MEDIUM RARE
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
You’ve to give it to the French, for stating a fact of life with such savoir faire.
So the new year is now nine days old, but what did we get after welcoming 2024 with a bang? On Jan. 1, a deadly earthquake that killed nearly 100 with more than 100 missing in Japan. A great blackout in one of our largest islands, Panay. The threat of drought in 17 provinces of Luzon before the calendar turns another leaf.
“A butterfly flaps its wings and sends a hurricane to another continent.”
Drought threatening islands floating on water? What is the world coming to? What is coming to the world?
In Calgary, Canada, where it’s winter six months of the year, people are complaining that because they did not have snow during the last three Christmases, climate change will now come in the form of a drought. California has been dry for years; local laws and legislation keep the people from going thirsty though some species of trees look like they need a drink. But in Australia, the floods have been waist-high.
In Bulusan, Sorsogon, “increased seismic activity” last week triggered 116 volcanic earthquakes, producing “low levels of unrest” and increasing chances of steam-driven eruptions.
The good news last Sunday came from the box-office receipts generated by the 49th Metro Manila Film Festival. On Saturday, the penultimate day of the two-week-long festival, Rewind, the blockbuster starring Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera, had beaten its rivals at ₱600 million at the box-office, unofficially speaking. (Disclosure: The creative producer of that film is Mike Tuviera, who is married to my daughter Penelope.)
Rewind was co-produced with ABS-CBN. It took Mike four years to finish the movie, beginning with how he had to cut several pages from the opening montage of 20 pages.
Second to Rewind was Mallari, at ₱131 million, and Gomburza, ₱75 million. It’s a fluke that Firefly, voted best picture, came in at no. 4.
From the perspective of pre-pandemic grosses, a ₱1 billion take shared by all participating films was not unusual.
That was then. To quote MMFF Best Actress Vilma Santos, let’s encourage more people to watch Filipino movies.