Time for Vice to put quality over sheer inanity

The annual Metro Manila Film Festival has been the “kingdom” of Vice Ganda. Since he started doing movies for the MMFF, he has been the box-office champion with his comedy movies, no matter how unpalatable these may be to the fans of the MMFF who are looking for quality movies.

Let us be blunt about it: the Execom members of the MMFF are partial to the movies of Vice Ganda because it brings in the crowd on Christmas Day and during the entire run of the festival.

But if you care to watch his comedy movies, it is bereft of a good story that Vice can be proud of. His movies were just a compodium of gags put together to make a movie of sorts.

Vice has a big following, we say amen to that, but it is our hope that the “It’s Showtime” host will find the sanity to make a real honest-to-goodness comedy flick that will not insult the sensibility of audiences. While his legion of fans will lap at anything Vice will give them, we feel sorry for those who are looking for an entertaining comedy movie that has a good story and does not result to insulting other people just to create laughs.

Since he makes only one movie a year, for a much-awaited festival no less, doesn’t Vice want to do a comedy flick that will be remembered for its quality, not for its inanities?

We believe Vice is a very talented comedian but his type of comedy is not the kind that the thinking audience would love to pay to watch. Maybe, for a change, he should get a new writer and brainstorm on a good story that is a far cry from the usual fare that he gives MMFF audiences.

The title of his latest MMFF starrer “The Mall, The Merrier,” suggests it is just for fun and for laughs. It is his first time to work with Anne Curtis in a movie and he claims it to be a special movie collaboration. Well, we have to watch and find out if “The Mall, The Merrier” is better than “Fantastica,” which bored us to death watching in a cinema in Greenhills together with eight people. This was a week after the festival opened last year.

The fans of Vice will troop to theaters come Christmas, just like how ants will make a beeline to a bowl of sugar. But really, it’s about time Vice makes serious thought of the kind of movies he gives the madlang people.

It doesn’t hurt to effect change if it’s for the better. But there should be a desire for it. Is Vice Ganda ready for it?

***

Alvin Yapan makes his return to the Metro Manila Film Festival via “Culion,” written by Ricky Lee and produced by iOptions Ventures.

The movie takes us to the island of Culion which became a leper colony during the 1940s. Culion tells us the story of a people who had to contend with having Hansen’s Disease which had no cure yet that time.

Direk Alvin says “Culion” has a very inspiring story told through the female characters portrayed by Iza Calzado, Jasmine Curtis-Smith and Meryl Soriano.

“Sir Ricky Lee has written a very beautiful script that captures the essence of what it was like in Culion during that time,” said Direk Alvin.

The award-winning director says he is fortunate to have been given this chance to transfer to the big screen the powerful script written by Ricky Lee.

“Culion” also stars Joem Bascon, Mike Liwag, Nicco Loco, Suzette Ranillo, Lee O’Brien, Joel Saracho, Aaron Concepcion, and Rex Lantano.