Controlled Chaos

I just watched Kris Aquino’s Sukob last night (due to some incessant nagging) and the experience reminded me why I do not like to watch poppy pinoy flicks at the movie house. Not that I’m being too Conio… I watch pinoy movies if I find them to my liking, which means I rarely get to watch them because most pinoy movies are stupid action flicks, formulaic romantic comedies, or heavy drama. Sadly the local movies which I like don’t last long in the movie houses and thus most often when I go to the mall it has been replaced with a newer or more popular movie… an exemption would be Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Olivares which I watched all by my lonesome at SM Molino (I was the only person at the movie house!) and it was as boring as hell! Big Time was much much better…

The problem with watching P 100.00/head (so guys pay 200 hehe) local movies are the other people who watch it. I’m quite the movie purist so I hate to get distracted and some people are just big fucking retards with no social manners in movie houses. Unlike the time when watching movies are cheap and I could watch 3 movies in a single day (60 lang dati) now we have to choose wisely what movies need to be watched in the bigscreen and what could wait until HBO or Pirates of Carriedo, Curse of the Black Market comes up with clear DVDs.

Here are my list of most irritating jologs-y VIOLATIONS regularly committed in movie houses:

1. Attention Deficiency Syndrome: Some assholes think it’s fun to divert the attention of innocent movie watchers to their nimrod stunts. Last night there was this guy behind us who shouted his lungs out everytime there was a scare build-up (for lack of a better term… this is where the music becomes creepy) even if the execution was poor and no person with IQ higher than 99 would be scared. The retard just wanted some attention… poor him. We couldn’t take his antics (as well as the others beside his group) and thus we moved to another area far from that obnoxious shithead.

2. The ID Complex and Die Hard Fans: Some fans just can’t control themselves… they friggin SCREAM when they see their idols/interests/something they really like in a movie. In Sukob’s case it was Wendell Ramos’ body while he was bathing… it became a gay scream fest =( (which is scary in a different sense)

3. Cellphone Etiquette: No matter what movie house you go to…

a. The Stars: there will always be the great multitasking movie goer who texts with a cellphone having 18W Compact Fluorescent Lights for their backlights. It really becomes annoying if the scenes are very dark and there’s this “cellphone star” in the middle of some cinema seats.

b. The Banshees: Worse are those people who have cellphones with silent mode broken (or their heads are). Again, last night, while organ music was playing to build up the suspense, I hear farm sounds at the back because some idiot did not put his cellphone on silent mode, had a Moo moo quack quack arf arf meow meow mp3 text message tone (because if that was a friggin call this nimrod would’ve talked loud inside the cinema), and he or she was repeatedly texting someone because I could hear the damn thing multiple times in a short span of time.

c. The Mutant Banshees: The worst of these violators are the movie watchers who for some frikkin lack of common decency converse with someone over the phone while they are inside the movie house… I mean jeezuzkrayzt… this isn’t a friggin call center go somewhere else… and what’s so ironic about this is, because he/she is inside a movie house with SDDS/Dolby/etc sound system, THEY CAN’T HEAR EACH OTHER AND SO THIS IDIOT NEEDS TO SCREAM ON THE CELLPHONE!

Woke up late Today, fortunately the telecast of the Pacquiao vs Lario fight was also delayed and I was fortunate enough to watch from the middle rounds of the fight between former champ Gerry Penalosa and this long haired Mexican. The fight was furious, both exchanged nice blows, Gerry visibly had fun in that match as the young mexican didn’t back down and didn’t give up. It was a hard fought game for the two. I thought Penalosa would win it on a close decision, probably by a split even. And when the judges’ scores were announced it was unanimous with all 3 judges scoring him +10 on his opponent. WTF? the judges should have had the decency to atleast give the mexican fighter his due but a blowout decision in favor of Penalosa?!

That trend continued in all the matches, with Jaca’s match being the worst. Yes I know Jaca was the victim of a headbutt early. But fuck, even in basketball players receive cuts in the face and they all go on and continue to play. It is part of the game and even Pacquiao was a victim of that in one of his more recent matches. Jaca continued to fight but the cut above the eye really had an effect on him and he was unable to defend in the later rounds before the fight was stopped on a technical something (I forgot the term). We all thought that Jaca lost, but when it came to the judges decision he was on top by on another unanimous decision this time +7 on the Mexican who MAULED him. Yes the guy was a big cheat as evident of his head first punch later attacks but he did that at his own risk of being punched hard in the face.

The judges were clearly biased and I don’t understand where the organizers got those idiots. In fights held in the USA, a +6 unanimous decision fight is a very one sided fight, in grave contrast to the ones we’ve seen in Pacquiao vs. Larios. Heck, some idiot even scored it 120 – 106 in favor of Pacquiao. That means that the Pacquiao won each of the twelve rounds decisively! Larios had some moments and even gave Pacquiao a scare in the 3rd round so that score should’ve been impossible. It is a shame that we had to televise that mockery of a boxing event to the whole world. A few weeks before the date of Mano-a-Mano (the name of the event) I predicted that all Filipino boxers would win, as I do not think we’va had a local lose to a foreigner in a big fight here in our own country. “Walang natatalong Pinoy sa sarili niyang bansa” was what I said to my friends and much to my dismay my theory was proved. The judges were shameless… Pacquiao vs. Larios was Lutong Makaw to the extreme. I’m wondering if Vince McMahon had a hand in this it looked more of an sports-entertainment show than a real sports event. =(

Government officials love to grandstand. Take the movie The Da Vinci Code for example, before it got released there were countless congressmen and other trapos on TV, they were really riled up in denouncing the movie shouting at the top of their lungs (or gills?) that it will morally corrupt the nation. In Manila Lito Atienza et al even passed a resolution banning the film from being shown.

It is the ignorance, shallow mindedness, and media-whore mentality of such politicians that continually weigh down our country. I am just sick and tired waking up to news showing congressmens' really contorted mugs as they violently point out their opinions (you can even see spit comming out from their mouths), the highly esteemed moral beings that they are. I just wonder how they can react like that to the showing of the movie but not stop the selling of the book in the first place? Is Tom Hanks the big difference – are they too insecure of his Mr. Hollywood appeal? And also, if they think that the contents of the film our damaging to our society, then why don't they go and crusade against all the other R-18 and PG 13 movies about with themes about sex, drugs, and violence?

The Roman Catholic Church, while being the main target of the film, has neither officially renounced it as trash nor asked that it be banned from being shown locally. In sermons during masses all the clergy asks is that we take the messages of the film critically, as we should take every aspect of our faith critically, and reminds the church-goers that the movie is fictional. I think they knew that if they reacted negatively to the film's showing it would cast the church in a bad light and be perceived as an organization trying to hide the "truth" (which is the, not coincidentally, the main plot of the movie).