RIFLE RANGE BOY

Thulabaram (Sacrifice, Tamil; 1968) I do not know why but I keep watching this movie over and over again over the years. Maybe because it draws me back to the time of RRF and the time that steamed with hopelessness and helplessness. At the same time, I do not agree with the melodrama and the self pity that is exhibited in full glory in this flick. So, psychoanalyse me! This was one of the first movies that Amma took me to watch back in the days. Perhaps, she needed to reminisce her trying times of early adulthood. Even after all these years, its songs, especially 'Kaathrinile Perum Kaathrinile' sang beautifully by K.J. Yesudass, still makes my hairs at the back of my neck stand. This movie skyrocketed in popularity in the South that remakes were made in Tamil, Telegu and Hindi using the same main actress, Sharadha. The original film was made in Malayalam based on stage show. Sharadha went on to receive the National Film Award for that year. Sharadha Coming from a s...

Thanks RS for contribution. Before clocks became popular, Mary Smith made a living waking workers by blowing peas against their windows.   Old municipal library in Cincinnati (Ohio) before its demolition in 1955 Traffic jam in Berlin, Germany, on the first Saturday after the fall of the Wall . Charlie Chaplin and a crowd of supporters in New York City, 1918. Bar clients celebrating the end of Prohibition in December 1933 . Construction of a Zeppelin in 1923. Dirigible over the Capital dome in Washington, DC. Dresden, after the 1945 Allied Forces bombing. Albert Einstein with an Einstein marionette in 1931. A Russian physician in an Antarctic Expedition, removing his own appendix in 1961 Construction of the Christ The Redeemer status in Río de Janeiro, Brazil, 1930. The first winner of the Tour de France in 1903. Propellors of the Titanic in 1911 Following his release, a Jew of a Ge...

S nowpiercer 2013 This is an exciting movie depicting the world we live in, which goes on with its class system and the ruling elite who masterminds the destiny of life. It uses a moving train as symbolism to our moving planet and its occupants at the tail end as the poor peasants who live life in hardship and misery. The occupants of the front portion live in abundance and decadence. They are the controlling elite who sometimes makes seemingly heartless decisions to sustain continuity of life as they knew it on the continuously moving trans-continental train, which is running at break-neck speed and is self-sufficient in supporting itself. It is the year 2031. An unsuccessful experiment in 2014 at correcting global warming, the world becomes a tundra land. Life had been eradicated, save for some survivors aboard a self-sustaining always moving train that spans through the continents. Self-sustaining because it harvests water from the snow that the train crushes through, prepa...

Rhapsody in August (Japanese, 1991) Writer & Director: Akira Kurosawa This film depicts how three generations handle the WW2 bombing of Nagasaki. Grandma is babysitting her 4 grandchildren while their parents go over to Hawaii to visit Grandma's long lost brother who had migrated to US in the 1920s. He is now in his death bed but had established himself as a successful pineapple planter. The grandchildren and their parents are coaxing old lady to visit her brother but she is reluctant. She cannot remember her brother as she had 11 of them and everyone went their own way. Grandma is a hibakusha (survivor of atomic bombing). She lives in memory of her husband, a teacher, who perished in the 1945 Nagasaki bombing while he was at work. The grandchildren, bored with the slow paced life in the village, explore around to slowly appreciate the times of the war. They also understand how the bomb had devastated the lives of innocent dwellers of the city. The 45th anniversary of he...

Deep inside, we are all the same. Despite our seemingly outward differences and self inflicted desire to be different, deep entrenched in the crypts of our sulci and gyri and between the creases of our DNA, we are all one. Our desires, our inner, our likes, no matter how much we deny or suppress, it is pretty much the same. We may impose restrictions on what we should eat and should not. It would only last that long. The inner drive would prevent it or suppress our desires to taste the forbidden fruit but at the same time we change the goal post to suit both the regulations. A vegetarian yearning for fish came with fish textured soya minus the odour, prawn like crusted soya to be sizzling in a wok and  so on. Kebab and teriyaki lovers replaced meat with cheese on skewers. They keep their faith and their taste buds happy. With the aim of keeping social problems of uncared children, society imposed strict rules and penalties for its subjects pertaining mixing of the carnal kind. A...

Now that the dust has finally settled on the vilification of Kiki over her outburst and overreaction over the fender bender that is hardly worth discussing, sometimes I wonder how I would have reacted in such a situation - on either side of snafu. I would not be surprised if I had flipped if I were Kiki with the brand new spanking French beau after years of being contented with the only automobile affordable that is forced down my throat with my meagre pay. After paying all the unnecessary additional payments to secure my lucky number and with the smell of new car still lingering on my tunic and skin, it is pure heartache to see it being defaced, albeit its triviality. Putting all that aside, I would have acted inappropriately if a stressful event had occurred prior to that fateful encounter - a unfair statement from someone close, an abusive client, committed a big mistake at work, getting up on the wrong side of the bed, a bad hair day or whatever that would anyone flip. I do not...

A dejected Sandhu Sr in Penang. As we straddle along the boat of life as it manoeuvres itself or we manoeuvre it along the river of life, we sometimes wonder why some things happen at all. Are they random occurrences or are they planned move made by the king chess-master?  Are they just chaotic activities which somehow coalesce to give meaning and pattern? Is it all a game by the dice thrower for the fun of it? Does the puppet master enjoy seeing His inventions cringe and wail to their heart's content? In 1983, when tensions were high across the Iron Curtain after USSR downed KAL007, a Korean civilian plane, Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union made the unconventional decision of not alerting his superiors when the warning alerts screamed  of a launch of US inter-continental ballistic missiles into Soviet Union. The SOP then was to launch missiles in retaliation. And time was of essence as every ticking second meant annihilation. At that crucial time, Lt. Col. Petrov dec...

Thanks SK for input! Me wanna go to Norway for continuing education ... Them Moscovite dogs surely are smarter than me ! eeeerie ! remember the movie "Final Destination" ?? ... nope, not applicable in Malaysia nor China : ... can prisoners be deported to Netherlands then ? ... naaah ! I won't be joining the queue to try poop-meat anytime soon ... : ... Wow ! I would certainly be the DEARly departed .. ... no wonder ... betcha I would made trillions if I could bottle it & sell it ... :) so sad ... why did the mama elephant reject / kick the baby ? : ... there you go - never judge a banana by its skin ... - fatal attraction of the vehicular kind - that's why pandas are called China's national treasures ... - so what is the message - don't stop generating rubbish ? T, this was the size of our Pekingese, Mimi's puppies...