Isle of Tortuga
Isle of Tortuga
Updated 10:05pm (Mla time) Sept 07, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A COUPLE of things have happened over the last couple of months. The first is that Edu Manzano has taken the place of Bong Revilla as head of the Optical Media Board and has been just as resolute, and unenlightened, about ridding this part of the world of pirates. I read about his misadventure in Virra Mall a couple of weeks ago in the Business section of the Inquirer. The editors had the good sense to keep it small, out of a very good sense of proportion, though I don't know how it fared in the entertainment pages.
What happened apparently was that he stormed into Virra Mall in the company of cops and confiscated the DVDs sundry vendors were selling there. I know the place; I've been there. Though not as a customer of DVD, the reason for that being financial judgment rather than moral scruple: the Muslims in Quiapo sell the stuff much cheaper. But I have been to Virra Mall, at one point quite frequently, for the software and the MP3 discs. The only reason I am no longer going there frequently is that I've shifted to DSL, the broadband Internet service, and can now procure both without having to brave Metro Manila's traffic. That is through the wonders of downloading. I'll get to that point later.
Anyway, Manzano stormed into Virra Mall and began carting off the DVDs for sale on the stalls there and earned for his pains a lot of boos and hisses and catcalls. He apparently took them all in stride, figuring sticks and stones might break his bones but not boos and hisses and catcalls. But the latter took the equivalent of sticks and stones at one point in the form of crumpled pieces of paper and fruits which flew his way while he and company were climbing down the stairs.
That brought out the action star in him. He swiftly ran up the stairs, drew out a gun, and pointed it at his tormentors, while passersby screamed and scampered for safety. His tormentors appeared to be cowed, until he proceeded to descend the stairs again, when one of them shouted with wry glee, "Idol, makakaganti rin ako sa yo (Idol, I'll get back at you someday)."
The second thing that happened over the last couple of months is the remarkable explosion of (pirated) DVD titles. They now include not just Hollywood classics but classics from other countries as well, or at least movies from other countries that have reaped numerous awards. I remember saying in a column a year or so ago that my only misgiving about the pirated DVDs circulating in our midst was their quality. By that I did not mean technical quality, though some of the stuff was absolutely wretched in that respect--even the ones that were already copied from DVDs and not ripped off from promotional copies or from screenings in movie theaters. It had to do with the extent of compression, but never mind that, leave that to the techies. What I meant by it was that the titles were largely an action-movie-lover's paradise. Occasionally, you found a "Cinema Paradiso" among the Steven Seagal movies, but it was just that, occasionally. I said then that the day the "Pirates of Carriedo" (as a T-shirt I got for Christmas puts it) realized there was a huge market out there for serious movies--indeed the day they began improving the public taste by putting out movie classics instead of movie rejects--was the day their claim to existence became more ironclad.
That day has come. These days you will not just find Seagal and Stallone and Van Damme in the stalls, you will find John Ford, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock there. You will even find Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith, whose "Battleship Potemkin" and "Birth of a Nation" spawned the birth of movies on this battleship earth. Astonishingly, Akira Kurosawa's works are amply represented. I've seen variously "Dreams," "Rashomon," "The Seven Samurai," "Red Beard," "The Hidden Fortress," "Throne of Blood" and "The Idiot." I don't know what others there are. I've been looking for his "High and Low" but haven't found it yet.
More importantly, you'll find movies from France, Spain and Germany, along with those from China, Taiwan, Iran, Greece and Thailand. You'll find such exotic titles as Santosh Sivan's "Asoka," Bahman Ghobadi's "Marooned in Iraq," Emir Kusturica's "Underground," Abbas Kiarostami's "Ten," and Sadigh Barmak's "Osama." The last has nothing to do with Bin Laden, it has to do with a girl who passes herself as a boy to find work in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The old Hollywood classics are there in profusion as well, including those movies I thrilled to as a kid: "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Scaramouche" and "The Three Musketeers." The last starred Gene Kelly who makes up for not being able to dance in the movie with a lot of friskiness: never has D'Artagnan been more frenetically kinetic.
The black-and-whites are there, and I'm personally curious how they fare. They include "Citizen Kane," "How Green Was My Valley," and "Casablanca," Oscar winners all. The old John Wayne movies are there as well, though I ceased to be a fan of his in my college days when I found his politics far too reactionary for my taste. It wasn't just his hawkish views on Vietnam, it was also his justification of blacks having inferior roles in Hollywood movies.
I used to see only a handful of people patronizing the pirated DVDs three years ago when they first appeared in Quiapo, Virra Mall and other places. Now there's always a crowd there, especially on weekends, including the well-heeled. In fact, I have yet to know any movie lover, resident or visitor, who hasn't bought a pirated DVD in his or her life. Show me one, and I'll show you a saint or a fool.
What to do in the face of this? What rational policy to pursue?
I leave that for tomorrow.
Updated 10:05pm (Mla time) Sept 07, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A COUPLE of things have happened over the last couple of months. The first is that Edu Manzano has taken the place of Bong Revilla as head of the Optical Media Board and has been just as resolute, and unenlightened, about ridding this part of the world of pirates. I read about his misadventure in Virra Mall a couple of weeks ago in the Business section of the Inquirer. The editors had the good sense to keep it small, out of a very good sense of proportion, though I don't know how it fared in the entertainment pages.
What happened apparently was that he stormed into Virra Mall in the company of cops and confiscated the DVDs sundry vendors were selling there. I know the place; I've been there. Though not as a customer of DVD, the reason for that being financial judgment rather than moral scruple: the Muslims in Quiapo sell the stuff much cheaper. But I have been to Virra Mall, at one point quite frequently, for the software and the MP3 discs. The only reason I am no longer going there frequently is that I've shifted to DSL, the broadband Internet service, and can now procure both without having to brave Metro Manila's traffic. That is through the wonders of downloading. I'll get to that point later.
Anyway, Manzano stormed into Virra Mall and began carting off the DVDs for sale on the stalls there and earned for his pains a lot of boos and hisses and catcalls. He apparently took them all in stride, figuring sticks and stones might break his bones but not boos and hisses and catcalls. But the latter took the equivalent of sticks and stones at one point in the form of crumpled pieces of paper and fruits which flew his way while he and company were climbing down the stairs.
That brought out the action star in him. He swiftly ran up the stairs, drew out a gun, and pointed it at his tormentors, while passersby screamed and scampered for safety. His tormentors appeared to be cowed, until he proceeded to descend the stairs again, when one of them shouted with wry glee, "Idol, makakaganti rin ako sa yo (Idol, I'll get back at you someday)."
The second thing that happened over the last couple of months is the remarkable explosion of (pirated) DVD titles. They now include not just Hollywood classics but classics from other countries as well, or at least movies from other countries that have reaped numerous awards. I remember saying in a column a year or so ago that my only misgiving about the pirated DVDs circulating in our midst was their quality. By that I did not mean technical quality, though some of the stuff was absolutely wretched in that respect--even the ones that were already copied from DVDs and not ripped off from promotional copies or from screenings in movie theaters. It had to do with the extent of compression, but never mind that, leave that to the techies. What I meant by it was that the titles were largely an action-movie-lover's paradise. Occasionally, you found a "Cinema Paradiso" among the Steven Seagal movies, but it was just that, occasionally. I said then that the day the "Pirates of Carriedo" (as a T-shirt I got for Christmas puts it) realized there was a huge market out there for serious movies--indeed the day they began improving the public taste by putting out movie classics instead of movie rejects--was the day their claim to existence became more ironclad.
That day has come. These days you will not just find Seagal and Stallone and Van Damme in the stalls, you will find John Ford, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock there. You will even find Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith, whose "Battleship Potemkin" and "Birth of a Nation" spawned the birth of movies on this battleship earth. Astonishingly, Akira Kurosawa's works are amply represented. I've seen variously "Dreams," "Rashomon," "The Seven Samurai," "Red Beard," "The Hidden Fortress," "Throne of Blood" and "The Idiot." I don't know what others there are. I've been looking for his "High and Low" but haven't found it yet.
More importantly, you'll find movies from France, Spain and Germany, along with those from China, Taiwan, Iran, Greece and Thailand. You'll find such exotic titles as Santosh Sivan's "Asoka," Bahman Ghobadi's "Marooned in Iraq," Emir Kusturica's "Underground," Abbas Kiarostami's "Ten," and Sadigh Barmak's "Osama." The last has nothing to do with Bin Laden, it has to do with a girl who passes herself as a boy to find work in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The old Hollywood classics are there in profusion as well, including those movies I thrilled to as a kid: "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Scaramouche" and "The Three Musketeers." The last starred Gene Kelly who makes up for not being able to dance in the movie with a lot of friskiness: never has D'Artagnan been more frenetically kinetic.
The black-and-whites are there, and I'm personally curious how they fare. They include "Citizen Kane," "How Green Was My Valley," and "Casablanca," Oscar winners all. The old John Wayne movies are there as well, though I ceased to be a fan of his in my college days when I found his politics far too reactionary for my taste. It wasn't just his hawkish views on Vietnam, it was also his justification of blacks having inferior roles in Hollywood movies.
I used to see only a handful of people patronizing the pirated DVDs three years ago when they first appeared in Quiapo, Virra Mall and other places. Now there's always a crowd there, especially on weekends, including the well-heeled. In fact, I have yet to know any movie lover, resident or visitor, who hasn't bought a pirated DVD in his or her life. Show me one, and I'll show you a saint or a fool.
What to do in the face of this? What rational policy to pursue?
I leave that for tomorrow.
posted by Dante at 11:01 AM
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