My first (and last) ScreenX viewing at SM MoA

I didn't have much going on today but I mostly stayed up talking to someone up until 4 or 5 am. I couldn't sleep since I had just drank coffee the night before when I went out with Badet and her husband. I mostly just chatted with someone, and also listened to Mon talk about her problems for a bit. But once all that was done, I decided to get some rest.

For the afternoon, I was pretty much bored and honestly had nothing to do so I decided to watch Colony (2026) because new movies had just premiered. I wanted something different today so I decided on watching via the ScreenX theater at SM Mall of Asia. In hindsight, this would prove to be a big mistake. I worked on my personal websites and blog discoverability for a while and then I was off to the mall. It took me a while, but I eventually got there. It was a time crunch as I had just arrived less than 10 minutes before the movie had started. I barely got anything, just a bag of Lay's chips and a bottle of water, which was weird. I wasn't used to just getting barebones snacks, but the lines for the snack bars were so full, I didn't really want to waste precious time. So I eventually found my seat and got seated. I was sandwiched between 2 groups and then the movie had started. It was pretty insane to get a full view of the movie, which kind of blew my mind the first time. But then the movie started, and what I noticed was that some scenes were in full panoramic mode, while some scenes appeared just normal. Colony was good overall, and I found the story to be pretty great. I didn't expect it to be a zombie movie, but it was cool to see the plot unfold as I just went in blind, I didn't even watch the trailers. What I kind of hated and disliked about the experience was the people. It wasn't the usual seats that I usually get at a “Director's Club”-type theater, so both sets of people sat really close to me. The seats in front of me were packed, too.

I hated how one guy kept re-opening his stupid Messenger app on his iPhone on full fucking brightness. I hated how the idiots to my right kept fucking making stupid sounds and side comments as I was trying to watch the movie in peace. There were also idiots sat to the back of me that kept laughing the whole time. It was honestly horrible and I found myself more ticked off at the people than focused on the movie. It was such a stark contrast between the last time I watched a movie, In The Grey (2026), because that had empty seats and I was the only one watching in the entire theater. Now I feel very boxed in with loud and annoying crowds, it felt like I was watching a movie with a crowd—and I was.

After the movie ended, I tried to get food, but the restaurants were close to closing, so I just called it a night and booked a ride home. I was kind of pissed off and my mood had been soured at this point, honestly. I'm never going to book a ScreenX seat again as long as it was the version that had a lot of people watching and shoulder-to-shoulder seats. For the rest of the evening, nothing much happened but I stayed up since I wanted to recoup for how horrible the evening went.