[RHODE ISLAND] Budget and Itinerary

MONDAY: 30 September 2019

Peter Pan (New York - Providence) - 27.50
AirBNB (1 Night) - 86.87
CVS (Cetirizine x5) - 6.73
Ruby Thai (Fried Rice + Coke) - 10.25

USD131.35

Estimate of USD1 = PhP52.50

TOTAL – PhP6.895.88

[PROVIDENCE] Brown Campus Tour

Coming back to the Philippines and starting anew meant losing my travel perks. I only get five VL credits a year now in my current job. I told myself that I can lose all those travel perks, but defo NOT New York. I need my annual Broadway fix to maintain my sanity. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t squeeze in a city or two nearby for that one week in the Big Apple. For this year, I’ve decided that an Ivy League campus tour is in order. And so I planned accordingly and booked the bus tickets. Brown – Yale – Princeton, then!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Broadway)

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Now in his late 30’s, Harry Potter (James Snyder) juggles being a father and working for the Ministry of Magic. Hermione Granger (Jenny Jules) is the Minister of Magic and is married to Ron Weasley (Matt Mueller), having a son together as well as a daughter named Rose (Nadia Brown). Albus Severus Potter (Nicholas Podany) is the middle child and hardest to deal with among the three. Things get even more complicated when the Sorting Hat places him in Slytherin instead of Gyffindor. Raising eyebrows with the house classification and forever living under the shadow of his famous dad, he finds friendship in Scorpius Malfoy (Bubba Weiler), the geeky son of Draco (Jonno Roberts), who is an outcast himself and persistently hounded by rumors that he is the Dark Lord’s own spawn. As the duo navigate through potions, spells, and Hogwarts cliques, they soon court danger to prove that they can be great wizards, and perhaps change the wizarding world in the process.

Sea Wall/A Life (Broadway)

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Alex (Tom Sturridge) is a photographer who recounts his vacation with the family in southern France where a sea wall forms a part of the scenery and where they find joy and loss in the sea. However, what starts off as fun ends in a tragedy. Abe (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a musical producer and is about to become a father. He soon realizes that his keen attention to detail will not help him that much on his way to fatherhood. He is also shocked by the news of his father’s worsening condition, and must now deal with conflicting emotions of saying goodbye to a life all while welcoming a new one. Two men. Two monologues. Two tales of love and loss. Two stories of death and life. This is Sea Wall/A Life.

G!

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Four friends form the dream team of their school’s soccer group. Growing up as best friends, team captain Sam (McCoy de Leon) and heartthrob Dom (Jameson Blake) are putting their youth to good use by living the life ahead of them to the fullest. Little do they know that everything is about to change for one of them. Scoring a goal in one of their fames, Sam’s vision turns hazy and he collapses out of the blue. Taken to the emergency room of the nearest hospital, he is eventually diagnosed with Stage 3 Gallbladder Cancer. Hit with the realization that he is living on borrowed time and might not live to see another day, he comes up with a bucket list that the four of them then pursue. Their new YOLO initiative comes to a halt when they suddenly find a dead body at the back of their pick-up truck.

Lola Igna

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Lola Igna (Angie Ferro) is the oldest living grandmother in the Philippines. At 118 years old, she is in the running for an award from the Amazing People of the World which will see her awarded with a truckload of cash as well as prestige. Her newfound fame proves to be a tourism draw for her humble little town, her small hut becoming an instant tourist attraction. People all over the country come in droves for a visit and to take a selfie with her. One of them is Tim (Yves Flores), a millennial vlogger who turns out to be her estranged granddaughter Ana’s (Meryll Soriano) son. Tired of living and openly yearning for death, Lola Igna finds a new reason to live with the arrival of her great grandson, but fate has such a wicked sense of humor that is bound to take both of them by surprise.

Open

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Romina (Arci Muñoz) and Ethan (JC Santos) have been in a relationship for 14 years. Happy with their current live in set up, he is not really thinking about marriage, while she obviously wants it. Going to an engagement party after a family reunion, she is pleasantly surprised and then utterly disappointed thinking it would be theirs. As it turns out, it is his best friend’s engagement and he is just the best man. A lovers’ quarrel ensues in the car. The next day he sees his best friend’s fiancée in front of a condo french kissing another woman. Confronting the soon-to-be groom, he finds out that the two are in an open relationship. They are indeed getting married but free to see and sleep with other people they don’t know. With their relationship going stale, Ethan floats the idea to Rome. She hesitantly agrees, thinking it’s the only way to save them from breaking up. His first prospect: Erica (Ina Raymundo), his sexy boss who has been sending him mixed signals at work.

The Panti Sisters

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Filthy rich patriarch of the Panti clan Don Emilio (John Arcilla) is dying of testicular cancer. Announcing the bad news to his estranged sons, he invites all three of them to dinner for one final wish in line with their inheritance. Whoever will be the first to give him a biological grandchild will inherit the entirety of his wealth amounting to 300 million pesos. Eldest son Gabriel (Paolo Ballesteros) has left the family home long ago after being disowned for being gay and now works as a drag queen performer at a bar. Illegitimate son Samuel (Christian Bables) considers himself as the Queen of Tondo and goes to the reunion with his opportunistic mother Vilma (Rosanna Roces) in tow. Youngest son Daniel (Martin del Rosario) maintains his K-Pop appearance and is living in with his boyfriend Zernan (Joross Gamboa) who promises him marriage. All their plans are derailed as they scramble to find a girl to impregnate in exchange for their inheritance.

Pagbalik

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A single mother in her 50’s, Rica (Suzette Ranillo) comes back to the Philippines after getting Trump’d. Working as a caregiver in the United States, she has been deported and is given no other choice but to come back to the motherland. Given the financial hardships involved in staying in the country without a well-paying job, she is already considering the possibility of becoming an OFW again, applying for a similar job in the UK this time around. Her mother Choleng (Gloria Sevilla) is getting harder and harder to deal with as she gets older, while her son (Vince Ranillo) has devoted most of his adult life taking care of his grandmother instead of living his own. As the days go by, the trio soon realize that coming back is not all about hugs and smiles, but also entails a lot of effort in adjusting to a new reality brought about by a long time of absence.

I'm Ellenya L.

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Millennial Ellenya Lakampati (Maris Rascal), aka Ellenya L, has always dreamed of becoming a social media celebrity like her idol Sue Ramirez. The only problem is that she doesn’t really have any online presence to speak of. Her father (Gio Alvarez) is ever supportive, creating fake accounts to like her daughter’s posts, while her grandmother (Nova Villa) is rather apprehensive and believes her granddaughter should focus more on a real career instead of job hopping every other month or so. When she meets Kyle (Pat Sugui), a popular content creator and manager, she grabs the opportunity to pose as a legit influencer even when she’s really not. Counting on the help of her best friend Peng (Iñigo Pascual), Ellenya L will stop at nothing to reach social media super stardom. The question is, how far will she go to achieve her dream and, in the end, will it all be worth the challenge?

Watch Me Kill

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Luciana (Jean Garcia) is a gunman for hire and quite skilled in what she does, being the go-to hitman of choice from criminals all the way to ordinary citizens in pursuit of revenge that they themselves cannot exact. Everything goes well for her and she gets paid more than enough while maintaining a modest lifestyle in an old house in the woods far from prying eyes. And then she meets Franco (Jay Manalo), a crime boss interested in a rare diamond that an eccentric military retiree scooped out from a river. The task proves to be a walk in the park for Luciana, leaving half a dozen collateral damage in her wake. What she didn’t expect, though, is for a young girl she names Aurora (Junyka Santarin) to be involved in the fray. Once the conscience she thought she already lost a long time ago kicks in, she begins to rethink her decisions in life.

LSS

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Two strangers meet on a P2P bus ride. Zack (Khalil Ramos) and Sarah (Gabbi Garcia) find themselves spending their time lost in traffic engaged in smalltalk and eventually segue to their common interest in musical genres and acts. As they reach their destination, the two walk towards opposite directions seemingly never to meet again as they immediately go back to their own realities. He has spent the last five years in the friendzone, not mustering the courage to court his bisexual bestfriend. She is an aspiring musician, setting aside her dreams and working odd jobs to send her younger brother to school. As they wade through the difficulties of their own lives, their paths will inadvertently cross again as dictated by their choice in music.

Circa

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Renowned film producer Doña Atang (Anita Linda) fast approaches her 100th birthday. The movie matriarch’s daughters: sister Rosa (Laurice Guillen); blacksheep Susan (Elizabeth Oropesa); and balikbayan Maria (Gina Alajar) all come home to the childhood mansion where they grew up to celebrate their mother’s milestone. Her grandson Michael (Enchong Dee) is a budding filmmaker himself and would like to surprise his lola by contacting many of the industry greats that she has worked with both onscreen and offscreen through the decades. The task proves to be a difficult one given how much the landscape of cinema has changed since she was last active in the business. With the help of nanny Meding (Jaclyn Jose), he goes through their family’s collection of film negatives rusting down in the basement, uncovering some memories both good and bad as well as some mysterious truths that he might never fully understand.

Just a Stranger

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A married woman goes to church to confess. The neophyte priest hears the confession of Mae (Anne Curtis), who gives him a blow-by-blow recap of how she began an illicit affair with the 19-year-old son of the Philippine consul in Portugal. What started out as an excursion with her friends in Lisbon ended in infidelity, followed-up by more instances of maintaining an extra-marital affair with Jericho (Marco Gumabao) the moment they found themselves back in the Philippines. Her husband Phil (Edu Manzano) is aloof but curtails all her financial benefits anyway, not wanting to fund her betrayal. Jericho, on the other hand, welcomes the return of his girlfriend but still insists on seeing the older and more mature Mae. As they begin to genuinely fall for one another, they soon realize that their setup will never be accepted by the society they belong to, and soon they must come to a decision.