Rain and BahRANi

"Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was 17?" Travis, "Why does it Always Rain on Me?"

A big fan of rain as long as my rain-boots are on. The sprinklers up there in the azure skies have been turned off. Looking out from the bedroom window, no trace of dampness is evident, as if the torrential downpour was nothing but a teaser of a B-movie. Why do dramatic movies resort to rain effects on the 98th minute?

Speaking of movies, not watched one in a great while. Gae reminded me J. Taylor's "Across the Universe" is playing on HBO this month, one of the last movies I saw before getting sick last year. A DVD courtesy of the friendly pirates of Carriedo is tucked somewhere but the soundtrack more than satisfies.

There's a bunch of new cinema-houses in TC courtesy of a new mall. It's pandemonium I heard - people whom you've inferred have gone fugitive or underwent sex-change surgeries or have been abducted by UFOs or have simply bumped you off their orbits, make mysterious appearances for unplanned reunions. A mall, for crying out loud. This commercial bait can truly startle the dead from their grave.

Except for those European film festivals sponsored by various embassies that I hardly missed when I was still in das kapital (read: in the Manila), I have expunged moviehouses from the itinerary. Ultimately, film-watching is a solitary experience regardless of the throng shrieking or hollering or whatever it finds fit as reactions inside the theater.

Yet even as it is a solitary, private ritual, I believe films have to be celebrated and digested in multiple ways, giving birth to manifold interpretations. It is the conversation or should I risk using the term deconstruction, that ensues, which lends films their enduring power.

Maybe this is the reason I'm not too keen on movies lately. There's no one to pull the curtains off with. Joms, the person constituting 95% of my film appreciation isn't around to squeeze those juices. Hope he's got Bahrani's "Goodbye, Solo" by now. If there's one film that will easily drag my lazy carcass from the menagerie of Santan Street to the bigger menagerie of say, Robinson's Mall, it's Bahrani's 3rd outing. Old folks say 3's a charm. I am excited to what he's got on his sleeves this time, this fellow Kiarostami-worshipper.