at the Movies

Movie-watching was a big part of my childhood. Movie ratings were wildly disregarded then - my nanny could drag me in whatever movie they wanted to watch. These movies though were mostly Filipino movies and I was quite fine with that. I knew that the movie was about to begin because they would start playing the Marca Leon cooking oil commercial.

Movie-watching in Velez were especially fun. My uncle had been based in the US in the 80's and he'd send betamax tapes of movies he recorded. All the tapes were kept in a wooden cabinet in my cousins' room. The tapes had white labels on them, with a black ink of the title of the movie. Looking back, I realize that my uncle did diligently record these movies from TV; I remember seeing the HBO and FOX opening before the movie started. A favorite of the cousins were the following movies:
Commando (featuring a young Alyssa Milano)
the Terminator (yes, we were Ah-nuld fans)
Aliens
the Goonies (this was especially a favorite because we easily identified ourselves with the characters)
the Delta Force (I could never forget my aunt saying that my dad looks like Chuck Norris)
Big Trouble in Little China (gotta love me some black magic),
Cocoon
E.T.
the Sound of Music

Favorite animated movies included the Sword in the Stone, He-Man and She-Ra: Secret of the Sword, the Chipmunk Adventure, the Little Mermaid, the Seven Swans and the anime version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

The Police Academy series was also a favorite! So much that the cousins identified themselves with each of the major characters in the movie. We played police in the Velez rooftop or played soldier, whichever movie we wanted to imitate. I remember my cousin Bonjo quoting Ah-nuld from Commando - "The sonofabitch must pay." He, of course, didn't understand what that meant. The aunts were especially shocked at the profanity that was coming out of the little boy's mouth.

My grandfather loved kung-fu movies and from time to time, we'd watch Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee flicks in their room.

When we weren't watching the tapes sent by my uncle, the cousins would rent tapes from the video shop Altiva. We'd watch recorded wrestling matches of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Jake the Snake etc. These tapes would be in shiny red or green cases and of course, the quality of the video was poor. That was the least of our concerns back then.