Why my opinion counts, IF it counts: On "Praybeyt Benjamin"

1.        

      That the movie “Praybeyt Benjamin” is the top grossing Filipino film of all time.

I absolutely cannot fathom this. My senses revolt yet I also cringe at the very thought of it. What with our artistic prominence - as evident by our recent inclusions and our garner of accolades in various film festivals around the globe, should we be labeled for this commercial attempt at comedy? I say attempt because I accidentally saw the trailer and no particular amusement, rather any emotion, did it ever evoke from me. I say accidentally because the trailer was shown as filler preceding a movie I watched the last time. I did however, was able to predict the entirety of the plot. And NO, I am not going to watch it. The trailer is a dead give-away which easily translates to bad marketing strategy (I guess the 200 million peso gross in its 1^st week proves me wrong on this).

Pardon me for being high-brow but we; both as an audience and a people, deserve so much more than this. I am not in any way against the people who watched the movie and I am happy that finally our local cinema is being patronized more, but I am just against it representing the kind of taste that we have (or the kind of movie we "invest" our money and time on). There are more sensible films than this and I am definitely not against it because it is a comedic film as there are comedy films that are creatively and profoundly better thought of. “Kimmy Dora” and “Zombadings” are examples. Don’t get me wrong too, I don’t have anything against the movie and this is my subjectivity (and taste) speaking here but I do hope that when someone makes a list of the world’s top grossing films, I just don’t want us to be again and for the nth time, in a bad light. And although at times, I do get amused by Vice Ganda (the lead) with her (gender-sensitive here) antics on TV, I actually feel a degree of embarrassment for that person/people she makes fun of. I’d like to coin her comedic approach as “verbal slapstick”: slapstick, only verbal. Self-explanatory much, eh?

I know that being the top-grossing film of all time does not necessarily translate as the best film ever but wouldn't this say something about us as a people?