Metro Manila Film Festival is a Joke

I won't pander on the issue. The so called Metro Manila Film Festival is a joke. I have long since considered the yearly activity as an exercise of abuse of the entertainment industry to cash in on people's aguinaldos and government-officiated holidays. Even Wikipedia doesn't give a rat's ass about who started it or why it even exists. Whereas most Film Festivals encourage high quality and original content even when the films are bound to be unpopular, the MMFF is a cash-cow milking exercise where movies with recycled content and slipshod, hastily-assembled narratives are the main event. Instead of making people aware that there are movie types that go beyond the usual stereotypes, what we get are rehashes that reappear in the festival every year. Mano Po 6? REALLY?! At this point just about everybody in show business has played the role of a Chinoy at one point or another.

 Don't get me wrong though. Indies do have a place in the festival, just not the main place where they belong. No, in the school bus called the MMFFs, the indies get the plastic seat attached at the end of the bus where the spare tire is chained.

Here are the winners for the last 16 years:

  1996 - Magic Temple (Peque Gallaga tries to prove he can make quality movies that aren't glorified porn. Decent, until he took a shit at on a year later when he released Magic Kingdom)
  1997 - Nasaan ang Puso (Decent, if only due to Maricel's powerful acting)
  1998 - Jose Rizal (School teachers love this shit to bits as it saves them time from doing actual teaching)
  1999 - Muro Ami (Like Rizal, but under water)
  2000 - Tanging Yaman (Standard formula of old, powerful actors mixed with shitty upstarts to bloat the roll call)
  2001 - Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure (WORST MOVIE IN EXISTENCE)
 2002 - Mano Po (Golly, pinoys sure love their racist jibs!)
 2003 - Crying Ladies (Let's have more jabs at Chinese customs because last year, it worked!)
 2004 - Mano Po 3: My Love (How about we add more Filipinos faking Chinese accents? Yay!)
 2005 - Blue Moon (See Tanging Yaman's formula.)
 2006 - Enteng Kabisote 3: Okay ka, Fairy Ko: The Legend Goes on and on and on (The movie as stupid as the title, proving once and for all that writers have long since stopped trying to sound legit)
 2007 - Resiklo  (Zero plot, zero acting, horribly out of place special effects, Ramon Revilla)
 2008 - Baler (Jericho Rosales pretends hes mestizo, while Ann Curtis pretends she's a local)
 2009 - Ang Panday (See resiklo, minus robots, plus several inches in Ramon Revilla's waistline)
 2010 - Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!) (Title explains it all, minus the "ing")


And here are this year's contestants:



Enteng ng Ina Mo! - Too many sequels already? Mix and fucking match with other long running movie lines.
My Househusband (Ikaw Na!) - Too many sequels? Change character names and setting, rehash the rest.
Ang Panday 2 - Too many sequels? LIE ABOUT THE COUNT. This has got to be the twentieth already.
Shake, Rattle & Roll 13 - Too many sequels? WE WONT EVEN TRY TO HIDE IT.
Segunda Mano - Spoiler:  KRIS AQUINO DIES. Like every movie she's been in.
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow - See Tanging Yaman's formula, insert Gabby Concepcion.
Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story - We haven't had an action movie in years so this is the only real movie to look forward to OUT OF SEVEN ENTRIES.


Fuck. This. Shit.