LET THE SHOW BEGIN: MMFF 2022 OR HOW IMPORTANT THIS FESTIVAL MEANS TO THE FILM INDUSTRY

In a matter of a few days, the 2022 edition of the MetroManila Film Festival will open in time for Christmas.

Eight films will be competing not only for the awards (to be announced on the 27th of December) but for their share of the box office at that time of the year when  no foreign movies are showing in MetroManila cinemas.  The trophies annointing the best of the lot are important but not as much as the receipts to be earned throughout the duration of the festival.

Mayor Joy Belmonte excitedly announced that this is the year of "revenge moviewatching."  After three years of relative confinement because of the pandemic, now people have flocked to malls, tiangges and public arenas as if trying to retrieve what was stolen for thirty-six months from their lives.  Despite the threat of yet another worldwide surge as evidenced by what is present progressively happening in China, people are brave enough to flock and congregate with some choosing not to wear masks as if to announce to everybody that things are back to 2019 normal and has had enough of the inconveniences of being cautious about that virus.

Let us hope that this is more than just positive thinking.

The point is that the results of this year's MMFF is critical.  Why? Because it will determine the fate of an entire industry that has stagnated if not atrophied as a result of the pandemic.  The number of cinemas have been cut down to a substantial size throughout the COVID era because people were not allowed to watch movies.  But now that they have opened the doors of moviehouses to audiences, people have not returned to their usual habit inasmuch as the way people live has so drastically changed because of the pandemic.

There are serious points to consider as to why the success of MMFF will be an uphill battle.

First, even if cinemas have now opened --- not as many people have chosen to enjoy their movies in theater venues.  Of course it is so sad to think that the cinematic experience can be replicated anywhere even if you have a 72" TV screen glaring at you in one of the corners of your Batcave.  Cinema is meant to be a collective experience --- a sharing of a common moment in a simulated and temporary community that is immersed in darkness while being suspended in time and space.  No home theater set-up can duplicate that but ...

Second, after almost three years of being locked up in our houses with minimal exposure to the public for precautionary reasons --- we got used to this way of life.  Yes, there is that urge to go out and do revenge shopping, revenge restaurant eating, revenge spelunking --- but still the pandemic has rearranged the way we perceive life and how to deal with each and every day.  This includes the way we are entertained.

This leads to the third and perhaps more important point.

The price of movie tickets has escalated for reasons that are validated by theater owners. Even if the number of movie goers have so greatly diminished, the overhead cost of operating a cinema remains the same. Now with the cost of regular tickets in the MetroManila area costing over three hundred pesos and over two hundred fifty in provinces, the cost of watching a movie seemed to have gone beyond the reach of the regular Filipino moviegoer.

Since cinemas reopened only a handful of movies have proven successful: "Doctor Strange", "Top Gun: Maverick" and other franchise movies that demand the full cinematic experience to appreciate.  Again, these are movies watched by those who can still afford the tickets. And as a sidebar, not all foreign films shown here make money as well.

Which leaves us to the fourth point.

The regular Filipino moviegoer --- he who would shiver with pleasure watching the Star Cinema romcoms or the antics of Vice Ganda or the latest adventure of another incarnation of Coco martin --- may no longer afford the price of movie tickets. Well, yes. Christmas is that time of the year when it is assumed that people have money to burn for guilty pleasures such as spending an entire day watching movies.  

The question is : this year, will they?  Will they spend their limited cash in watching a movie?

Another point to note is that there was a time when people literally binged in watching as many entries of the MMFF as humanly possible.  That is, after one screening --- the entire family or the lovey-dovey couple who run to the next cinema outlet to catch another one of the festival entries.

But this year --- can they still afford it?  Can they still afford to watch more than one movie to feel the frenzy and excitement of a festival of entertainment possibilities?

Or will they just choose one --- or at most, two movies to more or less complete the Christmas experience?

Lastly, will they think that the movies are worth their P300+ per ticket?  

Will the movies tickle the fancy and generate enough interest and curiosity to convince people to go out of their houses and spend money on movies to celebrate Christmas? 

Or will they opt to keep their alternative forms of entertainment --- such as Netflix, Viu, HBO Asia, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus or Vivamax? Will they still opt to stay at home, spend their money on other essentials rather than to brave the traffic and the chance of being exposed to the virus by cavorting with the public?

How MMFF 2022 will fare should also determine the fate of Filipino movies next year?  It will also ratify if indeed the pre-pandemic star system still exists or has the closure of a major network franchise and the rise of streaming redefined popularity and its peso equivalent in commercial returns. 

So many questions will be answered and we have to wait for the first week of January of the new year to know where and how Filipino movies can survive if not evolve in the post-pandemic scenario.

HIATUS: AFTER 9 YEARS, THE BANGTAN BOYS TAKE A BREAK ---- AND THE ARMY IS HEARTBROKEN

 HIATUS.

At the end of the much anticipated 2022 Festa, that annual dinner when the boys of BTS sit around and share food and drinks with their fandom named ARMY --- the word HIATUS came as both a shock --- and yet not so much of a surprise.

The Easter eggs were all over the garden.  

Suga collaborated with PSY for an instant hit. Even before that Jin and Jimin were already hitting the charts with solo endeavors singing OST materials for various KDramas. Even before the boys met up with the POTUS at the Oval Office, Jungkook went ahead of his squad to meet up with Charlie Puth in New York City for a collaboration.  Then there was the news that JHope was performing as a solo artist in this year's Lollapalooza.  And V was doing a version of In the Soup with his Wooga Squad.  

These were not a mere series of coincidences.  They were all pointing to something.

But last 10 June 2022 when BTS made this year's comeback with their much anticipated triple CD album entitled Proof, the next series of events became clearer.

The album was an anthology of all the past hits of the band from the time of their launch until they achieved this unprecedented pinnacle of success --- to the point of being compared to the Beatles.  The anniversary album was like a summary of all the years that have gone by, a blueprint of their music mapping the maturity and evolution of the band and their creations.

The moment the carrier single Yet to Come was launched --- the speculations became clearer if not more defining for me.  Even the other two songs (Run BTS and For Youth) were not random materials set in to complete the new music in the compilation.  The lyrics of all three songs reverberated the same messages: memories, gratitude, anticipation, moving forward and goodbye.

That was why four nights later when the pre-recorded dinner was aired (apparently taped even before the boys left for the U.S. to fulfill their White House appointment), the announcement was not exactly meant to blindside the fandom.  They were pointing to this through their activities --- and the word hiatus transcribed in the subtitle from Suga's statement triggered the ARMY into an emotional meltdown.

It was made very clear that they were not disbanding.  They  chose to take a vacation from one another --- and, as Jimin stated, they needed to find themselves.

Well, true: remember that they have been together for nine years. 

Until recently they have been living in the same quarters --- from the cramped dormitory with double decker beds eating nothing but chicken breasts while they were trainees --- to the beautiful living quarters provided for them by HYBE, the management company that by their sheer marketability  turned into a multi-million dollar behemorth.  But they graduated from all that as well: each one of the boys acquired his own luxury residence --- in the most expensive and fashionable districts of Seoul, driving fancy cars, captured in YouTube videos with their lifestyle and fashion --- and, yes, endorsing LV apparels and becoming fashion plates emulating a life beyond aspiration. They became larger than life.

That, I believe, was and will always be the magic of BTS.  

Their narrative embodied all the tropes of a Cinderella story --- and we, the ARMY, applaud them not only for their music but everything that they had come to represent especially in the past two years and a half of the pandemic.  Not only with their songs but with their very being there  that they became a symbol of hope and positivity, a representation of what good was left in the world. At a time of confusion and destruction, they embodied affirmation and resolution.

These boys were not merely lucky.  They worked hard --- very hard --- for whatever it is that they have ... or how high the mountain top they climbed to break glass ceilings and achieve unimaginable success.  

The fandom thrived with the sheer power of their success because they represented hope in goodness, in humility --- and in talent. We saw what we wanted to see and defended the boys against those who did not perceive what we embraced.

But what Jimin said in that emotionally-driven dinner was also true: we do not know everything about them as they cannot share everything with us.  We do not know the demons they wrestle with --- and we can never understand the price they had to pay because they achieved this level of success. The pressure they live with day by day was also as unimaginable as the extent of their achievements. 

It is hard to get to the top --- but, boy, it is a hundred times harder to stay up there knowing that this is not going to last forever.

They needed space to reassess who they are at this point in time.  That much they deserve.

I somehow understood what Namjoon said when he talked about the confusion he felt about who he is ... and what kind of band BTS has become because of the music that they have been releasing lately.  Yes, from the time of Dynamite all the way to Butter and then Permission to Dance, their music has do drastically changed.  When you look back even to the impact of songs like On or Idol or Mic Drop or even Boy With Love, you realize that the boys have been driven to path of commercial success which could be overwhelming ... yet undefining.

Inasmuch as they want to go on, what was next for them?  What awaited for them as BTS ... at the expense as who they are as individual artists?

These are not your run-of-the-mill prefabricated boy bands who jump through hoops at the crack of a whip --- or whose artistry was measured by precision choreography. No: they are producers, composers, lyricists, painters, athletes ... artists.  From the very start of their career, they redefined themselves to be a notch above the rest ... and when you reach the top of the game, the real dangers arise in how long you can stay up there with what you have to give up to remain as successful if not more.

The ARMY is heartbroken because we will not see them perform as a group as much we want  because they will focus on their individual pursuits.

If this is their management's way of cushioning the blow of their impending 22-month military service obligations, then it is a great (yet painful) move.  As each pursue individual endeavors, a new test arises: can they survive as individual performers? Who among them will retain a level of success close to that when still worked together as the Magic Seven?

The ARMY will be there to support them --- and await how each and everyone of the Bangtan boys will unravel a new dimension of their particular talents.  JHope will release his album (not mixed tape) next month ... and as they all confessed last night, they have all been working on their individual projects for quite some time now. Let us look at it this way. The ARMY will be gifted not just with one but with seven separate reasons to celebrate as each of the boys rediscover themselves ... as much as we rediscover them.

When Namjoon cried last night, the ARMY wept with him. But such is life: nothing is permanent and change is good.  And tears are sometimes necessary.

As the ARMY celebrates the ninth year of BTS,  consider the hiatus not as a source of gloom or fear ... but an opportunity for wonderment.  After all, the ARMY's love for the boys is not just about the here and now --- but what they have come to represent to all of us at a time when we badly needed real life heroes to give us strength to carry on.

Borahae. Life goes on. And the boys will go on as well.

THE MOST PAINFUL GOODBYE

 I remember this kind of pain. 

It has been quite some time since I felt this ... pain.  It is different.  It is like a corkscrew has been aimed at your heart and bit by bit the instrument is twisted shattering pieces of the very core that is you.  You break down into sporadic tears, unconcerned that you are giving the world your ugly cry.  

But that is the only way you can relieve yourself.

You hope that will be the final cry --- the last attack of tears that distorts your face and sends a river down your nose.  Yet it is not. You do not know how long the pain will last ... or when, how or why it will diminish. It will eventually happen but you do not know at what point the heart finally gives in and says, "OK, time to move on."

This is the pain of losing someone you never realized how much you valued --- how much you loved.

There is this thing about the people who form your household.

There are the yayas who take care of your clothes, your food, insuring that your house is neat and would water the plants, take out the garbage at exactly the same time every day --- and would spend the rest of their free time glued on the tv set watching Koreanovelas. 

Then there is the driver who is literally with you the whole day.

The driver knows exactly where you go, who you are with, where you spend the most time, where you shop, what you eat and the conversations you have over the phone as you are going from Points A to B. 

It is the driver who knows where you bank, what medicines you buy, the condition of your car --- and even your state of mind.

I do not drive so my driver is my appendage.  He is literally my right hand because, after a while, there are no more instructions needed.  Everything is done on autopilot. It comes to a point when I ask, "What is good to eat tonight?" and he would suggest, "Sir, matagal ka nang hindi bumibili sa Rubs sa Roces" or "Sir, malapit tayo sa Campfire Burgers sa Limbaga."  Things like that.  

If you are lucky, you can be gifted by the heavens with a driver who is not only a driver but a caregiver.  He earns your trust to the extent that you send him to Mercury Drug with your prescription and Senior card to collect your monthly supply of maintenance meds. He reaches that point when you can send him to the bank to encash checks, withdraw petty cash without any doubt that he will do anything that will diminish the strength of the bond between you.

He more or less knows your secrets because he knows who you are seeing --- when "entanglements" begin and when they unravel themselves from such complicated relationship knots.  Drivers become personal assistants --- and even more than that.  They end up knowing more about you than your closest of confidants.

If you are lucky, then you will meet not only a good and efficient driver --- but someone who you know you can really trust and eventually become part of you and your family, your inner circle and even your work.

I was lucky to have been given Arnold de la Cruz twelve years ago.

When Arnold first came to me, he was a company driver.  He had a whole set of polo barongs which he would wear when we would go out. In the world I live in, drivers who look like members of the Presidential Security Guards are looked at with either surprise of awe.  Arnold was tall and lean and a health buff. I looked like I had a bodyguard with me with the two-way radio hidden on the back pocket of his trousers.  Eventually I told Arnold that this was not the best dress code to wear when I am in shootings, tapings and the likes.  He eventually got the drift: he also inherited all my clothes that did not end up in boxes for Caritas.  Pretty soon, my Arnold had become a t-shirt and jeans guy.

What made Arnold exceptional was his inability to stay still: he would always find ways and means of keeping himself busy even when I do not have appointments and decide to stay home.  Arnold brought his own welding equipment and built multi-level iron planters for my garden when I entered my manic plantito phase.  Arnold used to work for a landscaping company so there are mornings when I wake up and find him in the garden rearranging the potted plants or proposing projects to enhance the flora in my residence.

He was such a health buff that he built his own gym in our backyard.  I gave him my dumbells and other exercise machines and he would spend at least an hour each day pumping iron. Or he would go jogging around the village.  Arnold would always take pride in keeping himself healthy and strong, telling me that I should really cut down on red meat and choose and veggies instead.  When the pandemic stretched and I bought a spinning bike and an elliptic machine, Arnold would suggest what exercises I can do to further enhance my strength and muscles.

He is the only driver I know who is ecstatic each time there was a Big Bad Wolf booksale and I would dump exercise  and health books on his lap for his further reference.

Arnold also built his own gym as a business in Cavite. He was telling me of unfinished house and lots he purchased on amortization for his family, especially his children.  He took great pride in the fact that he owned his own  house and business. Whenever he took time off, he would go back to Cavite to make improvements to his properties while engaging in other forms of money making ventures like selling sacks of rice to our neighbors and acquiring assets for his kids.

Arnold's greatest pride is that his eldest daughter will graduate from college this June.  His other daughter is about to enter college while his two sons are in junior and senior high. Arnold always told me that everything he did was for kids --- and for his future.  He did not only live up to responsibilities. He embraced them with commitment.

It is this commitment that he manifests especially when we are in lock-in shootings out of town. When my trusted utility head who I fondly call Yaya Mila retired because of the pandemic, Arnold took the cudgels and made sure that all my needs are addressed.  He would be ahead to get my food, make sure that I have water on the set --- and on the final day of our shooting, barely an hour before the tragedy, he was holding an umbrella over me because of the scorching heat of the sun as we worked on the seashore of Dipoculao.

Arnold did more than that. He took care of everybody.  He spoke to everybody. He had a smile for everybody.

During our shoot last week, he made sure that my anaks on the set had their food, had their water and needs.  He did not only take care of me: he looked over my nephew Getty who was with me on the set, he was already friends with my assistant director Franz --- and my students and now co-workers, Gab and Arrenze.  He was buddies with my staff like BingBong or Abe and especially my most trusted people like Edwin, Gat and Charyl. He was friends with everybody but anybody because that smile on Arnold's face was never erased. He always had something good to say to everybody and about everything.

That was why I felt so lucky to have him with me for twelve years.  Just recently we were talking about how long we were together --- about his first experience on my movie set, about how he would stash away my shooting needs (my folding chairs and table, my utensils, my coffee mugs, my brown rice, my coffee grains, my extension cord, my hot pot) and they would always be there when I needed them.  We were talking about how excited he was because his eldest child will be graduating from college this coming June in Pampanga.

Arnold's plans were always for his sons and daughters.

Each night before I have my dinner, I would step outside my house --- just to get out of the confines of the work room --- and savor the air.  Arnold would be in the garage talking to someone all the time or watching YouTube videos on his phone. Arnold would always approach me and we had our ten minute chit-chat about anything and everything.  Did the van need new tires for the long trip to Aurora? Did we need to change oil? Is it time to sell the SUV because it is already six years old?  Arnold would advise me about all this.

Then I would go back to the house and have dinner.  Arnold would stay there in the garage for a while and continue whatever it is that he is doing.

Last Sunday, when we finished the final sequence of the movie we were shooting, I announced, "It's a wrap!"

This set frenzy to the entire staff and crew.  It is more of the same: selfies, picture taking with the actors, insanity on the set as we prepared for a wrap party later in the evening.  

The waves were crazy brought about by the fact that Dipaculao is known for these giant waves from the Pacific and there was a low pressure area (soon to be a typhoon) in the southern islands.  Even during our first day of shooting, there was a company call where we announced that no one is allowed to swim in the beach because of the dangerous undertow brought by the frenzied currents. Everyone was warned: NO SWIMMING IN THE DURATION OF THE SHOOT.

But after the wrap, people decided to test the waters by the shore. Nobody was allowed to venture any farther than the shoreline. Let the waves hit you there. When you go on waist level, you are in danger. When you go chest-deep, you are in real trouble.

I went back to my room to change and joined the others on the shoreline. I could not even go shin deep because the waves were so strong.

That was when I found that there was an undertow and it pulled four people into the farther from the shore even if they were not even in waist deep water. 

The more expert swimmers grabbed the shorter and less experienced staffer and pulled him to safety.  Arnold took pride in being a strong swimmer as he always told everyone that he was born and grew up in Guimaras, so he knew how to maneuver the waters. He was there with the others who were sucked into the chest deep part of the waters.

When we were doing a head count, we panicked.  Where was Arnold? 

Three people said they saw him emerge from the sea looking pale and exhausted.  I asked where did they see him since the three were right beside me but I was facing the other way. They ascertained that he was out of the water because they saw him. Yes, he was emerging from the water. He looked pale and tired, they said.

We rushed to the resort. I was calling his name hoping he would come out of one of the rooms to jolt me out of the panic that I was feeling at the moment. Nobody could find him.  Then someone said that all his belongings were still on the plastic chair on the beach where most of the staffers left their belongings before rushing to the sea.

I realized that Arnold was still out there in the sea. I stood and watched those angry waves bashing the shores.  By the time darkness settled in and the shoreline was full of emergency teams looking for my assistant, I did not know what to feel. Or what was running in my mind.

I stood there looking at the angry waves knowing that they have taken our Arnold from us.

                                                     * * * * * * * * * *

You will never know the value, the importance of any individual in your life --- until they are gone. That is when it hits you.  Anyone can be family not out of blood ties alone but by the bonds created through time. Greatness in a man need not be measured by sparkling accomplishments that require thunderous applause and recognition.

It is the little acts of humanity and kindness that are better remembered than calibrated and celebrated accomplishments.

Arnold de la Cruz was a simple man who always had a smile on his face, wanted to be of service to people and knew how to talk to anyone and everyone. He had big dreams not for himself but for his children: he wanted a life far better for his kids as he prepared for what he deemed as old age.  Those long conversations in my van when we travel were such precious sharing not of a boss and an employee but of two people learning from each other about the journey called life.

I am still trying to process and understand why in a matter of a few minutes, the waters ended the life of a good man. I am still trying to comprehend what lesson is being taught here ... and I am beginning to realize that what Arnold accomplished in his seemingly simple and unpublicized life was far greater than what others claim as theirs.  Everyone but anyone who he met, who he touched are now weeping with pain asserting the fact that he was a kind, gentle and good soul who cared and loved people.  How many humans can actually have that for their bragging rights in this day and age?

They finally retrieved the body of Arnold early this morning.  I was further devastated. I still wanted that crazy miracle to happen --- that Arnold sprouts out of nowhere and says it was all a misunderstanding and that he was alive and well.  The discovery of his body eight kilometers from where he drowned, six hundred meters from the shoreline attested that for two nights he was drifting with the insane current underneath those waters.  I cannot imagine that without crying.  This is not the way a good man should end his short life.

But who am I to question what fate has designed for him ... and for all of us?

What is important now is to ask why he was brought into our lives ... and what his days set as an example to the years that lie ahead. Indeed, maybe the heavens above take the good first ... because they need to be spared of more earthly confusion, temptation and suffering.  Maybe the fact that we are all devastated by a driver's death is the fulfillment of a mission which was the very reason why he was sent on earth. His job was done ... and how Arnold is driving back home to the Father.

Life will go on as it must. But there are certain losses that are irreplaceable. That is Arnold. I can only be thankful that I had him for twelve years --- and that all the people who I love have also been given a part of that grace that he unselfishly shared with everyone.

Goodbye, Nold.  Ingat ka. Mahal na mahal ka ni Sir Direk.

  

WEST SIDE STORY: REIMAGINED

 This afternoon I finally had the guts --- no, the  need --- to go out and watch a movie on the big screen.

Although I had sat as a juror of a festival and had seen eight movies inside a small cinema, the audience was controlled as I remained quite assured that it was safe.  

Cinemas are confined places with recirculated air --- and somehow, the paranoia in me says that no amount of assurance of disinfection, proper ventilation and all other protocols and precautions can completely assure fully-vaccinated me that it is already safe to spend more than two hours in a room full of strangers.

There are some movies you can watch with relative contentment on your tv screens or even your computer monitor. But heavens, I will never ever watch a film on my IPhone or IPad.  If I am still the sort who goes to Fully Booked to buy a traditional tome with my favorite bookmarkers, then the very idea of watching a movie on a portable miniscule screen is nothing short of sacrilege for me. This is not to mention by unforgiving astigmatism to deprive me of such options.

So I finally decided that it was time to watch Steven Spielberg's reimagining of the 1961 classic West Side Story at the nearest theater in a mall nearby.

On a Saturday afternoon, I entered the movie house and I was exhilarated --- as I was depressed.

I was ecstatic because for the price of four hundred pesos (mahal na talaga ang manood ng sine) I had the entire movie house all to myself.  Literally.

This was like I purchased an entire block screening for a moderate sized cinema --- and I was literally all alone enjoying the screening.  I was somewhat afraid  that the management would cancel the showing because I was apparently the only one to purchase a ticket for that time slot on a Saturday afternoon.

As much as I was ecstatic because I was assured that there was no threat of any human specimen introducing Omicron to my temporary sanctuary,  I was also painfully saddened. 

I was saddened by the fact that it has come to this: the New Normal was not at all normal because nobody was returning to cinemas --- for reasons that I understood because I felt the same way just hours before. 

Fact: because of the forbidding price of cinema tickets and the lingering threat of the pandemic, people are still shying away from theaters.  It will take a lot of convincing for people to go back to how and what it was before.  And, uh, there is Netflix, Viu, Vivamax, WeTV, Upstream, HBOGo, Disney+, IWant, etc. etc.

What even saddened me more was that Steven Spielberg's reimagining of West Side Story was  nothing short of a master wielding his wand to a classic and redefining it as his own.  It pained me to think that something this good was not winning the audience it deserved because rarely do they make films like this anymore.  

Even in the U.S., West Side Story yielded an extremely disappointing box office response for reasons that ranged from the audience disinterest in musicals as a genre or the presumption that this specific musical was already dated and irrelevant to the audience of 2022. The millennials and the Gen Z's have never heard of the 1961 classic --- so the Boomers and perhaps some token Gen X'ers who would really be interested in seeing what Spielberg had done.

But I dare so much to disagree: In the Heights gathered a decent receipt --- and Spielberg's reinterpretation of the original material with the script by Tony Kushner tied up so many of the loose plot points of the 1961 original.  And somehow, although it is close to impossible not to compare the original movie directed by Robert Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins, this version gave greater clarity to the narrative.  2022 gave a back story to Tony --- and a character to Bernardo as a boxer rather than just being a bored Puerto Rican with an ax to grind against Gringos.

The Kushner script made us understand the battle for territoriality between the fighting gangs --- the Sharks and the Jets.  

We are brought to a social issue which is as important today as it was in the half a century ago --- of  poor people being displaced in the gentrification of certain areas of the cities or the undercurrent of racial discrimination against immigrants by the threatened white supermacists.   The battle being fought for by the characters in the film are still here today especially with the recent developments in the United States where racial equality has become more of a campaign tag line (diminished to lip service) rather than it is part of a celebrated ideology.

And maybe that is what is so painful to see in this musical: it is almost an impossible feat to recreate and reinterpret so many classic songs and iconic production numbers. Yet Spielberg succeeds ...and exceeds.

Yes, Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star crossed lovers of the 1961 production can never be erased nor removed from the collective memory of popular culture --- but Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort  (not dubbed but singing with their own voices) gave a totally different embodiment of Romeo and Juliet in the slimy sidestreets and tenement housing of New York City at that time.  Yes, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris will forever be the Anita and Bernardo of this musical --- but when Ariana DeBose and David Alvarez update these characters, a new life is breathed into their personas --- making them more human and making one understand the whys and hows of their passionate relationship.  Then there is Mike Faist as Riff who gave more depth and substance to the leader of the Jets than the original film, making us understand better the depth of friendship he shared with Tony --- and why a man desperately trying to change his ways will kill for a fallen friend.

OK, enough. I felt bad that I was all alone in a movie house watching this film.

I was all alone literally crying --- despite the fact that I have seen the 1961 original about ten times or more as viewing it on DVD has become a guilty pleasure.

I felt bad that it is not getting the audience it deserves --- as I hope every student and lover of cinema can find the time (and courage) to watch it on the big screen because Spielberg just gave us another master class in quality commercial filmmaking.  If only for the camerawork of Janusz Kaminski, the choreography of Justin Peck and the vision of the filmmaker in reinterpreting a classic --- then grab your face masks and go to the cinema to watch this celebration of film art.

When Rita Moreno, the original Anita returns to the musical as a new character Valentina, sings the signature song of the musical Somewhere --- live and not pre-recorder, my heart broke into a million pieces.

This is why I love movies. This is why I want to make movies. Even if I cried all alone in the movie house.

'

HELLO, 2022: SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW TO THE HEALTH PROTOCOL VIOLATORS?

 It is an understatement to say that 2022 did not exactly start on the right foot.

Even 2021 bid us bye-bye, we were brought back to Alarm Level 3 --- which bluntly meant that the spread of the virus was starting again.

Four days into the new year, the news was anything but encouraging.

More and more people were getting sick --- not only with the annual season of influenza but most likely the dreaded variant called Omicron.  

Four days into the new year, there was a new panic.  

Drugstores have ran out of paracetamol as a wild rush has taken place, grabbing every tablet and capsule of Bioflu, Decolgen, Biogesic and what have you to remedy if not protect the body from the assault of the flu and a shield to the virus.

Face-to-face classes have been suspended until the 15th of the month and as per rule, the number of people allowed inside restaurants, barber shops, parlors, cinemas and other enclosed service and recreational areas have been reduced to 30%. That also meant the shrinking of the economic recovery.

Four days into the new year, the Yuletide crowd that filled up the malls and groceries (which adequately provided opportunities for the quicker widespread of the new variant) was suddenly gone. 

Because we thought things were going back to normal, we were too excited --- or too tired of being constricted and kept away from each other that we all made a mad rush to the nearest commercial mammon to tell ourselves that happy days are here again.

Well, they are not ... maybe not in the near or immediate future. We're just entering a new cycle.

On the fourth day of 2022, hospitals were again pressing the alarm bells because of the excessive number of patients rushing into the ER, all revealing symptoms of COVID.  

Warning shots had been fired compelling those who  refused vaccination to stay home, stay put, don't move --- as they would not be allowed to go out in public, enter malls or even interact outside their bubble because they were most vulnerable to any if not all the variants.

While there was still uproar about our Poblacion Girl, more information was revealed that went over and beyond her misbehavior.

Again, it would be grossly unfair to pinpoint our partying balikbayan as to sole reason for this surge. 

If she faked the quarantine protocol through some arrangement with some shady characters in a certified hotel, then it could be done by anyone as well ... as long as you either had the connections or whatever it took to get you off the hook ... or both. A little influence would always bring you a long way.

What was more alarming was how many people have done it, how many people are doing it ... how many get away with it. And how others just looked away and pretended that it was not happening.  Not until our poster girl for the virus decided to party.

Apparently this was not a new modus operandi because snippets of stories are being heard of others pretending to be quarantined in a specific venue but are either at home or moving in and out of their appointed confinement with least resistance or even encouragement. There were even angered accounts of returning airline passengers going straight to their private cars at the arrival gate to take them home ... and not picked up by vans to be brought to quarantine establishments. Talaga lang, ha?

Realistically speaking, Poblacion Girl could not have done it without her enablers, right? Others are doing it because it has become an option and apparently an open secret that it could be done.

If there was anyone who should receive the greatest blow from the government, then it should be these people --- these enablers who make money out of jeopardizing not only the health of their fellow countrymen but also facilitating the maiming of the economy.  

Oh, yes, there will always be entitled, for-all-I-care sort of the moneyed who could not give a f--k about the rest of world outside their air-conditioned universe.  But there are those who feast on the thoughtlessness and maybe arrogance of the privileged: these are the leeches, the parasites who make a living at whatever cost even if they have to fester on the inhumanity of others in order to take home their loot.

It is also the system that needs to be re-evaluated to make sure that these malpractices are not in place or perpetuated --- because there is a higher authority safeguarding the proper and rigid execution of the protocols.  Since there is absentee quarantine means that ... uhm, somebody is not watching over these venues more closely and with greater consistency, more rigid scrutiny. Hmmmm.

Press releases have been brought out that those violating health protocols will have to deal with the iron hand of the law.

Investigations are being made.  Apologies are being sent out --- but these do not change anything.  

The surge is here --- and five thousand new cases have been reported today by the DOH --- and a study estimates that by the of January, we can hit forty thousand new cases per day. Diyos ko, huwag po! Huwag po!

There are those who think nothing will come out of all these pronouncements and investigations --- except press releases. Just a lot of drums being banged.

Why?  Because people have been numbed by the past where other bigwigs violated the strict protocol requirements  and got away with it as if they can just tiptoe away from the scene of the crime and hope that the public will soon forget about their misdeeds. 

People have become so blase into thinking that all these creatures caught redhanded with CTV cameras will soon fade into oblivion because the public may not necessarily forgive them but will most certainly forget how their entitlement has cost us risks to our very lives. 

People would gloss over the fact that there are  very strong connections who did not only allow these loopholes to happen but actually punctured the system to make money out of what they they thought was being maabilidad, mautak, wa-es.

Bluntly put, unless there is closure to these events --- unless there is corresponding punishment to those who deserve the  consequences, then this will yet be another exercise in futility.  

It shall yet be another manifestation of Malakas and Nagmamaganda overruling Katuwiran and Katarungan.

This is a litmus test of credibility, authority and effectivity for those given the responsibility and matching power.

We hear the barks, so can we please see you guys bite?

In the meantime, we are all holding our breaths (literally) and praying that we can get over this
new surge.

It is like we are living through the myth of Sisyphus.  We struggle to get that rock up the hill and flatten the curve ... only to have someone push the boulder right on our faces so we go back to Square One all over again.

To quote a friend in Facebook, "Nakakapagod na itong pagiging resilient, ha?"

Welcome 2022.