My friends watched the recently-released local title “Everyday, I Love You” and they kept telling me to watch it because it’s very romantic and touching. And every time they do, they got the same reply from me, “I’m not paying to watch it. Either I wait for my sister to download an HD copy of it or I’ll catch it on TV,” but still, they keep on insisting.
The truth my friends, is that I’m tired of the same clichéd romantic-comedies our local directors have been offering since the beginning of this millennium. An accomplice of mine seemed to agree with my reasoning, he stated, “If a huge amount of people turned up in cinemas to watch romantic-comedies, then our filmmakers will continue to cater this demand!” In short, he’s inferring that we should limit ourselves in supporting films like this, in order for other genres to thrive in this country.
I’m not saying we should stop making romantic-comedy films but, it’s getting tiring. It’s all the same story, poor girl/boy falling in love with a rich man/woman of his/her dreams or either one moves out to another country and then goes back to search for new love, man these kind of stuff does get boring. We all knew it’s going to have the same ending. For someone who is accustomed of foreign films and their brilliance, I think our cinema is due for a change.
Furthermore, my accomplice opened up the visual effects of our cinema and how we’re far behind, technically. In fact, the first edition of Star Wars (1977) was visually better than what we’ve achieved this decade, which is frightening because in this day and age, everyone would have thought we’ve had good use of the latest technology. In my opinion, I think the sole reason for this could again be attributed to my first point, “There’s just too much demand for Rom-Com and too little for other genres.”
If we have been constantly making CGI-based films or sci-fi films, then perhaps we could have at least advance visually. But of course who would dare? No directors or studios would invest that much money for this, not unless a local Christopher Nolan mind would do so. It’s all for the profit.
I stopped watching local movies by the time I decided they’re not worth it anymore (although on special occasion when the rating for the movie is high and above standards, I do watch it). I don’t hate them, contrary to what my friends are thinking; I just don’t think they’re worth the time and money. They’re just made solely for entertainment and to tickle everyone’s hearts. I do agree that they could really tickle someone’s hearts, but I’m looking for growth. And our directors should, no one will ever be called visionary here if they keep sticking to their old formulas. And don’t tell me that “don’t fix it until it’s broke” because sooner or later, we will all come to realization that we’re just being tricked.
What people needs to understand is that I am a movie enthusiast, I find comfort in movies, I let the power of movies control my head as they leave thoughts to ponder. In the past month or so, the movies I watched were:
- Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
- Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
- Dope (Rick Famu2015)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
- Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2015)
- Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997)
- Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
- A Brilliant Young Mind (Morgan Matthews, 2014)
If you noticed, some of the movies I watched were a bit dated. Well that’s essentially a part of what I called #AClassicAWeek project, a project of mine that started midyear to discover classic films that shaped the cinema of today’s generation.
However, there’s no traces of these films in our recent local titles, in fact we have come as far to diminish animated titles too. It certainly does not help that we are always using song titles in our films, for real though, can’t we be more original and serious thinkers?
Examining the films above, it is obvious that I have never seen a single Filipino movie either in cinema or in DVD last month. The last one, and perhaps the only time where I’ve seen a local movie in a theatre this year was Heneral Luna. Now this one is very interesting, out-of-the-box, high-budget film that turned to blockbuster even after a lackluster opening due to positive word-of-mouth.
The risk that the director and studio took certainly paid well, and if some of our well-known directors had the guts to go outside of their limits too, then perhaps we could have had a thriving community full of visionaries. Heneral Luna is basically a testimony that not only romantic/rom-com films can achieve box-office heights in the country, if it’s fresh, informative, and something new to us, then we might as well get on board with it.
The risk that the director and studio took certainly paid well, and if some of our well-known directors had the guts to go outside of their limits too, then perhaps we could have had a thriving community full of visionaries. Heneral Luna is basically a testimony that not only romantic/rom-com films can achieve box-office heights in the country, if it’s fresh, informative, and something new to us, then we might as well get on board with it.
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