Metro Manila Flim Flam?

It's new year once again... And the filmfest is about to end... Too bad I only watched two movies. Hopefully my lady and I could watch "Panaghoy sa Suba" this afternoon.

The other film I watched was "Spirit of the Glass." Many would probably ask why i watched the film. Primarily, my lady and I were planning to watch Panaghoy sa Suba. However, when we got to the cinema, Panaghoy had already started and the next start is already very late for us. Second reason was because I was really curious as to how scary can a Pinoy movie get. I just wanted to compare how it fares against other Asian horror movies. Third is because i wanted to support my ex-classmate in the Ateneo, Dingdong Dantes.

Surprisingly, the Spirit of the Glass gave my lady two shock points. One was when thje bloodied Marvin Agustin (who played Dante, the ghost) appeared in Alessandra de Rossi's closet. Another was when he appeared in Rica Peralejo's Rear view mirror. That's it.

As usual, it was a typical horror movie in the tradition of Regal Shockers and Shake, Rattle and Roll. But then, as what our Pinoy moviegoers always say to not-so-good movies, "Puwede Na."

I am very much interested in watching Panaghoy sa Suba. Panaghoy is a relatively new concept, wherein, it used pure Visayan (Cebuano) language screenplay with English subtitles. It is quite a feat for Cesar Montano to have done this project considering that Manileños have a penchant for discriminating Visayans because of their "slang" accent. This movie is a real breakthrough, with the attempt to unify the nation through appreciation of other dialects aside from Tagalog or Filipino language.

I felt bad upon knowing that Panaghoy didn't win best picture in the recently concluded awards night. The movie mustered small awards that, towards the end, made it look like it's going win the best picture trophy. Panaghoy won best Supporting Actress (Rebecca Lusterio), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Director (Cesar Montano). Unfortunately, they lost the best picture trophy from the controversial Chinese-oriented drama Mano Po 3. They just got the second best picture award. Everyone was shocked to find out the results. The judges argued that Mano Po 3 got the Best Picture award because of having the best story and the best actor and actress.

I didn't seem to get their logic. From a logical perspective, a movie is considered a good movie if the story is good, the screenplay was well written, the camera tricks were excellent and the director was excellent. Most of the time, the award-giving body awards the best director trophy to the movie they think was excellent. Because logically, a movie is excellent because the director managed to pull it off well. On the other hand, Best Actor and Actress awards are given to persons who demonstrated exemplary performance to the role, even if the story of the movie is juat a "so-so." In pedestrian terms, "dinala lang ng artista yung pelikula." It is mind-boggling to see ironies in the recent awards night.

Oh well... controversies happen everywhere, even in the highly-respected Academy Awards. So we need not expect much from the Metro Manila Film Fest...

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Trivia trivia

Did you know: "Misadventures of Ariel and Maverick" star Ariel Villasanta used to appear in the Tito, Vic and Joey sitcom "Iskul Bukol." He plays one of the tambays in the show.