All posts filed under: Entertainment

Entertainment news and features other than pageants, movies, theaters, TV series, etc.

Wilbert Ross and Bea Binene in promotional art for Pee Mak PH.

Pee Mak PH’s and WilBea’s Biggest Challenge: Filling Mario Maurer’s Shoes

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Pee Mak PH opens October 14 without a Mario Maurer in its cast. Whether Wilbert Ross and Bea Binene’s star power can carry it is the real test ahead. Wilbert Ross and Bea Binene arrived at the grand mediacon for “Pee Mak PH” this week, the film’s cast lined up together to confirm what had been the project’s missing piece since April: a release date. Viva Films has set the Philippine adaptation’s theatrical release for October 14, nationwide. When “Pee Mak” opened in Philippine cinemas in 2013, Filipino audiences weren’t discovering Mario Maurer. They already loved him. “Love of Siam” had made him a cult favorite here since 2007; “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” aired on ABS-CBN in 2010, turned him into a mainstream phenomenon with a Penshoppe endorsement deal and fan conferences that drew thousands; Star Cinema had already cast him opposite Erich Gonzales by 2012. By the time “Pee Mak” arrived, Maurer didn’t need the film to introduce him — he flew in that August specifically to meet fans who already knew his …

IV of Spades wins Song of the Year for "Aura" at the 39th Awit Awards

39th Awit Awards 2026: IV of Spades Takes Album and Song of the Year. SB19 Led the Nominations and Still Came Up Short.

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The 39th Awit Awards handed out its three biggest trophies tonight, and the act with the most nominations in the building didn’t win a single one of them. SB19 led the ceremony — organized annually by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI) — with 12 nods across grand, performance, and technical categories. By the end of the night at SM Mall of Asia Arena, Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year had all gone somewhere else. The Comeback Wins the Marquee IV of Spades took Album of the Year for Andalucia and Song of the Year for “Aura” — the same single that marked the rock band’s return after nearly five years on hiatus, released as a surprise drop in mid-2025 alongside the comeback of lead vocalist Blaster Salonga. Winning the two biggest creative-output awards in the same year the band came back from a multi-year gap isn’t a small distinction; it’s PARI’s industry peers reading Andalucia less as a solid follow-up and more as a genuine …

Alden Richards during his emotional interview on the Gandang Gabi Vice comeback episode, September 13, 2026

Alden Richards Finally Answered the Question GGV’s Comeback Episode Was Built to Ask.

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Vice Ganda’s late-night talk show spent its entire pre-launch campaign promising something it hadn’t had to prove in six years off air: an unscripted hour with a guest who usually answers questions carefully. On September 13, Gandang Gabi Vice (GGV) returned to Philippine television for the first time since March 2020, moving from its original home on ABS-CBN to a Sunday-night slot on GMA Network. Actor Alden Richards — long nicknamed “Asia’s Multimedia Star” in entertainment coverage — sat down as the show’s first guest. By the time the episode wrapped, he’d cried for close to ten minutes and, in a segment built around forcing honesty, addressed a question about himself he’d spent years sidestepping. The Question He Usually Deflects In GGV’s “Deep Truth” segment — a game where guests read aloud statements about themselves and the hosts guess whether each is “trot” (true) or “charot,” Filipino slang for a joke — Richards read a line claiming he’d once punched someone for calling him “bading,” Filipino slang for gay. The verdict came back charot: he …

Rafael Manuel's Filipiñana, the Philippines' official entry to the 2027 Oscars

Filipiñana Is the Philippines’ Oscar Pick — and It’s Not the Only Filipino-Language Film in the Race

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The Philippines has its official entry for the 99th Academy Awards, and it’s the film that closed Cinemalaya three weeks ago. Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana was named the Philippines’ submission to the Best International Feature Film category — the category through which countries each submit one non-English-language film for Oscar consideration — the Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP) announced Sunday, September 13. A National Selection Committee picked it from a shortlist of eight films. The FAP is backing two more Philippine Oscar campaigns from the same announcement: Carl Joseph Papa’s 58th, an animated docudrama on the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre, for Best Documentary Feature Film, and Agapito, from directors Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero, for Best Live-Action Short Film. All three compete in separate categories judged independently — Filipiñana isn’t the country’s only Oscar bid this cycle, just the one with the highest profile. Viewers who caught it as the closing film of this year’s Cinemalaya had already seen the version of this film that made its case internationally, before a single Oscar committee weighed …

Century Tuna Superbods 2026 Grand Winners and Runners-Up

Austin Dizon Cabatana and Vienne Luna Are Century Tuna’s New Superbods. Twenty Years In, the Night Still Found New Records to Set.

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The wait that our men’s and women’s preview pieces flagged ended Friday, September 11, at Solaire Resort North. Century Tuna crowned Austin Dizon Cabatana and Vienne Luna as its 2026 Grand Winners, closing out a 20th-anniversary edition that had already expanded its finalist field to a record 40 before the night even started. The Winners Cabatana, Mister International Philippines 2023 titleholder — he placed 1st runner-up at that year’s international pageant and later returned to the franchise as a host at Mister International Philippines 2024 — took the men’s crown built around an advocacy for accessible quality nutrition. It’s a natural throughline from the “quiet wins” framing he brought into the competition, one our preview piece flagged as his strongest asset heading into finals night. Luna, born Vienne Sirin Feucht, a Calamba City, Laguna native who placed in Binibining Pilipinas 2024’s Top 15, won the women’s title on the strength of Project H.E.R. — Health, Empowerment, and Resilience, her platform for the night. Beyond the Grand Winner title, she also took three individual honors: the …

Ruby Ruiz Just Became the Face of Australia’s Oscar Campaign

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Australia has picked its Oscar horse, and it’s carrying a Filipino passport. “First Light,” the feature debut of Filipino-Australian filmmaker James J. Robinson, has been selected as Australia’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards — the category through which countries submit one non-English-language film each year for Oscar consideration. It’s the first Filipino-Australian co-production ever made, and the first Tagalog-language film Australia has submitted in the category’s history. Leading it is Ruby Ruiz, a veteran Filipino actress who has spent over four decades working the margins of Philippine cinema in character and supporting roles before this became, in her own words on Instagram, her first international lead. The story Shot largely in Baras, Rizal, with additional filming in Metro Manila, “First Light” follows Sister Yolanda, a nun whose quiet devotion unravels after a construction worker under her care dies under suspicious circumstances. As she pushes for answers, she runs into resistance from both the Church and the state — institutions that would rather the story stay buried. Australia’s selection …

Lav Diaz Makikiraan Po wins at Venice

Lav Diaz Wins the Brian Award at Venice. It’s His First Trophy From the Festival Since the 2016 Golden Lion.

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Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz has won the Brian Award at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival for “Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors” (“Makikiraan Po”), a collateral prize given to the film that best embodies the festival’s spirit of rationalism, human rights, and pluralism. The Brian Award, known in Italian as Premio Brian, has been presented since 2006 by the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), a secularist advocacy group affiliated with the global network Humanists International. Named for the Monty Python film “Life of Brian,” the prize goes to whichever film screened at Venice that year most strongly advances values the UAAR champions: rationality, freedom of conscience, and equal treatment regardless of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious belief. “Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors” is set in 1617, during the height of Spain’s colonization of the Philippines. Bart Guingona plays Padre Enciso, a Spanish friar overseeing the construction of a church who sends his son, Dungwen — played by Christian Bables — to move limestone through territory where native communities are still …