2 light films

Wanting to take a break from all the post-election talk about supposed cheating and slow count, I decided to taske in two light Hollywood films at the mall cinemas.

The first movie I saw was Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which stars Lindsay Lohan as a youngster who has lived all her life in New York’s Greenwich Village, but had to be transplanted to a suburb called Dellwood in New Jersey along with her family.

Moving next state isn’t really that big a tragedy – especially since a lot of people from New Jersey commute to New York daily for their work. But our young female lead here is the maarte type who has a flair for high drama. Yes, she is prone to exaggeration and dramatizes unnecessarily her every situation in life.

In her new school at Dellwood High, she is so desperate up to get everyone’s attention that she dresses outlandishly and even makes up a story about how her father (who later turns out to be very much alive) had been killed in a motorcycle accident because he was carrying so many bouquets of flowers for her Mom and had his vision blocked by the dozens and dozens of roses that he drove right smack into a pizza delivery truck.

She even reinvents herself by dropping Mary, which is what’s in her birth certificate, in favor of the more showbiz name Lola.

She could have easily reigned as the most popular in school, except that the current title-holder Carla Santini (Megan Fox) can’t be dislodged from her throne that fast. The Santini girl, to begin with, is rich and well-connected, being the daughter of an entertainment lawyer.

Round 1 of their rivalry sees them battling it out on who gets the lead role in the school production of Eliza Rocks, a pop verson of Pygmalion. It is Mary, er, Lola who gets it. Round 2 requires them to get tickets to the already sold-out farewell concert of their favorite rock band and possibly get invites to the post-concert party at the Soho home of rock star Stu Wolff (Adam Garcia). A big chunk of the movie is devoted to this and the more sensible moviegoer at this point would most likely cry "Enough!"

The idea of a youngster being transplanted to another place actually makes for an interesting plot. Unfortunately, the writer and the director of this movie do not have enough depth to develop the material into a more relevant viewing fare. Maybe you’ll say, "But this is a comedy!" Surely it is, but where are the laughs? Okay, maybe there are two or three funny moments in the entire film, but that’s about it.

I know I should lighten up a bit and accept the fact that this film is geared toward teens and not for this writer who had his junior-senior prom shortly before the Japanese Occupation. But then, is this the type of film we’d want our youngsters to see?

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is really just a harmless little movie. But if we continue to expose teenage kids to a steady supply of films as shallow as this one, I wouldn’t want to be around anymore to see how the next generation would rule this world.

In contrast to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, School of Rock – happily – turns out to be an entertaining and creative film.

In School of Rock, Jack Black stars as a rock guitarist who had just been kicked out of his band for being no good. Desperate to have a little money to tide him over, he pretends to be a substitute teacher in an exclusive school and even gets assigned to the créme dela créme where everyone excels in academic learning.

Since he isn’t really a teacher and who doesn’t know math, history or the languages, he just lets his entire grade school class go on recess the whole day – until he hits on a bright idea: Seeing how excellently some of the students play musical instruments in their music class, he forms his own rock band using these kids in his class. Of course, the practices (and teaching the theories on how to be a rock star) had to be kept secret – especially from the principal, played so effectively by Joan Cusack. Eventually, he is found out, but everything turns out happily in the end.

School of Rock doesn’t turn out to be tedious viewing – unlike Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen – because of the wonderful performances of the cast members (the kids are marvelous), particularly Jack Black, whose energy is so contagious, the film is kept alive from beginning to end.

The funny moments are also spread all over the movie that you’ll be entertained all throughout your viewing.

The formula used by School of Rock to make this film worth the ticket price is really simply: Good performances + a finely-crafted and well-developed premise and material. Those were all it took to make this film rock.