Little Solace from the latest James Bond's Quantum

Okay then, I have to admit I’d watch the Quantum of Solace.

And since I cannot sleep, let's both humor ourselves about this latest James Bond movie. It’s been showing since Wednesday, at least here in Cebu theatres, and I’d seen it that Wednesday. You'd probably watched it yourself and formed your own opinion of its worth, or the lack of it. But (insert some expletives here) I can’t believe I’d fall into that (some more expletives!).

The thing is, I mean the story of how I got there in Ayala’s Onstage to watch the opening show of Quantum of Solace, this: I’s in the office when my sister texted me that she’d extra ticket for the movie and liked to give it to me if I wanted it, or she’ll give it to some guy she’ll first meet in the street who’s crazy of James Bond. That’s how sweet my little sister is. So I said okay I want it, fearing also of the thought that there are lots of crazy guys in the streets. So that’s that.

Ayala Center is just 5 minutes walk from our office but I first went home to change my clothes. When I got there around 8pm, there’s already a long disorganized sort of queue waiting to be admitted in the cinema. I met my folks who gave me the ticket, which is more of a flier that says Samsung sponsors the opening show. It’s been a long while since I’d watched a movie in malls. Is this now how the movie tickets look like? They told me it’s not the movie ticket looks like but we need to convert it to the real one by registering it first to that unsmiling guy in expensive jacket and shiny hair at the theatre’s entrance. My sister, who works for Samsung, did not told me about it and it’s too late now and so I followed what everybody was doing. But the converting of all the fliers would seemed to last some ages and so I told one of my folks I needed to go somewhere, grab something to eat, and could he please reserved my place till I get back. After almost an hour, I returned to the queue that grew longer the last time I saw it. And then we waited for another half hour because people called VIPs materialized out of nowhere and they were to be admitted first because they are the VIPs and there were about gazellions of them and they walked very slow. We have no idea where they came from because we didn’t saw them the past two hours.

Out came a group of 5 people, who talked the loudest from the crowd, they approached the shiny hair guy, who recognized them, smiled and shook hands with the man leading the group and kiss the lady like what they do in movies, doing them all in front of us who were getting agitated every passing minute.

Out came a man of about 60, who was once silent next to me. Can we also go with them? He said to the shiny hair man. The shiny hair man gave him a vexed look for spoiling his good time looking important. Well, never mind. The old man continued. But don’t you see we’ve been waiting and I don’t think you are blind. The shiny hair man said You don’t understand sir, those people are Samsung dealers. Your turn will be next shortly. There was commotion in the crowd. A man said Bah, dealers, my boot, they deal Samsung but who buys them. There’s uproar in the crowds till the guards said Okay you can go in now.

After that craziness, I said to myself Well now, James Bond, you better be good and deliver us some good Quantum of Solace indeed and be worth our while or I’ll be (expletives here you want).

After a good pile of crashed cars, trucks, dead bodies, smashed glass, stolen motorcycles, speed boats, women, cars, and a plane, it somehow gave me some little solace. I could almost hear my friend from the neighborhood, Pesting yawa, si James Bond na gud na. But the man next to me in the theatre seemed like to disagree, or could also be otherwise, snoring half the time of the movie.