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The old lady seemed so fragile and unsteady as she walked up the steps leading to the mall’s entrance that I actually went behind her just in case she stumbled. My wife approached her and asked if she needed any help. “I’m okay,” she smilingly answered, “…I just need to do this very slowly.” It was a lazy Monday morning and my wife and I were playing hooky from all of our mundane responsibilities as parents to watch a movie by ourselves at a theater in Greenhills. It was, after all, her birthday and it seemed like the last time we went on a movie date together, there were still “love seats” at Broadway Centrum. For those who can still remember, Broadway Centrum was a popular mall located at the corner of Aurora Boulevard and Broadway. By today’s SM standards, it can probably be only called a micro mini mall. Nevertheless, it had two state-of-the-art movie theaters that boasted all the latest gadgets then like sensurround and, of course, those very practical seats that allowed couples to (ahem) comfortably sit together while pretending to watch a movie. The mall is still there but, instead of movies, the theaters are now used for live noontime TV shows. As we lined up to buy our tickets, we noticed that the old lady was queued behind us, too. In fact, we realized that we were surrounded (or you might say, sensurrounded!) by a fair number of senior citizens. At first, I thought that it might be due to the theme of the movie that we were watching which dealt with the afterlife. But upon further investigation, one of the ushers whispered to us that senior citizens who are residents of San Juan could watch movies there for free on Mondays and Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I understand that other places like Quezon City and Makati have similar perks for retirees. Well, why not, indeed! With the high movie ticket prices nowadays, it would be foolish not to take advantage of such offers!

I remember that when I first started watching movies, the cost of a ticket was only a little over one peso. Not only that, you didn’t have to leave the theater after a screening. In fact, you could stay inside the theater the whole day if you wanted to and there were times when I actually took short naps there. You could watch a movie over and over again like I did with Jacky Chan’s Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow which I must have watched four times in one day. 

I enjoyed all kinds of movies then, whether they were Oscar-winning serious movies or so-called baduy flicks. The theaters used to show up to a half-hour of entertaining previews of movies that were “Coming Soon” that it made me already want to come back even before the film I came to watch started. I must have also gone to all the theaters in Metro Manila. But my base of operations was in Cubao. I can still remember the smell and feel of the old theaters there like Coronet, Diamond, Remar, Quezon, New Frontier, Nation, and a bit later on, Ali Mall. Going inside a movie house at that time, however, had its own perils like when I escaped from a suspected pedophile. I think I was about 14 at the time and there was this sleazy old guy who kept trying to sit beside me. I kept moving and he kept following until I finally ran out of the movie house and escaped to another theater! I feel a bit sad whenever I pass these old cinemas nowadays as many seem to have either shut down or are already run-down. Nevertheless, some seem to still be doing good business. I sometimes wonder why people love watching movies so much. Experts point to escapism as the primary reason. Maybe it also makes us feel like those Greek gods of lore who watched all of mankind’s joys and sorrows from the comforts of the heavens. Perhaps movies enable us to have the satisfaction of becoming a part of the lives of other people but without the risks and responsibilities. Whatever the reasons are, there is certainly something magical that happens when the lights dim and a flicker of lights opens a portal to another world right in front of you.

 Hereafter, the movie that my wife and I went to see, was as good as advertised. Who the heck would have thought that Clint Eastwood, The Man With No Name and Dirty Harry himself, could have directed a movie in a manner that one critic aptly described as “…with tenderness, beauty, and a gentle tact.” Clint is also already 80, by the way, which makes him as senior as 90% of our co-moviegoers that morning. As I watched the golden-agers slowly get up and leave, I smiled at the thought of my wife and I, years from now, taking our turn to enjoy freebie movies inside a cool and darkened theater. What a great law, I thought. Now, if they could only add free popcorn and soda to the package!

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