RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Descendants 2011 "Ah," I thought, "it is going to be another one of those George Clooney movies where he goes on exhibiting his flashy smile breaking young girls' heart and laughing all the way to the bank!" Luckily, I was wrong. It was not too bad, actually. The starting line caught my attention. Something to the effect of people go under the impression that everyone in Hawaii is happy living in paradise but people there too have fatal cancers, have heartaches..... It is an emotionally charged movie of the story of Matt King, a successful real estate attorney who has an adrenaline junkie brain dead wife in hospital after a water sport accident. He soon discovers that she had been cheating on him. Then there are his two daughters who are giving him hell - a pre-teen who is having problems with friends in school and is using 4-lettered word like punctuation marks and a wild young adult in university. To top it up, there is a question of his ancestral land...

This guy's  (with 1 missing upper limb) job  is to transport oil and other prayer paraphernalia up to a temple atop a  hill So you think you had it bad. You got a bad deal. You were born at a time when the stars were aligned at the worst constellations. Think again! Others who appear happy may have endured worse. Yet another success story to share, that is, if it is approved by the party involved... He hated it when people referred to him as 'the pasar malam egg seller lady's son' even though it was on a positive note, usually awed by his excellent results in school. Being a small town, everybody knew each other and each other's children. He often wondered why his parents could not be like other regular parents with regular 9 to 5 jobs. Why has it got to be chicken, eggs and all the barn and feather? He also hated it when he had to give up his precious revision time to set up stall at pasar malam (night market) as early as 3pm so as ...

This 1958 film noir is an Academy Award winner for Best Actress. It is a depiction of journalistic investigative word of one Ed Montgomery, a hearing aid wearing journalist. It queries the rationale of institutional approved murder (gas chamber death penalty) for a person who is wrongly accused of murder of a person where she was no party of. Susan Hayward plays the part of a Barbara Graham, a party girl with loose morals who would just lie in court for the kick of it. Having heaps of financial problems due to a gambling husband, a hungry infant and finding it hard to get a job after her perjury charge, she mixes with the wrong 'friends' and finds herself behind bars for murder. She goes deeper into the quicksand of self destruction after her 'accomplices' sold her out for a plea bargain and the police trap her with a phony alibi. By the time she realizes that she is in trouble deep, all her avenues for freedom are closed. She is finally executed. The movie ends with...

The Keys are small islets just off Florida where Key Largo is the biggest of them all. Key Largo is a 1948 film noir starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It is not your usual story love and its melodrama. Frank McCloud (Bogart), a war veteran stops at Key Largo to pay respects to his comrade's widow (Bacall) and crippled father who run a hotel there. Unknowingly, the hotel is hijacked by Johnny Rocco, a wanted mobster who ran away to Cuba but stopped there awaiting to complete his counterfeit money transaction with another mob. The drama unfolds when our soldier is caught in between amongst the owner of the hotel, Rocco, his alcoholic ex-singer mistress (Claire Trevor who won the 1948 Best Supporting Actress Academy award), the henchmen, two escaped Red Indian convicts and an impending hurricane. McCloud, feeling weary after all the killing, gets ridiculed after declining a duel with Rocco. When the typhoon is about to show up, it is the turn of the hoodlums to panic, e...

Now I can understand why this movie got a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is the favorite movie of a many great film directors like Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) and Satyajit Ray (Honorary Academy Award Winner from Bengal, India). It is a 1959 French language movie directed by François Truffaut, one of the greats of the French New Wave Cinema. It is a simple story about simple things in life. The cinematography is done in such a way that you cannot imagine why such a particular long shot was made but is actually integral to highlight the artistic value of the movie. It went on to win the 1959 Cannes' Best Director Award. Antoine Doinel is a a 12 year old boy who is having a hard time adjusting to school where all his mates are up to mischief and he is the fall guy and is punished by his ferocious school master. At home, he goes home to an empty house where his father is forever busy at the racing track and his inaffectionate mother is apparently 'busy' with work....

Extremely loud & Incredibly Close (2011) I just heard news that a friend of mine had just lost two of her sisters to cancer over a span of six months - one to breast cancer and another mid 30 non smoking sister to lung cancer. Losing a young relative is already a heartache; imagine two at that but to cancer that makes her to be more wary that she may be another cancer victim. Coincidentally, the latest movie that I watched dwells on the same topic of death. Looks like the Americans have not recovered from the grief brought about 911. Or are the people in Hollywood are reminding people of their loss and subtly influence them to put their support behind the endeavor of their self proclaimed protector of Mother Earth to fight the Axis of Evil. This film must have been released in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of 911. It tells the story of an intelligent and precocious young 12 year old boy who was extremely close to his father but loses his father in the Twin Tower attack. ...

I first watched this movie some 30years ago when it was screened in the auditoriums of Universiti Sains Malaysia in an international film festival. My friends and I were not there to rub shoulders with the cultured but rather because we were excited to get free admission to watch an internationally acclaimed and we wanted to kill our curiosity on how an Indian movie could be critically acclaimed! As far we knew, Indian movies were kings of melodramatization and the actors ran around the park and learn relative velocity and theory of relativity by running to each other in slow motion. We were utterly wrong. Firstly, it was an English movie set in India and there was way too much necking for an Indian movie, even the Anglo-Indian character in the movie was embarrassed. Viewing this film after 30 years makes you appreciate the complex characters and human relationships that can only develop after all the battle wounds of  with ageing. '36 Chowringhe...

விண்ணைத்தாண்டி வருவாயா? (2009) During two treadmill sessions, I managed to run through (no pun intended) a 2 and half hour Tamil movie with the volume way down low but music still audible and dialogue understandable with English subtitle. It did not need too much of brain power to map out what was going on. A typical Kollywood story of love at first sight between Simbu and Trisha who are occupants of a same house. Trisha's parents were the owners of the house and occupied the top floor whilst Simbu's family rented the ground floor. The cardinal sin was that Trisha was Malayalee Christian and Simbu Tamil. It is massive fireworks on the Malayalee side of the fence.  The initially resistant Trisha gradually melts down to the persistent juvenile impulsive antics of the love struck hero. A good a hour goes into showcase the efforts of hero to woo his 'victim'. Simbu is in show-biz, a hated profession by both families, but hero tries to work himself up to prove a point.   As...

Seriously funny Think of nothing Now then Found missing Deafening silence Genuine imitation Accidentally on purpose Agree to disagree Amicable divorce Original copies A little big A quiet storm Silent scream Living dead Almost exactly Brave politician? Honest lawyer? Pretty ugly Awfully pretty A just war Spendthrift Deficit spending Happily married Virgin birth? Liquid gas Student teacher Clearly confused Anarchy rules Working vacation Civil War   For a more comprehensive list, have a peek into  http://www.oxymoronlist.com/  and  http://www.fun-with-words.com/oxym_oxymoronology.html

Of course this was way before my time. My memory of this area is the stinky market, Lim Seng Seng Bus (which served Ayer Itam area), The Yellow Bus (which ploughed Gelugor and beyond to Balik Pulau -No. 66) and Hin Company which combed the beach district of Tanjung Bungah and beyond. Sri Negara (till Bagan Jermal area) and MPPP bus (No.2) had a stop there. After watching Deepavali movie, we had to run around for LSS bus 91A which plied Jln Boundary. Sometimes, we took the No. 91, walked to RRF from Kampung Bharu market. The run down Rex theatre. My sister and I watched the first English movie together - 'Earthquake' in sense surround sounds. I also have fond memories of watching the mind boggling action adventure packed from beginning to end with no time to recover in the Indiana Jones first of the trilogy (Raiders of the Lost Ark) here with PFS buddies. And my best film of all time 'Back to the Future 1' when I was in USM. The Victoria street MPPP bus term...

Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle 24 March 1887 - 29 June 1933 m entored Charlie Chaplin, discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope, contemporary of Harold Lloyd. My wife cannot understand why I keep on watching murder movies (the spouse is the usual perpetrator) and even reading crime dramas, like the current one I am reading on 'Crimes of the Century'. I simply tell her, " You never know when it may come in handy!" I read this sad true story of a silent movie star (Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) who had a sad life from birth, achieved unenviable stardom as a comedian and got entangled in a nasty murder case which made him a pariah amongst the movie industry and drained all his earnings. He was born as a 13lbs baby raising suspicion on paternity by his father that he actually named him Roscoe Conkling, after a philandering politician whom he despised (the exact name)! His mother never recovered from the traumatic birth. She became chronically...

My years ago, being a patriarchal community, Indian parents have to cough out a fat dowry to marry off the their daughters. They (daughters) became a bane for many families. Female children were considered a burden as they did not have the earning power and was good enough a reason for female infanticide. With the opening of educational opportunities, Indian ladies have a wider earning and thinking capability. Even though the dowry system have long been abolished, I think it stays subtly unspoken in the community. Nowadays, the dowry money is channelled to a lavish wedding bash (ala Monsoon Wedding). Recently, a close friend's daughter wedded in a truly glamorous fashion with a dinner fit for the king and entertainment as well decoration to match. Always being the fall guy, what started as drafting a speech, I was arm-twisted to give a speech for the bride's side! Here a sample of it... Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been given the dirty job of tel...

Beginner(2010) A weird movie with equally weird plot and a dog - always a dog. There is a confused man, Oliver, whose 75 year old father comes out his closet after the death of his wife of 44years to state his sexual preference... The story is told both in present time after the death of Oliver's father where he is confused about his feelings for a girl he met, in flashback of the time after his father's confession of sexual preference, his boyfriends and his dying days after being diagnosed to have lung cancer. In between are inserted of stories of Oliver's childhood, his relationship with his mother and the sparse relationship between his parents. We are also told of his father's gay feelings starting way back before his wedding but married anyway due to societal pressures.  We can gather that Oliver slowly comes in terms with his father's needs and his partner. Oliver's relationship with his girlfriend grows serious but both are unsure about each others...

Get ready for d World Friendliest Day street party at Changkat, KL this 17 Mar with #GuinnessStPats

For generations, the older generations have pouted and frowned upon the subsequent generation. And they keep telling the end is near with their loss of inhibition as their actions seem to imply. Recently, I heard an interesting interview of a learned who disagreed with his father's opinion, but both parties appear to respect each other's viewpoint. The father, being a professor in Malaysian history, seem to think that the legend of Hang Tuah is a tall story devoid of historical evidence. The son, on the other, seems to believe that it is all right to romanticise the concept of an invincible warrior to spur the people to strive harder and have a national figure to look up to. The son,  in spite of being his father's ferocious critique, still manages to pen a foreword for his father's new autobiography. The offspring will only awe upon the parent until his thinking cap is dormant. Once he is opinionated, we should agree to allow the other party to disagree. Their opi...

Look around the world! There is much so of hatred all around us. There is division all around us. Even amongst apparently homogeneous appearing societies, there is suspicion and desire to dominate over the other clan. There is the West and East, North and South, Muslim and Christians, the fair skinned and the dark skinned, Sunnis and Shiates, indigenous people and immigrants, moderates and conservatives, between differing political ideologies and the list goes on. Left in desperation with the will to survive against a common enemy, people will flock together and put their resources together. This is evident from scenes from major catastrophe like earthquakes and tsunamis. Even then, there would be people with economic reaping on their mind rather than helping the downtrodden. Maybe, we are waiting for Armageddon or attack from an alien civilization to take over Earth like in 'War of the World' by H.G.Wells. After the dust has settled from the tu...

Set in the Negro heartland of Mississippi and the 1960s, at a time when it was a crime for a white to be seen eating together with a black and the law required the black maids to use a separate wash room outside the house, this film showcases the story of a young modern female journalists, who unlike her mates who are falling dying to be contend with hitching a husband and having kids, tries to interview a few domestic maids for a paper. We are talking about a time when it is all right for the maid does all the raising the kids while the white bosses do all the socializing and raising funds for kids in Africa when they treated their helpers like dirt. And their helpers have no right even though they are the first to fend for the babies and do all the cooking and chores. It is okay from them to cook and raise their child, but even the law at one stage required households to have separate toilets for domestic helpers as they were feared to harbour many communicable diseases! Amongst t...