Let's Go to the Movies

"Let's start at the very beginning.."

When I was a little girl, my mom’s sister, Tita Lina, used to bring me to the movies every week. What, EVERY week? Yes, it was possible because her job was a movie house usherette. You know, those people who hold flashlights inside the theatre for you, so you can see your way to your seats without pouring your Coke and popcorn on the heads of other moviegoers (and the people lovers hate!)? That’s what she was. I thought my aunt had the coolest job in the world because she got to see famous actors all day; not to mention she was being paid for it! How awesome was that? So every Saturday, I cajoled her to take me with her to work and let her smuggle me into the dark room. I sat on one seat in my usual spot, swooned over my favourite movie characters, and vicariously lived in the make-believe world of the celluloid--from the opening till the last full show! Imagine listening to governess  Maria singing “The hills are alive, with the sound of music...” and “Doe, a deer, a female deer…” six times? Cloud nine galore! At the end of the day, I almost felt I was one of the Von Trapp children. But the dreamiest days of my life ended when my father discovered that I was spending my Saturdays in front of the big screen, instead of playing with my bratty sisters. He just had to put a stop to my craziness, didn’t he?

Nowadays, I rarely go to the cinemas. It’s only when big franchises like Harry Potter, or Batman, or Shrek are shown that I drag myself to the dark recesses of SM, cough up more than a hundred pesos, and buy a big tub of popcorn. Blame it on the DVD technology, the high definition TVs, the cable channels, the free internet downloads, and of course, the pirated copies of films from enterprising businessmen. People are not as avid theatre buffs as in the past. 




According to the 2010 Theatrical Market Statistics Report released by the Motion Picture Association of America (http://www.slashfilm .com), despite the 8% increase in the global ticket sales last year, the number of movies seen in the US and Canada actually declined up to six times. The increase in the sales could be attributed to the increased price of the tickets due to 3D movies and the increase viewership in the Asia Pacific market, particularly in China. So if you have fallen into the trap of seeing the latest outing of Toy Story in 3D (like my family), then congratulations! You have added significantly to the coffers of Hollywood.

The Hubby's dusty DVD collection

Speaking of DVDs, we have a huge collection of them in the house—both original and not-so-original copies. Thanks to the Hubby for also being a movie addict (now that’s another compatibility point!), his collection often balloons insanely big that we have to ‘spring clean’ them every year. Talk about movie addicts!

Anyway, in my next posts, I’m going to feature here some of my most favourite movies of all time. Say, let's do a movie recall every Wednesday? You may or may not agree with my choices, but hey, may I remind you who’s the expert here? After all, wasn’t I that seven-year old girl who had the most experience in watching the silver screen?

So ichadeyt?;-)