Heroes

First of all I'd like to pat myself on the back for how quickly after the previous post this one is going up. It's especially impressive considering I have to type this with one hand (the other one is still patting me on the back, it's incredibly uncomfortable). The reason this one is going out so soon is because this one is a spontaneous post! Instead of thinking of the best way to talk about this for days, I'm just going to type it all out and put it online. You know, like a blog, or YouTube-comment.
So let's get down to it. I went to the movies on Friday  and I saw Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 is obviously an amazing film, because there are two others, so they could learn from the mistakes they made in the other two movies (mainly the second one, the first one was almost flawless) and rectify them in the third. That's how it works with movie franchises; the third one is ALWAYS the best.
But the most amazing part was going to a Filipino movie theater. You get an oldskool american-style movie ticket that looks amazing, and then at the theater entrance they take the entire thing away from you. No ticket stub, nothing. Have you ever gone out somewhere without some object you always have on you (a phone, a bag, glasses)? It feels weirdly naked, like you forgot something.
Of course there is no seating arrangement, so everyone sits wherever they want to sit. Seat selection isn't done in the same way you would do it back home, where you would like to sit about halfway through the theater, somewhere in the middle. In the Philippines that's obviously where you would LIKE to sit, but this is made impossible by the fact that they only clean the theaters once a day. I suspect these seats are inaccessible around lunchtime.
So you find yourself a seat, dust it off, sit down, and watch a really long clip in Tagalog about turning your phone off and staying quiet during the movie. It takes at least 5 minutes. After this, they show you all the trailers they have available, until the movie starts at exactly the time it says on the ticket. The transition between trailer and movie is seamless. Jean-Mineur Mediavision has not yet dug his claws into these theaters, and I have to say that watching a movie without seeing a seemingly hour-long Grolsch commercial is a real eye-opener. Why is president Obama in New York in that commercial anyway? I can't think of any reason why he would be driving through there without sniper-support. Dumb commercial.
So the movie has started, and you think you've taken the brunt of culture-shock, so you can now relax and watch the movie without being amazed by something else, right? WRONG!
Do you remember watching a movie as a kid, and you could not keep your noise-level down while something amazing happened on screen? They still do that! It hasn't been beaten out of them by years of school teachers, other children and their parents telling us that we're weird enough already when we're just acting normally. So when Iron Man lands spectacularly on the ground, you can hear adult Filipino men and women going "Wow!". How amazing is that? Pretty amazing. It turns watching a movie into a shared, interactive experience.
I think it's time for revolution. And revolution is just around the corner, with elections coming up next week.

-- Okay, so I waited a few days uploading this. I didn't change anything.