Nostalgia at the pictures

I didn’t know this. Nowadays in cinemas, before the trailers begin, they play songs. Not just any crummy song, but a very nice selection of wonderful songs (so far in my experience). I think it’s a great idea.

So the other night, I hopped into the pictures, and they were playing “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. I sank back in the seat, closed my eyes a bit, and allowed myself to be immediately teleported to the mid nineties. The prevailing memory is of high school dances, Halloween, Christmas, whatever. We used to have these dances in high school, a few every year, and at the end of the night, they’d play a few slow songs to end the night, and this was the time when prepubescent boys would awkwardly seek out mid-pubescent gangly nubile young girls, and in their Keanu reeves center-parted hair and squeaky voices, ask for a dance. Everything would be dark, and they’d play songs like that.

I also heard Beauty and the Beast there. Reminds me of the Disney on Ice show I went to when I was in Year 7 (that’s Form 1). A very nice incident indeed, very magical. I loved it when the lights dimmed, and the show was ending. Years later, even now, I still recall the scene, while the music is playing “off to the cupboard now chip. It’s past your bedtime. Gnite love”. Too…magical.

I am the Beast. Suffice to say, when I think about it, I do feel I am the Beast. Ugly, like a brute, easily misunderstood, but nice gentle and kind. Protective over my Beauty. You’d think it is just a Disney song. But as an adult now, listening to the lyrics again…its surprisingly good, relevant and true. Hahaha.

Then another time, they were playing…my secret childhood favorite song! It was magical (shut up, I was just an impressionable kid who had no experience with such stuff so everything was romantic okay) to me back then and is every inch as wonderful now. Aladdin’s “A Whole New World”. I remember sitting cross legged on the floor in primary school in the AV room, with a bunch, a whole horde of fidgety boys. We fidgeted and mucked through Beetlegeuse (not sure if that’s how you spell it) and Frankenstein. And I started off flicking rubber bands and whatnot as well when Aladdin was played.

Then… somehow… it stirred some stupid chord deep in me. Soon, I had shyly and unsuccessfully inconspicuously crept and crawled my way to the front of the room, ignoring the heckling from the sugar high horde I was leaving behind, right under the TV, staring up, neck craned, gawking and gaping. Totally lost in the movie, in Aladdin, in Princess Jasmine, and excitedly anxiously anticipating what would happen when in the middle of the night he showed up outside her balcony on the magic carpet and invited her to join him.

Then I was giddy with joy as she climbed onto the carpet and then, amidst the darkish atmospheric background, they soared up and the song played. Ah… can never forget that moment. A whole new world…just the 2 of them, up in the sky, nobody else alive, flying and twirling, lands whizzing past. I want that. That must be the subconscious precursor to why I relish being up late at night, feeling like I am the only person alive.

“Tell me princess, now when did you last let your heart decide”. And not your head. Isn’t that a wonderful line? ‘A new fantastic point of view, no one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we’re only dreaming’. I like. Appeals to the innate rebel in me whom I continuously flog to death with self comforting excuses like ‘grow up, real world, real world’ while privately saying goodbye to the core of Alex.

“Unbelievable sights. Indescribable feelings. Soaring tumbling freewheeling. Through an endless starless sky”. What can beat the experience of doing that with Princess J your loved one?

"Dont you dare close your eyes!". The spirit of youth!



“A whole new world (an eternal surprise). With new horizons to pursue. I’ll chase them everywhere. Theres time to spare. Let me share this whole new world with you”


I like the ending...when his face appears in the reflection, and then hers appears besides close by...thats like the turning point...and then her hands clasping his as they glide into the night...