Sin City

[Brian Thibodeau]

If someone could save the WORLD's cinemas from a lot of the bad movies Hollywood churns out - including the so-bad-it's-funny Mel Gibson-personal-fantasy payback wankfest PAPPARRAZZI - that would go along way to fixing the problem in your city and around the world.

Unfortunately, over here, SOMETHING has to fill in the downtime between holiday and summer blockbusters, and that something is often as dreadful to us over here as it is to you over there. And eventually, a lot of that garbage makes it to Hong Kong and elsewhere. I think sometimes that Hollywood maintains its leading edge at the boxoffice PRECISELY because they've got all this high-concept crud to keep the theatre screens occupied while local fare (in this case Hong Kong Cinema, or what's left of it), is relegated to a couple screens or goes straight to video. Obviously, the piracy doesn't help matters...

Personally, it makes me wish I could travel back in time and move to Hong Kong in the 1970's, when local cinema ruled. Then I'd know I'd have a good 25 years or so to spend watching cool, locally-made movies rule the box-office!