Star Wars VII had to give way to so-called ‘movies’ in the MMFF. Why? Seriously, mainstream Philippine ‘entertainment’ is mostly about selfishness disguised as romance. I’d rather watch some Asian kung fu movies in subtitles than whatever crap the mainstream media presents as a ‘movie’.
Had to go post-Christmas shopping at SM, and lo and behold the mall is literally packed full of people. I’ve seen it very crowded before, but not like this. It’s extraordinarily packed full of people, a lot of them kids, teenagers.
The reason? I found out that My Bebe Love was showing in theaters, and while there I could see lines have formed reaching from the movie theaters to more than half the mall’s length. Some of them have been standing there for hours, for hours! And for what? Reminds me of those who fall in line for hours just to get their hands on the latest iPhone, but at least iPhones can be useful.
Immediately I felt a revived sense of utter annoyance and contempt for Filipino shallowness, something I thought I gradually lost while mingling with ordinary people everyday. The masses aren’t as bad as I thought they were, they’re people like me, but somehow upon seeing those crowds, I felt disgusted. It’s not a feeling I desired to have nor am I proud of, but it was instinctive as to be unavoidable. I cannot deny it.
ph movies are all the same -lame. kung ano ang sikat ngayon, yung ang gagawin ng mga oportunistang director at producer n yan. their stories are the same -lame. love story bs. try however kudos to the director and producers of heneral luna. the only ph movie na may sense, maganda akting, even the editing. create these kinds of movies. at gnyan ang ilabas nyo sa mmff. oportunista din ang mmff kasi tinataon nilang kakatanggap lang ng 13th month pay para sa mga walang kwentang pelikula na yan. comeon mga artista, directors and producers! puro kayo hamig. make a quality movie nmn!
Now this is what I’m talking about! Meant more beyond the rants of those who see themselves as Special People!
Again, The Envious Spoiled Brat Conios of GRP Rah!Rah! Commenters Strikes Back! May The False Sense of Your Self-Entitlement To Everything B-Eats You!
Just Lovely…Happy Christmas!
I think you should also mention the other shallow movies like “Beauty of the Bestie” of course. Just being fair.