AWAKE & DREAMING

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Movie Watching



It's movie on cable tv time. I haven't seen much tv in a few days, one reason was that something happened to the set a day before the two day mid-week holiday due to the Pooja festival. So the service guys are on holiday and it took them three days to get here. Tried reading a bit, not so much on the novels but some magazines like the Reader's Digest, The Week & Outlook. Yesterday I saw two movies, both of which I have been wanting to see, but they just never came on the big screen.

School Of Rock is a funny, super movie about a guitar & hard rock loving loser played by Jack Black, who gets booted out of his own band. Their reason is that he goes crazy on stage, drinks too much and plays 20 minutes guitar solos. Anyway, he needs money to pay the rent, so he pretends he is his roommate and goes to be a substitute teacher in a really stuffy school. He realises that most of the kids in the class are really talented and decides to teach them to play rock music instead of the classical lessons they had been doing so far. What follows is a hilarious adventure, culminating in a contest where ofcourse theu kick ass and the kids parents suddenly realises that rock music is cool. The kids in the movie are superb and counteract Black's antics.



The second movie which I saw was Scooby Doo. Now, being a lifelong fan of the cartoon (hey did you know that Scooby is a Great Dane? I only came to know that last year from a dialogue in one of Cartoon Network's ads for the series), the movie was in my must-see list for a long time. I was disappointed that none of the theatres in Kochi showed it when the movie was released, in 2002. However, now that I have seen it that disappointment is over. The movie starts with an un-scheduled reunion of the Mystery solving gang, who had split-up for two years due to fighting within them as to who was it that really solves the crimes. Now, any follower of the cartoon knows that Welma is the real brains behind all the mystery solving. Anyways, they come to a party on Spooky Island and get involved in a sinister plot to rule the world. My displeasure at the makers of this movie is - how could they make Scrappy Doo the villian? Although you get to know that only towards the very end of the movie, it is kinda disturbing that the erstwhile proud nephew of our hero, regularly at his uncle's side turns against Scooby and tries to do away with him. It almost makes me wanna say "Jinkies"!



Song for the day - "Hard As A Rock" - AC/DC