SM CDO Downtown Premier’s Director’s Club should start giving free hotdog bites to low-carb dieters. I used to look forward to its free popcorn during my high-carb days. Now, I tell the cinema staff that all I need is the free bottled water.
I could hear other cinemagoers munching on their popcorn and the snacks they brought, while I sit there, stealing glances at my bottled water: am I thirsty already?
Will I take the risk of drinking water, with the possibility it may make a running woman out of me as I run to the restroom?
If you’re also a cinemagoer, I gotta feeling you now have an idea where this column is going. To “The Running Man,” of course.
After Kairo, Roket, Nation, and Rizal stopped operating, this was the first time that I watched two movies — “The Running Man” and “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” — in the same cinema, one after the other, with a 45-minute break in between. All I had to do was transfer from one seat to another since my favorite seat number was already taken by the time I bought a ticket for the first movie.
“Die My Love” and “Bugonia” were shown in different theaters, giving me only two minutes for running to the restroom and the next venue.
By the way, Kairo, Roket, Nation, and Rizal were the old cinemas in Cagayan de Oro circa ‘70s. I’ve already forgotten when they stopped operating but I did watch movies there in the ‘70s. Later, Skyhi, Limketkai, and Gaisano cinemas opened but I couldn’t remember if they also showed double features.
Limketkai owned Kairo and Roket. Now you know where the “Kai” in Kairo, and “ket” in Roket came from. I’m guessing that the “ro” is from the name of the family’s matriarch Rosario. The Rosario Arcade and Rosario Pavilion at Limketkai Center are also named after her.
And then, other movie theaters began to close, too. Skyhi in 2000 I think. Then came Netflix in January 2016, changing the Pinoy’s film-viewing habits. Seven years later, Gaisano Cinema closed on January 18, 2023. And this year, Limketkai Cinema closed on March 1, 2025.
SM CDO Downtown Premier, SM City CDO Uptown, and Centrio are now the only ones capturing the attention of avid movie fans. Still, it’s rare to see long lines at the cinemas as the Pinoy continues to watch Netflix.
I’m one of the few who still check out movie skeds. Yeah, get a life. Haha.
Watching movies is part of my weekly Artist’s Date which Julia Cameron prescribed as a cure for writer’s block, in addition to the daily Morning Pages where I’m free to write anything and everything without any editing.
So far, so good in blocking writer’s block. But there was a time during the pandemic that I didn’t write for six months. Staying home for so long took a toll on my minute brain, leaving me with the pandemic as the only topic that went on and on like a tired Energizer Bunny for my columns.
Wait, I do still tend to write about the same topics — movies, carnivore diet — so, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” as the saying goes.
