My Life as a Movie

I USED to critique movies for Manila's biggest newspaper and freelanced elsewhere in the US. All movie talk. I say a movie sucks based on artistic merits, technical craftiness, human values, political correctness whatever but when I ask the everyday person what is a “good” movie, I know what I'm gonna get. Check out all-time box office earners and movies that made huge money overseas. 

          These are movies that were seen and enjoyed by the general public for what it's worth—plain and simple entertainment. Movies that calm down a poor wage-earner, the lowly winning over the powerful, Cinderellas and Rambos and Rockys and Jack Sparrows, and recluse weirdos like Bruce Wayne mutating into Batman to save a city in turmoil—and then throw in some laughter, tears falling, obligatory sex, and some dancing and sappy love songs under a starry, starry night.

          The people of the universe want to relate and define with what they see on the silver screen yet they are aware it's just a 1 and half hour recreational activity. An easy respite. So why would a bills-harassed, impoverished person spend hard-earned money to ponder the torments of living in a show of artistic marvel or shrewd storytelling that make them wiggle their brains out? Deliberate the logic of plot points, the sense of well-structured scripts? If these cinematic stimuli move them to laughter or tears, hurrahs and oompphhs and back—then it's working. It's not that they are lazy or stupid, they just don't have much time to ponder or ruminate heavy stuff. It's just a movie...     
    

I believe that as artists, we feel the sublime need to awaken humanity from stupor and so whatever we write or craft mirror such admirable resolve. But how do we cut in and through people's psyche—so we may be heard? Are we being too intellectual, blurry, oblique and profound—or are we superficial, shallow, cheap and accessible? We don't know, we just do it—to please us first. And if the person who partook of our art likes it or was “awakened” by it, well and good. But we just create because the act itself makes us feel good or better... There are many movies that I enjoyed for what they were intended to, “cheap” and insane fun yet I felt better. And there were movies that I agree were artistically outstanding yet they made me yawn or felt a heaviness in my heart. And vice versa. I can tell if a movie works for me because I know it did. It doesn't have to be a Kurosawa or a Spielberg, Oscar winner or 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

         We can always discourse “Star Wars” as this and that. “Rambo” and “The Terminator” as this and that. Even connect Washington's foreign policy or Beijing's current mercantilism to these movies, or maybe a sinister plot is behind Hollywood or Bollywood? We can do that, it's our personal take. But I also believe that the general public don't really care much about the technical stuff or whatever that earns Meryl Streep most Oscars in acting. They simply like a movie that works for them on a given moment and it so happened that she's on it. Entertainment. Movies are just maybe a mere 15 percent of stuff and things that help mold people's paradigms or politics or individual themness.

          Bottomline, when you watch a movie—make sure you are enjoying it, and it's okay if the next person doesn't. Click out and click in your own choice. It's just a movie. But we can never make a person believe in whatever message or truth that we deem need to be believed if we fail in catching his/her attention first. How do we that and then make the individual pay attention? Entertain, teach, advocate, awaken. But entertain first. That's what art or cinema is all about.