Judy Ann Santos' Ploning, which she produced and starred in, was selected as the Philippines' entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards next year.
"Yung masabi lang na representative ng Pilipinas, sobra-sobrang kaligayahan na yun, e. Yung masabi na kasama ka sa 18 na finalists, bonggang-bongga na yun. Yung makasama ka sa lima [the Top 5 will be mentioned during the Academy Awards nominations], napakabuti kong tao na talaga!" exclaims Judy Ann Santos about the selection of Ploning as the country's entry to the best foreign language film category of the Oscar Awards next year.
The movie beat Sharon Cuneta's Caregiver, Tribu, and Endo as the official film nomination for the Philippines. Caregiver was okay, but had some extremely corny and cliche' movie lines in the script that ruined the feeling of the reality of the movie like "Not on my watch, sir" which sounded fake and unrealistic no matter how good of an actress Sharon is. Nobody actually talks like that in real life, at least anymore, anywhere in the world in 2008. I have a feeling the writers of the film were too influenced by Hollywood movies from the 1930s - 1950s, since many of the lines of the movie sounded just like antiquated and cliché movie lines that came right out of old Hollywood films. 
It's just like when Pinoy journalists use the word 'lass' to describe a young girl, they're English terms that are no longer currently used among people these days. Also, journalists in Manila, please stop using the word 'bag' all the time to describe someone winning awards, because it just sounds horrible and not classy at all, I can't stand seeing that in Philippine newspapers. Just compare this:"Actress bags Academy Award" or "Actress wins Academy Award". Journalists in other countries sometimes use the term 'bag', but they don't overuse it like journalists in Manila (and India) do, and it's only used casually and usually only in casual showbiz tidbits and magazines, but not on official articles in newspapers, because when it's something important like a Filipino winning an achievement award, and journalists say "Filipino bags scholastic award" like I've seen before, it just sounds bad, like it lessens the effect of prestige that winning an award should bring. Just use the word win, what's so hard about that?
Crying Ladies was fantastic and had a unique story, and the atmosphere was so realistic. Caregiver on the other hand fulfilled all of the classic Pinoy cliches that we're used to seeing in Pinoy movies with the classic 4-minute "passing of time collage" with flashbacks of happy moments as a really emotional song plays in the background we've seen a million times in Pinoy movies, especially in movies made by Star Cinema.
But that line "Not on my watch, sir" is gonna go down in history as one of the most famous lines from megastar Sharon Cuneta's movies, along with the classic "You're nothing but a second rate, trying hard copycat!" said by Cherie Gil to Sharon from Bituing Walang Ningning (watch video), hehe.Angelika dela Cruz' interpretation of Cherie Gil's famous line: You're nothing but a second rate, trying hard copycat!
Bituing Walang Ningning with Sarah Geronimo
