RIFLE RANGE BOY

Hail, Penang! Author: George Bilainkin Areca Reprints, Original Publishing 1932. George Bilainkin was a multilingual, short tempered, prolific newspaper man of the now defunct Straits Echo in Penang. He was an Englishman who had arrived in Penang in 1929 after a stint in Jamaica. Conversant in English, French, German and many Slavic languages, Balainkin is also an astute observer of little things that strike a chord of humour even today. During his short tour of duty in Penang which was cut short after a tiff with his bosses, he gave a short overview of his perception of the country, its people, the various ethnicities, the colonial masters, the local royal family, way of life here and the future that was to come. Even though, his thinking must mirror an educated man of the early 20th century, unfortunately our thinking and stereotyping of the various ethnic groups of the country at the present remain the same! In this book, GB has managed to illustrate the behaviour of peo...

Pear ta Ma On Maf (The Land Has Eyes, Fiji; 2004) Guess what? This film is Fiji's only known own production. It is a simple low budget fare made to look like a Disney family film about the legend of the spirit of a woman warrior who was left to fend for herself marooned on an island by her 7 brothers. Her spirit came to help a local girl whose father was cheated by a rich neighbour. The girl from the remote island of Rotuma Island, Viki, has big plans to further her studies in main Fiji Island. Her endeavour, however, is planned to be sabotaged by the same neighbour. The spirit of the female warrior comes to her rescue and helps to change her fate. The highlight of the movie is the scenic landscape of the Pacific together with with its clear blue sky, waters and flora. Kudos too to some of the underwater camera shots. The story otherwise is quite predictable and tame. Maybe because their pioneering effort on a shoestring budget, they were nominated for the 2006 Academy Award...

Baahubali #1 The Beginning (One with strong arms, Telugu; 2015) Move over Pixar, Dreamwork, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Hollywood! The land where the word 'Avatar' originated had arisen. This is Kollywood's answer to all the megalomaniacal productions with mammoth studio sets, computer wizardry, graphic imaging, tall fabled stories, macho men with crafted bodies and gravity defying stunts. Baahubali, the most expensive production from India has made its mark in the international arena. And made it presence it did, with much pomp! Stories like in 'Baahubali' had been made many before in Indian cinemas, of stories of kings, revenge, loss of kingdoms and duels. However, what makes this offering different is the sheer work of cinematography, picturesque scenery, CGI expertise and well choreographed stunts and fight scenes. Never before, the war in Indian movies been fought with strategies and various traditional armamentarium. The mammoth structures like t...

Dodes'ka-den (Japanese; 1970) Director: Akira Kurosawa Even the great director Kurosawa had his moments when he was slumped. His popularity was on the decline as TV became more popular. More than 5 years after his last film, Red Beard in 1964, he had nothing to show. His relationship with his prized actor and composer was down. To top it all, even this film was a financial flop. The general masses did not care if it was artistically brilliant, they just wanted entertainment and fun; not a film which takes place in a city dumpster! It seems Kurosawa's chips were so low after this movie that he attempted to end his own life afterwards. Make believe tram driver! The whole lay out of the film is somewhat unconventional. There is no protagonist, antagonist or a typical story with issues, climax and resolution. It is actually a compilation of occurrences in the day of the life a group of social discards who put up in the city dump as their place of abode. Their pessimistic o...

By  Danielle Teller Source:  Quartz 21 JUL 2015 - 8:53 AM   UPDATED 21 JUL 2015 - 8:53 AM Yet another  story recently surfaced  about how doctors don’t die like everyone else. Doctors  die quietly at home , surrounded by family—not in the hospital like most Americans. This difference has been ascribed to knowledge about the limits of modern medicine and experience with the horror of lingering deaths on life support, and there is doubtless truth in those ascriptions. As a physician and writer, I believe that there is also another more subtle but equally important contributor, and that has to do with the stories we tell ourselves about death.  The language we use about death is illustrative of our attitudes. We speak of fighting and overcoming disease, of courage and bravery, of beating the odds. We also speak of giving up, letting go, losing the battle. It’s as though we believe that death ...

The Battle of Algiers (1966) Most movies take the side of either the victor or the oppressed. Surprisingly, this film gives a fair representation of the event said to have snowballed the fight for Algerian Independence. In the late 1950s, many ethnic Arab Muslims from Casbah of the Arab quarters started showing resistance to the French colonialists. FLN was a guerrilla organisation with a ragtag collection of delinquents, petty thieves and activists who created unrest in Algiers who started planting bombs and shooting of policemen in the European quarters. 1957 Algiers was a bustling modern city with its cafes, entertainment outlets, gambling den and flesh trade. We can see that there was an apparent divide rooted in the society, between the Arab Muslims and the Western outlooking French, Pied-Noir and Jews; between the economically deprived and the well-to-do; the colonial masters and natives. Most films of historical nature would usually include raw footage from newsreel or n...

They say the earth is everyone to share. That we are just temporary residents here, holding fort for the next generation who would preserve it for their descendants. That we own nothing, do not owe anybody anything, come with nothing and go with the same suit we came with, except with memories, good or bad, a legacy or a nightmare, hailed or cursed in our graves. That they say that richness handed to us by Mother Nature is for all her children. That there is no country, no borders, we are all one and no religion too! So when our brethren come a knocking, we should share our daily bread with them. The deep basket of charity would never stay empty. But then, I realise that life is never so easy. Why do we invest so much in security system to protect our hard earned possessions. Should we not just practise open-door policy in the true sense? Why bother with immigration and border control.The trouble is we have taken pains to improve living standards after going through the mills ...

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, Italian; 1961) This is not your typical film with a beginning, build-up, climax, resolution and ending. This Italian flick is actually a sort of a diary of a week in the life of gossip journalist @paparazzi, Marcello. It narrates day to day account of his life. In between all that, we, the audience, are shown the decadent lifestyle of the the post WW2 1960s Italy with its outwardly religious outlook with wayward lifestyle being the order of the day. Poverty is rife amidst the lure and glorification of the lifestyle of the rich and famous. The opening scene of the film starts with a helicopter hoisting a statue of Jesus across an effluent neighbourhood mocking the second coming. Slowly we are shown Marcello's hectic schedule. He has to put up with a possessive and obsessive fiancé who keep on demanding attention from him. He has to divide his time between the demanding job and near suicidal girlfriend. The hero is no angel either. His roving eye...

Bajrangi Bhaijaan (My brother Hanuman devotee, Hindi; 2015) On the victorious day of Eid, after winning over the pains of hunger and determination over evil thoughts, this film tries to impress upon the brothers and sisters on either side of the India-Pakistan that they are both not dissimilar! Unfortunately, the Partition has happened too long ago. The direction that both countries have diverged too far too long for it to meet again. Maybe there is no harm in spreading the nice words of the season. If you put aside the loopholes in plots, time, space and distance, it is doable as a bridge between this nations of brothers. Shahida, a mute girl of 6 years old, from the hills of the heartland of Pakistan, gets separated from her mother during a train journey to India for treatment. Unable to state her place of origin, she wanders around just to follow Pawan (Salman Khan), a simpleton and a devout die-hard Hanuman devotee. She gets accepted into Pawan's love interest's f...

A Woman Under the Influence (1974) Written and Directed: John Cassavetes Just recently, I was introduced to yet another great director. John Cassavetes is said to be a pioneer in indie production movies and has his own way of bringing out social issues. This particular film is quite intense an dwells with the issue of depression in a family member,  how the family dynamics influences and deals with the disease. For the first time I see Peter Falk acts in a cast different from his usual stereotype - a cranky detective ala- Det. Colombo in a trench coat. Here he is Nick, a hot headed overworked construction worker who tries to juggle a life between his colleagues, his well knitted Italian descendent family, his three young kids and a cranky wife (Mabel, Gena Rowlands) who is breaking under the pressures of playing her role as a good mother, a good wife and running her own life. She is an attention seeking woman who gets little attention from his busy other half. She is ...

M K Gandhi LLB (London) Heard recently of what people have been telling all these while, that traveling broadens your mind. In the early twentieth century, MK Gandhi must have a man most travelled in India. Growing up in the fringes of a sleepy seaside town of Porbandar over looking the Arabian Sea with many nights dreaming of what lies beyond the horizon, Gandhi by 40 had spend a size able amount of formative years of his lifetime in 3 continents - Asia, Europe, Africa (India, England and Durban). He returned to India in 1915 with a wealth of experience after living in guilt after the death of his father before his travel, living true to the divine promise he had made with his mother concerning consumption of alcohol and meat in a land beyond the 'black sea' (kalapani) and the brutal treatment of himself in the hands of oppressors despite his qualification of foreign degree in matters of the law. Having seen more than what an average man who see in three life times ...

Suspect X (Yôgisha X No Kenshin, Japanese; 2009) This film is from where the story of Malayalam movie Drishyam and Kamalhasan's Papanasam is said to have got their idea from. Personally, after viewing all three of them, I fail to appreciate the parallelism between the Japanese and the Indian editions. Trying to create perfect alibi and committing the perfect is universal in all good movies anyway. The similarity in the two stops short at the wit involved in how the police and the mathematics teacher try to outdo each other in wrapping up a murder case. The setting is in an urban setting in a Japanese town. Like all towns where its inhabitants tend to lead unfulfilled mundane lives, so are the 2 main characters in this story. Ishigami is an unhappy high school teacher who runs a boring routine of walking the same path, viewing the same homeless people with their equally regimented routines, teaching in a school of uninterested students and returning in the cold to an empty ...

http://www.carlist.my/news/remembering-late-datuk-gurcharan-singh-true-malaysian-who-made-proton-success-80s/15226 Remembering The Late Datuk Gurcharan Singh – A True Malaysian Who Made Proton A Success In The ‘80s. FEATURE HANS    JULY 9, 2015 image: http://content.icarcdn.com/styles/article_cover/s3/field/article/cover/2015/gurch2.jpg?itok=q9ha7SVQ On this day 30 years ago, Tun Dr. Mahathir launched the  first Proton Saga . The first production Saga, bearing registration number Proton 1 was given to the-then Yang DiPertuan Agong Sultan Iskandar of Johor. Later on 1-September, after the Saga went on sale on 28-August, Tun Dr. Mahathir became the first paying customer for a Proton when he took delivery of a metallic blue Saga bearing registration number Proton 1001, as a gift to his wife Datin Seri Dr. Siti Hasmah. When revisiting Proton’s history, Tun Dr. Mahathir’s name often came up, crediting him for the creation of Proton. The early...

The tagline 'Now everyone can fly' must be the most overused, ridiculed and abused business tagline ever in Malaysia. Now only every Tom, Dick and Harry can fly, and Jane and Mary be stewardesses; the news on a podcast recently convinced me that even any Ahmad, Ah Chong and Samy can fly a plane! You see, there was an analysis of the ill-fated Air France 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. As we all know, it went down, and it took 2 years for its wreckage and flight decoder to be found and analysed. My untrained aeronautically challenged mind interpreted the simplistic turns of events as such... The plane, an Airbus, was cruising on autopilot at 37,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. It was manned by 2 co-pilots after the captain retired to take a nap as the going was easy. There was a minor storm, noting alarming, but it caused a little frosting over one of the wings. That is when all hell broke loose. Airbus has an automatic system called 'fly-by-wire'. It is suppose...

Papanasam (2015) After dabbling in many larger than life multiple roles to international appeal, Kamalhaasan has decided to quieten things a little and settle down to earth with this new film. It carries a strong story plot and points to ponder about familial bonds. After over 20 years, we see Kamalhaasan (Suyambulingam) and Gauthami (Rani) acting together again. Of course, this time, with passage of age and agility, they are more sedate in acting as loving husband and wife with two daughters in a small village town in Tirunelveli. Suyambulingam is self made cable operator, a primary school dropout and a movie buff. He self educates himself from the things he see on his movies - legal, mystery, murder dramas and in many languages too. He is proud of his achievement and has no qualms of showing it to his more 'educated' wife and the crowd at the local eatery that he frequents. Suyambulingam, an orphan, had made a killing for himself, owning a thriving business, a house, a h...

The modern day management gurus do it. Mystics use it. Motivational consultants use it. Religious leaders try to impart their pseudo-religious knowledge across the landscape sometimes infuse inappropriate jokes to garner more following. And politicians overdo it by trying to act like a clown when their work is only showmanship! To spice up your speech, you are all asked to infuse a little element of humour in your speeches. The message that is put forward is grasped better and the message gets crystal clear. Really? The headmaster decided to infuse a little toilet humour into his morning assembly speech about fasting and dining in the lavatory and boy, he created a national crisis. Perhaps, he should have just read out his boring instructions to equally bored unresponsive student. Sanity would have prevailed and mass hysteria would have been averted! Another incident occurred at an obstetrician clinic. An expectant mother came running for an appointment to have a sonogram of her...

George Bilainkin, the multi-lingual Polish-Jewish editor the Strait Echo of Penang in the early 1930s made some astute observations on board his ship from England to the port of Penang. He noted the peculiar the way people behave at the first class six course dinner. The very people who had never been served a sumptuous meal back home are the very people who had so much complains about the service and the food! Very much around us! Now how often we have seen this... Just the other day, whilst deeply engaged in my meal with family at a cosy upmarket eatery, I had the pleasure of a family joining an adjacent table. Apparently they had arrived later than the pre-arranged time. No, there were not happy with the sitting arrangements. After much bargaining, they settled in amidst much pomp and pandemonium. No, they brought their own cake and they could not be paying extra charges for serving as the primary aim of their visit was to celebrate a family member's special day. ...

Bal el Hadid (@ Cairo Station @ Iron Gate, Egypt 1958) Director:  Youssef Chahine Surprisingly, Egypt has a vibrant movie industry that dates back to 1896! Its golden era is between the 1940s and 1960s. Despite the changing of guards and political outlook, it stood the test of time. President Gamel Abdel Naseer's planned nationalisation had irreparable damage to its heydays and never really recovered after that. The director of this movie is also credited for introducing Omar Sharif to Hollywood, although not through this movie. This 1958 release is an Egyptian noir film depicting small people in a busy railway station. Even though the story is a simple one of which we have seen many by now, it must have been revolutionary at its time. The movie's lovely thing is how the various strata of society are depicted to intermingle at an economic level. It also shows the difference in people's outlook in metropolitan Cairo, the modern outgoing Western viewpoints and conservat...