Love stories: For the First Time vs. WALL-E

For the First Time

The last time I went to see a Tagalog movie in a theater was to see Ploning. I was disappointed with that movie mainly because I expected so much more than what it delivered. But after watching For the First Time (FTFT) last night with two friends from the office I began to appreciate the effort that the Ploning filmmakers exerted to upgrade the level of Philippine cinema. FTFT was nothing but an excuse to bring together KC Concepcion and Richard Gutierrez to the big screen and with them their fans (which I don't have any idea as to how many because even in my home city of Cagayan de Oro where we have a TV set, I don't follow Philippine showbiz). The story was unbelievable. Their love story was improbable. The dialog, especially when delivered by Richard, was both unbelievable and hideous. Worse is the admission was actually 10 pesos higher than the one I paid to see WALL-E, and 20 pesos more than to see Ploning. Even worse was that the 9:25 PM screening that we attended was just a few souls away from selling out at the time we arrived to buy our tickets. What's happening with the world?

WALL-E

I went to see WALL-E on August 18 along with two friends from the office. Pixar delivered yet again in both the quality story and quality animation arenas. Could Pixar be the perfect studio that can't deliver any bad movie? Even the short film that traditionally precedes each Pixar feature was great just like the past.

Earth is so full of trash that the people had to leave the planet in a cruise spaceship Axiom while the planet was being cleaned up by the WALL-E (Waste Allocator Load Lifter - Earth Class) robots. 700 years later, Earth is still laden with garbage and there is only one WALL-E left. It leads a lonely life until a robot probe (EVE) is deployed to check the planet for any sign of life. This is co-written and directed by Andrew Stanton who made Finding Nemo (which is my favorite Pixar film). The theme song performed by Peter Gabriel is a bit strange on its own, but it fitted very well with the movie's beautiful end credit sequence.

FTFT vs. WALL-E

Ironic, but it is more believable that two robots could actually fall in love in WALL-E than for Seth and Sophia in FTFT. The love story in WALL-E was more developed and felt real. The one in FTFT was contrived and improbable. Granted the two films differed in budget (although I don't think that the budget was the reason why FTFT sucked, it's more because its script was terrible), comparing FTFT to the last Tagalog movie I saw before it, Ploning was in many ways a hundred times better than FTFT. Compared to it, FTFT looked like a made-for-TV movie and even then it would still stink.