Everybody’s going reality

Author: Isah V. Red
Column: Life & Entertainment

Reality television has gone really wild. Taking the cue from the controversial Survivor on American TV, local broadcast guys have toyed around with the concept in a variety of ways, from talent searches to beauty titlists, and most recently new TV personalities via the imported franchise Big Brother.

No, Big Brother’s house is not going to be demolished. Not as yet. That is despite of the brouhaha that marked its final days with one evicted housemate easily getting a comfortable slot in the Big Four during the Big Night. While she didn’t end up as the big winner, Wendy Valdez still got the premium of being in the top 4, thus ensuring her place in show business (well, at least in the complex called ABS-CBN).

Now, the same network has launched a new reality show. Or it is the other way around, ABS-CBN being merely Destileria Limtuaco’s media partner.

The marketing guys over at the distillery that bottles White Castle Whisky in over 60 years traveled across the Philippines in search for The Next White Castle Girl.

Who doesn’t remember the sexy woman riding a white horse sans saddle on the beach while the jingle of White Castle Whisky played in the background?

It all started in the late ’60s with beauty titlists like Agnes Rustia and Evangeline Pascual, Peachy Veneracion, followed by beauty-titlist-turned-bold star Ma. Isabel Lopez, sexy stars Tetchie Agbayani, Lorna Tolentino, Lyka Ugarte, Christina Gonzales, Carmi Martin, Glydel Mercado, and now ABS-CBN’s own Roxanne Guinoo.

White Castle pitchmen called the chance to ride the white horse the “White Castle Luck,” and so far, it has given some of these women good luck, although for some the good wore out as soon as when they dismounted the horse.

Instead of just picking out from a photo album submitted to the marketing people by an agency casting guy, Destileria Limtuaco changed the tone of its pitch. “Let’s do a nationwide search so we can create a louder buzz. We’ll put it on TV and presto, this is going to be the perfect marketing move for the brand.”

According to the pitch, “The new search has been re-defined and has evolved with the fast- pacing changes in life. It is now not only a search for beauty, body and brains but also to test and evaluate how the candidates react, behave and endure the obstacles they face while under pressure and stress in real life. The Search for the New White Castle Girl is now also a reality challenge game combining beauty, sports, and courage for that perfect Filipina to emerge as a woman of the millennium with substance and that X factor.”

The candidates for the Search for the White Castle had to hold on tightly on a wild banana boat ride in Boracay, tame a carabao in Zambales, survive the whitewater rafting in Cagayan River and not fall from a mechanical bull in Metro Manila before she deserves to gallop on the gallant white horse, the symbol of her throne. (See the photo in our Eye Candy today.)

The Search for The Next White Castle Girl will air starting tomorrow, July 7, and every Saturday thereafter 11 p.m. The Grand Finals will be on the 28th and airs from 10:30-12:30 p.m. only on ABS-CBN.

The lucky rider to win will receive a house a lot from Sta. Lucia Realty Corp., a talent contact worth P300,000 from Destileria Limtuaco & Co. Inc. as The Next White Castle Girl, a trip for two to Boracay courtesy of SEAIR and Pearl of the Pacific Resort, one-year supply of Mary Pauline Salon services and gift certificates from Red Hot Chili Shop.

Now, what will be the next reality TV search? I heard it’s going to be the next Bench model.

If this thing doesn’t stop, we will be swamped with reality TV shows. The other network is, I am informed, also launching a couple more reality shows. God help us.

Aguilera’s front act

Star In A Million 2006 Grand Winner Kris Lawrence will be the opening act for Christina Aguilera’s Back to Basics Live in Manila concert tonight at the Fort Bonifacio Global City Open Field.

“I felt very excited when they first told me about the stint,” Lawrence says.

“It’s a great honor to have been chosen to open for her. Not everyone gets that chance. I’m a very big fan. I saw her concert at the Universal Ampitheater back in 2002 when I was still living in L.A.”

His favorite Aguilera tracks include “I Turn To You,” and “Genie In A Bottle.”

“I loved the ‘Genie’ video especially since she looked so sexy in it,” Kris confesses.

Given the chance, Kris would love to sing “I Turn To You,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” or “Reflection.”

“Initially, there was that possibility of doing a duet, but it didn’t push through,” he says. “I’d love to do ‘Reflection’ because it reminds me of my sister, who’s still playing Kim in Miss Saigon in Australia now.”

Must-not-miss movie

If you haven’t watched Die Hard 4.0, go catch a screening at a multiplex near your house or office. It’s one movie you don’t want to miss watching in THX-certified theater (or at least Dolby Digital sound- equipped theater) with a wide screen larger than your 50-inch LCD TV screen at home.

The special visual effects are spectacular and the stunts fantastic bordering on incredibly improbable.

But it’s a movie and one with Bruce Willis, now 52 and still looks like he can still snuff out a battalion of bad guys. And that’s exactly what he does in this movie, including terminating the martial arts expert Mai (Maggie Q) in a heart-pounding elevator shaft sequence.

High-testosterone flick. That’s how critics call this kind of nonstop action, stunt-driven movie. But it’s as exciting as taking a ride on a roller-coaster with an empty stomach.

I’ve seen all the other three Die Hard, beginning with the first in 1988 that introduced John McClane in John McTiernan’s hard-hitting tale about a police officer with a not-so-sterling record who finds himself on a heroic mission to save his wife and daughter trapped in a building occupied by a band of terrorists.

From a high-rise office building, McClane moves to an airport communication’s center seized by another terrorist group that threatens to blow up the center to cause airplanes to crash in Die Hard: Die Harder in 1990. Renny Harling (Geena Davis’ husband) directed this heart-stopping Willis outing that also cemented the actor’s place in the firmament of screen action heroes.

The McClane persona continued to stultify audience with the release of Die Hard With a Vengeance with McTiernan taking the helm once more and fortifying the humor that punctuated every action sequence with the addition of Samuel L. Jackson as the unlikely McClane partner.

In this fourth (but we hope not the last) installment of the McClane saga, the New York cop accidentally gets involved in the mishmash of cyberterrorism that has paralyzed the entire continent’s transportation system, financial centers, government, and puts the entire population in chaos.

McClane’s order was simply to bring in a computer hacker they suspect of intrusion to the country’s security system for questioning. Little did he know that Matt Farrell is party to the chaos that is bringing the US government down. As Farrell is hunted by the hatchetmen of Thomas Gabriel, McClane is pushed deeper into the situation where there is no option but to eliminate the root of the evil that suddenly enveloped the entire nation.

I don’t want to take the excitement away from you, folk, that have yet to line up for a seat in a theater. Go watch Willis, and root for McClane.

Alternative TV

If you have had enough of those depressing late-night news and public affairs shows, try watching Trip na Trip.

This is a different kind of travel show. It is not patronizing, neither it is critical. What the hosts—Kat de Castro, Uma Khouny, and Jayson Gainza—try to tell the audience is how to make the most out of traveling.

There are the travails of an out-of-town trip—like bad accommodations with unsanitary toilet conditions or the hazards of traveling in uncharted territories—but the trio dishes out their cakes with humor.

You don’t get the feeling that you’re being taken for a ride, even if actually you are because you are shown all the things that you need to see in a place, including the not-so-tourist-friendly stuff.

Trip na Trip airs every Friday, 11:30 p.m.

Source: Manila Standard Today

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