RIFLE RANGE BOY

Dhuruvangal Pathnaaru (16 Extremes) Back in the 90s, my sisters suggested that I should watch a revolutionarily new Tamil with a new format, 'Puthu Puthu Arthangal' (New Meanings). A then new to the Tamil cinema, Rahman was the star. Later, he acted in 'Sangamam', another milestone depicting the clash between classical Indian music and the folk music. Rahman was rarely seen after that till I saw him in this rare neo-noir Tamil crime drama film. The years have been kind to this lanky star. His appearance has not changed much over the years. It was quite engaging to watch this flick. From the word go, I was hooked. Initially starting with the cliche and cute philosophical lines, I was keen to know how it would progress. The curiosity increased as the narration flip-flopped between the present and five years into the future. A retired police officer has a chat with a chap whom he mistakenly thinks is his subordinate's son. Thinking that the visitor ('the son...

Hell or High Water (2017) It has got opposition against corporate American written all over it. This movie must have liberal democrats drooling all over. It is a simple neo-Western story like the one one sees in a pulp fiction. Two brothers go on a bank robbing spree and two Texas Rangers going after them. Doesn't sound original, does it? In fact, it could have been plucked from the many Westerns we have seen before. But, see beyond it. There are no horses and there is more than meets the eye. In the modern world, being born poor is like hereditary disease passed from generation to generation. The poor is caught in a spiral, like a snake catching its own tail, a vicious cyclical self-defeating spiral. To come out of the rut, you need money which is sparse when you are poor. And to top it all, education, which the elites claim is the sure pass to unchain the shackles of poverty is no cheap feat. There appears to be a concerted effort to keep the poor poorer and the rich richer ...

Nocturnal Animal (2016) Screenplay and Direction: Tom Ford Probably, from the time our pre-frontal lobes of the brain started becoming more complex, humankind must have started wondering the meaning of it all, the meaning of our existence, the path for us to follow and the dos and don'ts of life. We must have wondered whether we were made to follow a predestined pathway of life or we are all different beings with different destinations and map to follow. We may have thought that our varied capabilities, capacities and composition are the very essence that makes the world to exist. Hence, we cannot expect every individual to be moulded out to fit into a certain preset prototype in a society. Everyone is different and the society indeed needs variety in its netizens' make up for its continuity. Maybe because we are scared what the future holds for us, we want to follow the path most taken and insist that our loved ones do the same. Unfortunately, not everyone is cut for t...

Manchester by the Sea (2016) This is one of those movies which brings you into the household of a middle-class family and leads you through the trials and tribulations as experienced by them. It is told in flashbacks, which are inserted as the movie goes along, but not in a confusing way. It is an emotionally charged film, but not in an 'in-your-face' fashion but many of the emotions are left to imaginations. Many of the intended feelings are left unspoken and quite rightly so. As the story progresses, you realise that things that happen in life are beyond our control and even people's response to a crisis is unpredictable. Lee, a janitor, who carries a great sorrow over his shoulders, after losing all his three children in a fire caused by his negligence, leads a quiet life in Boston. He has to return to Manchester when he receives news that his brother had died of a heart attack. He has to sort out his brother's final arrangements, his high-schooling nephew...

Forushande (The Salesman, 2016, Persian) Director: Asghar Farhadi A wise man once said that we should not pass judgement when we are angry. Instead, we should suspend sentencing until we have cooled down. At the heights of emotions, our faculties are blurred, our vision is clouded, reasoning is obscured by raging hormones. Sometimes, there is pressure from without to act or set an example out of a scapegoat! And there would be a group who would insist that God's justice must be done on Earth, so as not to incur His wrath. It is funny how the bar always changes when the affected party is our own flesh and bone. And how we ask for leniency when the offending is our kin! Perhaps if we could be in the shoes of the other, we would realise how, sometimes, things are just not so black or white. This is exactly what advocates against capital punishments are trying to say. In keeping with the Iranian tradition of making simple movies with profound meanings, 'The Salesman' ...

Curi-curi Malaysia (2017) Stories behind the stories Author: R Nadeswaran We had the first taste of the product of years of national neglect in critical thinking after the MH370 debacle. We cringed every time a local journalist asked questions during the daily press conference. Their questions appeared so scripted. It looked as if they were told to ask questions that the politicians wanted to tell the world. The difficult questions were asked by the foreign correspondents, to which, the powers-that-be chose not to answer under the cloak of not wanting to jeopardise the then on-going investigations. Sadly, investigations have ended but we are still felt in the dark about the whereabouts of the plane and the passengers of the ill-fated flight. Citizen Nades (@R Nadeswaran) belongs to that type of reporters who ask the incisive questions that get leaders hot under their collars. This book is a collection of the many expose' carried out by this favourite Malaysian journalis...

Lion (2016) In the process of evolutionary neural development, lifeforms initially developed a primitive neural structure. As the transmission of neural impulses increased by leaps and bounds, the nervous system slowly evolved to develop a brain, protecting information collecting interfaces from the central processing unit. When the impulses were overwhelming in terms of quantity, some of them were suppressed. This highly complicated mechanism eventually developed 'attention schema' and eventually consciousness. Memory, which is an important component of our brain function also helps to build consciousness and conscience! This interplay has helped mankind to survive the many calamities of Nature, outlive many of their contemporaries and rule over many of the deathly beasts that roam the Earth. Unfortunately, it also acts as a double-edged sword. Memory which helps to avert danger, to repeat the same mistakes twice and to progress as a race, also gives traits like guilt, no...

Absent Without Leave (2015) From the outset, you know why this documentary film was banned in Malaysia. The background musical score, songs at the opening and closing credits were all variants of 'Terang Bulan' or 'Mamula Moon'. As it is commonly known, it is the precursor to our National Anthem. Legend has it that Sultan Abdullah, after being exiled in Seychelles Island in 1877 for assassinating JWW Birch, first came in contact with this tune was played by a French band there. After completing his sentence, upon his return to the State of Perak, he penned the State Anthem with that melody. When his successor made a trip to England in 1888 to attend Queen Victoria's inauguration, this song (Allah lanjutkan Usia Sultan, it was named), was played at his arrival in Southampton port for the first time and became the de facto anthem of the Malay states. In the 1920s, the tune became a popular hit with a Hawaiian twist, played by many musicians in the Malay Archi...

Moonlight (2016) It used to be that the offspring are just offshoots of adults, brought to the world to replace the labour force once the elders become unproductive, withering to the test of time and elements of  Nature. The juniors will learn using their God-given senses to develop themselves by the time their bodies show signs of going into adulthood. There was no need to spend any time to appreciate childhood, to learn and mould their later character and vocation. Life was simple. You just be grateful to your parents for helping you to survive through childhood and continue the family business. No need to think too hard. You just live for the family and the community you show your allegiance. Somewhere along the way, things changed. One generation decided to play Mr Nice Guy to all sides. They kowtow to the demands of the elders and play dance monkey to their children. That just shook the balance. An adolescent, in the present era, has to endure so many adversities ...

A Single Man (2009) So, what do you do when someone in whom you put all your hope disappoints you? What do you do when your dreams come crashing down? How do you reconcile with the situation when everything seems hopeless and there is nothing else to look forward to? Do you call it quits? Do you live the rest of your life, miserably, in the memory of the good times you had with the special other? Do you get real, be a pragmatist, be level headed and start life anew and do it all again? Do you call that betrayal or realistic as life has to go on? Do you recoil into a world of solitude where you are king and nothing else matters? Do you recharge yourselves and keep your sanity by engaging yourself? They say your life is your making, your karma; your suffering your making. You decide your life is heaven or hell. They make it sound so simple as if we control the rein to the path that we go. It can be simple if there are no others involved in the journey. Otherwise, it can be too compl...

Rosalind Franklin: Biography & Discovery of DNA Structure Rosalind Franklin: Biography & Discovery of DNA Structure By Mary Bagley, LiveScience Contributor | September 19, 2013 Rosalind FranklinCredit: National Institute of Health. Many people recall that the structure of the DNA molecule has the shape of a double helix. Some may even recall the names of the scientists who won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine for modeling the structure of the molecule, and explaining how the shape lends itself to replication. James Watson and Francis Crick shared the Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins, but many people feel that much of the credit for this world-shaking achievement should rightfully go to someone who was absent from that stage, a woman named Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind Franklin was born July 25, 1920, and grew up in a well-known Jewish family in pre-World War II London, and was known in the family for being very clever and outspoken. Her parents sent her to St. Paul...

Met up a couple of guys during my last trip to a God-forsaken (definitely not God's country as it had suffered too much carnage to be under the patronage of any supernatural force) place. Cracking up small talks amid this idyllic setting and too much time to spare, I came to realise that they were in no hurry. In fact, they had no plan. They decided their life as they went along, depending on the side of the bed they got up on that day. A few were on long sabbatical with no job to go back to. One particular couple had been disillusioned with the trappings of modern living and the lie perpetuated by their employers, the pharmaceutical companies, to the rest of the world that they decided to go on a soul-searching experience in Indo-China, Thailand, India and subsequently plan to settle down manning a simple guesthouse somewhere in Central America! Another guy decided one day when he got up from bed to have a revelation that he was wasting his time with pressure cooker work...

The Chulia in Penang Patronage and Place-Making around The Kapitan Kling Mosque 1786-1957 Author- Khoo Salma Nasution With a year like 1786, they knew they could not go wrong. Muslims from South Asia are known to use the numerals 786, a calculation in a traditional numerology system of the Abbasid Caliphate, as a short form for the salutations  b-ismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm. It was that year that the British decided to make 'Pulo Pinang' as their trading post and Tamil Muslims choose to place their future in this land of fortune. The British never 'discovered' Penang as it was already inhabited by fishermen and villagers. Only the British saw their potential for big things. The Tamil Muslim traders and talented sea-faring merchants had earlier established their own trade routes along the Straits of Malacca all the way to North Sumatra and beyond with the help of the monsoon winds. They had marked their presence into the Malacca Sultanate and other Malay ...

Top cops, ACP Bala (R) and brother Shunmugan There you lie, a pale shadow of the larger than life image that you used to portray. The look that sent shivers down the spine of the bandits, outlaws and hoodlums who named themselves 'Robin Hood'. You lost your wit long before you called it a day. You rest in peace, unshackled from the pains of living, free from the bondage of birth, in bliss to meet your Maker. I have not seen that glow in your face in years. Guess, the strain of living bogged you down, huh? The relief from the torment of dragging your soul with your physical must be lightening. You came, you grew, you lived, you build bridges, break walls, made the country a peaceful place, a more livable nation, you conquered hearts, you planted memories and you leave us all with broken hearts. The hearts of the living would go on beating reminiscing the good times that you created for us and the lessons you taught us, directly through your words and indirectly throu...

Jagat (Trilingual Malaysian; 2015) History has taught us again and again that the fate of a tribe/community/race is so dependent on the foresightedness of its leaders. Many civilisations soared to great heights or conversely disappeared into obscurity due to lack of direction, all because of the presence of a capable or weak leader respectively. A leader is the one who foresees any untoward incidents that may come the way of his flock so as that he can pave a safe path. His mission is to serve his kind to ensure their continuity as a formidable group. For this task, the leader is accorded certain privileges which the society can withdraw at any juncture they feel apt. When the followers continue to follow blindly to the tricks of the sycophantic leaders and play doormat to their demands without batting an eyelid but wallowing their misfortune in fate, they truly deserve the leaders they get. Instead of the politicians working towards the well-being of the plebeians, looks like th...