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moving pictures.

i wonder why so few people liked the village, the signs, the others and a host of other different movies that, well, don't behave like other hollywood movies. why they don't behave as such is truly beyond me. because while we read about Hollywood's maniacal insistence on 'formula, formula, formula,' there are a few that, well, have not followed the hollywoodian path to enlightenment and box-office records, but have come out well-received, well-loved, and watched by a following numbered less than thousands, more than once.

i asked a few friends of mine, and they said that the village, in particular, stood out as one movie they truly wasted money on. They didn't like the twist, all the while thinking it was a period film of some half-forgotten Amish-like community caught in the jaws of an hungry, vindictive, unmentionable and unseeable mess of woodland mega-creatures out to wreak vengeance for whatever mistake they imagined the villagers were guilty of. But then, we all know what happened in the end. Interesting ending, really.

And perhaps, that's where we all count our money on: a predictable ending, thinly iced over with variety so as not to be exposed as part of the formula. if a movie does not conform to this code, it's not a guaranteed hit. i like movies that make a nuisance out of being different. probably that's my own thing, but i like it. i don't really care if they are well received, or not. y tu mama tambien is one. sassy girl is another. but they're not Hollywood movies, so let's use as examples some movies that, i hope, being an average moviegoer and all, everyone can relate to.

everyone should watch fern gully. it still rates as one of my fave movies of all time. nope, there was no love story, no sexual tension (okay, so there was a teeny bit, but i don't we can go tolkien on this one.) and it had some sort of moral to it after all. this, in the time when everybody else was going to the boondocks to get themselves rich harvesting trees that natural watersheds relied on. copland was an amazing movie, if i do say so myself. and while no one bothered to watched samuel jackson kill one of his errant students, 187 is still vivid in my mind and ranks high on my Christmas DVD list. a local favorite of mine is a friend's school project and ccp awardee dubbed binaliw. nice.

twist-ridden endings, betrayals of trust in the formula, open-ended hangers and moral-bound stories seem to be the angst of the publice viewer at large. and i can't blame them. Because as the case may be, when one hands over the rectangular perforated stub to a guy in an evening party suit, or a girl dolled up like a bank teller, and enters into a darkened hall where on a fourth wall, moving pictures regale all, we know that we're in neverland; where the endings are always what we guessed it would be; where we cringe in fright, yet safely seated in our cushioned chairs; where the real world is mimicked, but NOT told. we hate twists and non-formulaic stories because they mirror the REAL --- that our daily lives don't follow a formula, and the twists at the end of our day, aren't what we guessed it to be.