okey ka na rin, ina ko


so the family and i watched enteng ng ina mo the other night, and you know what? it wasn't that horrible. 

while it's true that everything falls apart by the third act, the intial premise was actually quite promising: enteng kabisote, ordinary juan and butingtingero by trade, is growing weary of having to save encantadia, homeland of his fairy wife faye, all the time. he just wants an ordinary life with his family. this yearning, plus the latest magical crisis in encantadia (they happen about once a year, around december), causes a falling-out between man and wife. to drive them even further apart, the obviously-named villain satanna then tails enteng to a drinking session and sneaks a love potion into his drink, causing him to forsake his wife and pursue ai-ai's character, ina montecillo.

now that isn't a bad setup, but sotto is clever enough to know that moviegoers won't be going to the cinema to watch enteng's character resolve his heroic dliemmas. what people really want to see is ai-ai and bossing being funny together; they want to see what antics ai-ai and eugene domingo's characters are going to pull off this time. on this the film delivers, and that's why it's tops at the box office.

and thus the reason for enteng's success is also why the quality of mainstream pinoy cinema won't be going up anytime soon: quality stories and quality film-making just isn't part of the audience's expectations. we want bossing, we want ai-ai. if we can get that, any kind of serviceable plot will do, as long as it showcases our idols doing their stuff onscreen. it's all just dancing bears.


hm. i wanted to write a sort-of apology for enteng ng ina mo but ended up bashing pinoy cinema anyways.

at least i'm not being as much of a troll as this person.

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