Top 7 Reasons Why Philippine Cinema is Awesome

Sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

All hail the Philippine Cinema! Check out the meat of our beloved film and TV industry! 

7. Rar-Time, More Hype

The cool thing with majority of our filmmakers is that they are very capable of creating great stuffs in a very short period of time. What? James Cameron’s Avatar was 10 years in the making? What a wuss… an average pinoy movie only takes 2-3 months, yet, still very comparable to the Hollywood behemoths thanks to the all-time favorite slapstick jokes and a bunch of shenanigans. As you can see, our beloved film makers just cannot afford to waste too much time for a simple movie alone. They have a lot more important things to do such as over-hyping it to us audience so we can giggle like a schoolgirl because of anticipation. Expectation is the thing that makes a movie great. I believe that filmmakers should spend more time in hyping it than filming it because what’s the point of creating a “great” movie if you don’t have much time to promote it? Let’s take those poor indie films as examples. Are they fully appreciated by the mass crowd? “Lalaki sa Parola” or “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe,” have you heard of these two? I bet you don’t give a flying magellan-fuck in any of these two before, and that’s perfectly fine! They don’t matter because they failed on the most essential factor: Hype!

What a wuss...

6. Golden Faces

We love Dingdong and Marian! We love Derek Ramsay! We love Daniel Padilla! We love Vice Ganda! That’s the very good thing about our current media. They know how to handle things. They know that we love those celebrities so majority of the TV shows, advertisements and movies are filled with nothing but their faces. We don’t give any crying shit with those unimportant ones. The last thing we need is another new face that would surprise us in the screens. We, the audience are sick of remembering another unimportant name and face! We are perfectly fine with the returning faces of the leading actors and actresses. Need a proof? Do you care about those boring faces from the stupid indie films? Yes! No one cares about them because they are not famous! They are not good-looking enough so they don’t have the rights to be in the televisions and big screens! And do you know the worst thing about those boring indie film actors and actresses? They don’t have the talents!

It never gets old.

5. Franchise

Standing strong at the 5th spot, this centipede is the rigorous backbone of our Philippine cinema timeline itself. Our dear beloved filmmakers are not taking chances in attempting lame innovations because everybody knows that innovations are for pussies. Why create new ones if we have the current ones that are still good for the milking?

4. Risk Taking is not Tolerated

Fuck risk! Philippine cinema knows the best, and creating something new and unfamiliar is not one of them. Why do we have to try a different approach if we have classic slapstick jokes and black & white scenarios that don’t require critical thinking in order to understand? Our filmmakers know that audience hates to think critically because it is very time consuming and it requires a lot of effort. Also, they know that we hate waiting several months so they would not risk creating extravagant TV shows and movies (also, they can’t risk a lot of money without the assurance of getting them back. Thanks to piracy). Fuck decent Vfx! Fuck perfect cinematography! Fuck flawless script! It’s not worth it if waiting for several months is the price to pay! Hello? This is 2013 already. Please grow up and learn to make movies and TV shows as fast as you can. Look at the Pinoy shows as a very good example. We are happy on the outcome of the visual effects, cinematography and script of bangis and lastikman. They intentionally made it cheesy and dumb so we can understand them easily.

Risk taking is not tolerated. Except for the crocs... crocs are awesome

3. Profit

Of course! What’s the main point of creating movies and TV shows if not for this? After all, everything in this world comes down to money. Fuck art! The only sensible motivation in creating a movie is profit. Why would you create something for the sake of art? Are you stupid? They are willing to provide us dumb fun and we are willing to pay for it for some reason. Deal! As a very good incentive, they don’t limit their movies with a certain kind of audience, we can watch as one big family thanks to the initiative of our filmmakers because they are capable of creating movies that are mixed childish, drama, sexy, gun throttling action and comedy. They are like the Dr. Frankensteins of the film industry.

Pinoy Filmmaker in action

2. International Shows “Inspired”

Seriously guys, I know that all of us love Hollywood blockbuster movies. I know that most of us, after removing our 3D glasses and strangling random stranger just to piss on the comfort room first, are immediately wishing for part 2. And you know what? Those pitiful inner cries and gullibility are usually granted thanks to our beloved filmmakers! From time to time, they produce movies and TV shows that are “inspired” by the famous Hollywood blockbusters. I want to stress this one out: they are copyi--- making shows that are inspired by those from outside not because they want to milk money from us! They are creating these Hollywood blockbuster inspired movies because they know that we want more! And do you know the good thing about it? They are toning down the storyline unlike those complicated, hard to follow plots because they want us to understand it easily. Thus, we can spend more time appreciating the eye-candies of their fantastic creations.

1. Writing

Yes, I know that this one is tackled bits by bits above. But let this final spot serve as the conclusion of the idea. I dedicate this spot to our Filipino film writers because I admire their writing too much. They are simple, filled with quotable quotes and last but not the least, funny. They don’t delve deeper because they know that we, audience are stressed out of our reality and the last thing we need from the movies is complexity and mindfucks. We need easy laugh and familiar plots. We don’t need to think critically because we do that in school! We don’t need puzzles; we encounter that on our mama’s cash vaults all the time. Pride and Prejudice should always be seen in the Pinoy Dramas because we just can’t get enough of it. The only thing we need in our Fantasy flicks is nothing but Campbell’s Hero’s Cycle. Slapsticks are not enough in our comedies; we are still craving for more!  Protagonists of our Action movies should always follow Steven Seagal’s premise because we love it. Shake, Rattle & Roll should run forever in the Philippine Movie Industry because it never gets old. Forget those illegitimate independent film makers; they could never stand a bukake-fuck chance against our beloved big-time filmmakers that always participate in the Metro Manila Film Festival. No one should support those indie film idiots. They know nothing about film making because they don’t have talents. They should be imprisoned because they are doing the most unforgivable crime in the Philippine Cinema: changing the film industry’s current state.


This article was written last 2013, and was originally posted on "The Random Letter 7."