Chapter 312

In a room, Aiden raised his hand and gently put it down on the piano keys.

A low note covered the ground. Above that, he started to calmly manipulate his left hand.

A lyrical main melody was in the forefront, and behind that, there was an endless continuation of another melody as the accompaniment.

It was pushing the main one.

Glancing at the piano, his right hand seemed to be moving with an emotional pace while the left hand flew across busily and appeared peculiar.

He was smiling while playing the piano. It wasn't perfect but he didn't need to be.

He just needed to get a basic understanding of it and he had mastered the basics quite quickly.

He focused more on subtle things like the expression and the weight on the keys. Everything made a difference and made his performance felt better. Even by a little margin.

The song ended after 3 minutes and Aiden let out a breath.

'I hope I did well.'

He said and looked at Joseph who had his eyes closed. He was listening to the entire song and after a while, he opened his eyes.

His face was stern. An expression he would often have during their sessions.

Finally, he nodded his head and Aiden took a sigh of relief. Joseph was strict with his lessons and more often than not, he would criticise Aiden.

"It was better than the last time. It seems like you are learning the basics well. Not even close to mastering them but good enough."

"Thanks."

Aiden said as he saw the skill level of his piano hovering in front of his eyes.

[Piano: Level 3]

It was the basic level that he was able to reach in the past month. The journey from Level 2 to Level 3 itself was very hard enough but somehow, Aiden was able to get a basic grasp on a new instrument.

As there were a few scenes in [Agnas] where he needed to play piano, he was learning it. He also has memorised a few of Agnas' songs.

Singing them was still a bit unfamiliar to Aiden but he felt like he would get used to it more and more as the shooting progressed with his character affinity rising.

"Have you been preparing for the song segments?"

Joseph asked as Aiden looked at him, sitting on the piano.

"Yeah, I'm practising 'The Dream of millions' and 'Remedy' everyday."

These were the songs that Joseph had composed for the movie and there were segments in the movie where Aiden would perform these.

'The Dream of millions' was a song about dreams obviously with it talking about a young Agnas dreams and 'Remedy' was a track about a relationship Agnas had.

For Aiden, both of these tracks were important but 'Remedy' was given more priority. It was a better track in his opinion and talked about Agnas's anxiety in a relationship and how it had turned out.

It was also his favourite alongside 'Joker'.

"That's good." Joseph said and talked a bit more about Aiden's lessons before looking up at the clock.

The time was over.

"I think the lessons end here." He said. "Don't you have an interview or some promotions to do today?"

"No." Aiden shook his head. "Actually, we are doing some public screenings today. So, I need to be there."

"Ah, yeah. I heard the screening for critics already happened. The movie is releasing in two days right? I would go and check it."

Aiden nodded his head.

He has given a lot to marketing and promotions by giving interviews and in the past couple of weeks, more interest has been generated in the movie.

So, they were doing some early public screenings to see how the normal audience would react to the movie.

'Sadly, the critics hated it.'

Aiden thought with a wry smile on his face.

***

<[Action Hero] is a movie with no substance at all and only action scenes. I have not seen such a movie in my 20 years of being a critic and I'm not saying it positively. Asano Mercer's direction is just getting poorer in quality even with most of the basics done well.

-Hollywood Reporter.>

<Aiden Silvereye might have had a great last year, raising his stocks in Hollywood by a lot but this year has been nothing but disappointment for the young stalwart. [Action Hero] is a bad movie that no actor would want in his filmography. Even the actors' good yet a bit cheesy acting can't save the movie.

-LA Times.]

<At the end of the movie, I was wondering what it was trying to be and what Asano Mercer was trying to accomplish by having an action scene every few minutes. Moreover, even if he wanted to make an all out action movie, the creative judgment of having it set in a boys high school doesn't make sense. The movie just tries to give a wrong idea to young guys that fists solve everything.

-Movie Frenzy.>

"The reviews are extremely bad. Are you punishing me by inviting me to this movie's screening? How did you even get the tickets?"

A bespectacled guy said as he looked at his friend in front of him. They were currently sitting in one of the theatres that was going to show an early screening of [Action Hero].

"My father knew someone from the set. They told him that the movie is focused on teens, so he gave me the ticket. Anyway, don't complain even if it's bad because it's free."

His friend was wearing a baseball cap and a windbreaker jacket. Both of them were high school students who were free today.

"It being free doesn't mean I should not complain."

p "I liked the trailer."

"Read the reviews."

"The last time I read them was for a sci-fi movie. Critics hailed it as some sort of revolution in science fiction while it was a generic movie. The ending was literally the main character winning against the villain due to the power of love. In a sci-fi movie."

The baseball cap wearing guy shrugged his shoulders and sneered. He clearly seems to not trust reviews while his friend on the other hand looked disappointed.

He was someone who has come to respect critics and their opinions, thinking of them as having more knowledge to gauge good movies from the bad ones.

The bespectacled guy looked around and saw that there were a lot of people in the crowd, most of them being young. The producers were clearly targeting teens and college students for the movie.

'The screening will happen first. Then, actors and directors would get questions from the audience.'

The bespectacled read the memo that was given to them while entering the theatre. He couldn't see any celebrities in the crowd but they could just be in a backroom.

'I would leave right after the movie. That's the best set of action.'

As he thought that, a host told them that the screening was about to begin. The bespectacled guy got comfortable in their seats and began to wonder how bad the movie was going to be.

'Wait… this can't be.'

One and half hours later, the same bespectacled guy couldn't believe what he had just seen.

It was hard to comprehend for him, who was a big fan of art movies with subtle things and themes. He couldn't even call it bad as he knew that the experience he just had was something completely opposite of it.

'It… it was so entertaining.'

The bespectacled guy thought yet he didn't know how the movie had made him glued and even cheered at moments.

"Damn, that was a blast. I feel like this is the best gift my father gave me and he gave me my car."

The baseball cap wearing guy said as he clapped his hand and looked at his friend.

"I told you it would be good, right?"

"Yeah it was strangely good."

"I think I want to watch it again. Those fight scenes were awesome and I didn't know how they even did that class brawl scene. That was some epic level stuff."

The baseball cap guy said and felt like he didn't have such fun even in superhero movies. Even though they were great, there was nothing special as action set pieces can't always be creative.

But in [Action Hero], there was clear thought given to every action scene. There were a lot of them and everyone of them managed to feel different from each other.

'The reviews were really wrong about this one… Wait…'

The bespectacled guy suddenly thought of something.

"Wasn't there a lack of story? I felt everything went too fast from one great moment to another. Moreover, how could one guy even take on 30 people."

"Yes, it's impossible. That's why he nearly lost. I felt like he was very lucky. And can you please throw away logic for a second?"

The baseball cap wearing guy squinted his eyes at his friend. He was too quick to ruin moments.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a movie. Let it do its job. To entertain people and I think it entertained me a hell lot. I feel like the protagonist is really like me as I myself used to get into fights. You sought out too much realism from movies and then complain if they are not entertaining enough."

The bespectacled guy shut his mouth hearing that and thought about his friend's words.

He believed that movies were the mirror to society but he also believed that they were meant to be entertaining. Give people an experience of a lifetime.

"I guess too many movies already focus on making it as real as possible. So, there needs to be movies like this too."